Keeping track: Super Bowl ads

After forking over some $2.2 million for 30 seconds of Super Bowl air time, many dotcoms registered big spikes on their Web-traffic charts.

But the question remains: Was it worth the outlay? For the cost of one 30-second spot, a company could have bought 69 full-page color ads in Wired magazine (almost half the total pages of an issue), or 11 full-page color ads in The Wall Street Journal.

Besides name recognition, the thrill for some companies seems worth the coin. "It was very exciting to have an ad in the biggest advertising venue of the year," said Scott Sutherland, of LifeMinders.com. Will hits translate to dollars? Time will tell.

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