B2B marketers often treat Super Bowl week as a black hole for engagement. A thought? Everyone is distracted, inboxes are full and it’s safer to be quiet and wait for it to end.
But new data from HubSpot turns that logic on its head.
After analyzing marketing activity and consumer behavior during the past three Super Bowls (2024–2026), HubSpot found that while many B2B brands are regressing, audiences are actually More get involved – not just during the game. Email opens, click-through rates and web traffic are all up, suggesting that Super Bowl week is less of a dead zone and an opportunity to be overlooked.
When brands are silent, consumers start clicking
HubSpot’s data reveals what it calls the “Send Gap”: during Super Bowl week, B2B email send volume drops by 2.3%. But while advertisers are pausing, consumers are leaning in.
Open rates jumped by a full point, and click-through rates increased by 0.56 percent. Website traffic follows suit, with B2B page views increasing by 7.5% year over year.
In other words: less noise, more attention.
“There is a clear connection between B2B marketing behavior and consumer attention,” said Sunil Desai, SVP, Marketing, HubSpot. “Super Bowl week is actually one of the most effective windows of the year for channel engagement.”
The post-game momentum is real
It’s not just a one-day blip. HubSpot learned that the partnership promotion was underway in late February.
Click-through rates remained 0.45 percent higher than average the week after the match, and the HubSpot team attributes rising to new intent instead of a delayed reaction to last week’s campaigns. While some residual increases continued into March, that appears to be related to normal seasonal buying cycles rather than Super Bowl spillover.
So a well-timed campaign in early February can enjoy a longer runway than you might expect.
Not all sectors are benefiting equally, but most are seeing a lift
Engagement operations are not limited to one B2B vertical. HubSpot reports that while the magnitude of the spike varies, nearly every industry sees an increase in site traffic and engagement during Super Bowl week.
Industries that have a built-in February season – such as Health and Wellness or Accounting – tend to have significant bumps. Others, like Mfundo, see raising a younger relative. But the general trend isn’t changing: consumers are active, even if marketers think they aren’t.
That flexibility presents a clear opportunity to generate demand, especially for teams trying to do more with less in a tight budget environment.
Paid ads play slowly while owned channels shine
One surprising wrinkle: while email and web traffic didn’t perform very well, the performance of paid ads actually softened during Super Bowl week.
That is not entirely unexpected. Between the high CPMs in the big game and the heavy ad fill, the effectiveness of paid media spend is often low. But the difference highlights the key advantage of brands doubling down on managed channels – email, content and web – where attention is high and competition is low.
“If you’re only focused on paid outreach, you’re missing out on where the real marriage happens,” Desai said. “This is exactly the type of window where effective channel advertising can outperform spending strategies.”
Rethink the Super Bowl blackout
B2B marketers often take cues from the consumer playbook – thinking the Super Bowl is too crowded, too loud or irrelevant for business buyers.
But that logic is not certain. HubSpot’s data shows that not only are consumers paying attention, they are More that you may open, click and explore when others are silent. As engagement tightens in the weeks that follow, the Super Bowl isn’t just a major B2C event — it’s an important B2B moment, too.
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