Ah, the week after the Super Bowl—the official time of armchair marketing critiques, creative rankings, and heated debates over which brand truly won the night. For advertisers, agencies, and self-proclaimed marketing experts alike, this week is filled with deep dives into what worked, what flopped, and whether that $8M for 30 seconds was money well spent.

Now, I have a love-hate relationship with the modern Super Bowl ad rollout. On one hand, I absolutely live for seeing the commercials drop live during the game (preferably with several wings in front of me). On the other hand, as someone deeply invested in commerce strategy, I appreciate getting a sneak peek at the broader campaign moves brands are making ahead of time. And here’s what I’ve noticed: most brands still aren’t making the most of their commerce media to reinforce their Super Bowl campaigns before, during, or even right after the game.

Why?! If you’re spending a cool $8M on airtime, why not stretch that investment across every available touchpoint? Why not amplify your brand story with shoppable extensions, retail media plays, and search dominance to keep the momentum going?

Nerds is a great example of taking their memorable Big Game spot beyond the broadcast, amplifying it through retail media. They ramped up budgets across RMNs to dominate search—both before the game to capture rising traffic and after to sustain momentum. Additionally, they repurposed video assets for digital and leveraged Gopuff push notifications immediately after the ad aired to drive instant engagement.

In his post-game analysis, Mike Black of Profitero highlighted that brands running Super Bowl ads saw immediate spikes in search traffic on Amazon. Nerds Gummy Clusters, for instance, experienced a 72% increase in sales rank on Amazon following the ad’s debut. Angel Soft also stood out by seamlessly connecting the dots, owning both display and search real estate tied directly to their Super Bowl creative.

While many brands executed solid game-day messaging on their brand stores, few extended that high-priced creative throughout the full commerce funnel. And for brands that dropped their ads early online? The missed opportunity to capitalize on that attention was almost criminal.

At the core, the problem remains: retail media and brand media are still operating in silos, whether by team structure or budget ownership. But the brands that figure out how to bridge this gap—who truly integrate their full-funnel strategies—are going to see exponential returns. The funnel is the same because the customer is the same. It’s time for marketers to align accordingly and turn that Super Bowl splash into a sustained wave of engagement and conversion.