B2B marketers usually treat Super Bowl week like a black hole for engagement. The assumption? Everyone’s distracted, inboxes are crowded and it’s safer to go quiet and wait it out.
But new data from HubSpot turns that logic on its head.
After analyzing marketing activity and buyer behavior during the past three Super Bowls (2024–2026), HubSpot found that while many B2B brands pull back, audiences are actually more engaged — and not just during the game. Email opens, click-through rates and web traffic all spike, suggesting that Super Bowl week is less of a dead zone and more of an overlooked opportunity.
When brands go quiet, buyers 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 marketers hit pause, buyers lean in.
Open rates jump by a whole percentage point, and click-through rates rise by 0.56 percentage points. Website traffic follows suit, with B2B page views climbing 7.5% year over year.
In other words: less noise, more attention.
“There’s a clear disconnect between B2B marketing behavior and buyer attention,” said Sunil Desai, SVP, Marketing, HubSpot. “Super Bowl week is actually one of the most efficient windows of the year for owned-channel engagement.”
The post-game momentum is real
It’s not just a one-day blip. HubSpot found that the engagement boost continues into late February.
Click-through rates remain 0.45 percentage points above average the week after the game, and HubSpot’s team attributes that lift to fresh intent rather than delayed reactions to the previous week’s campaigns. While some residual lift stretches into March, that appears to align with regular seasonal buying cycles rather than Super Bowl spillover.
So a well-timed campaign in early February could enjoy a longer runway than you might expect.
Not all sectors benefit equally, but most see a lift
The engagement surge isn’t limited to one B2B vertical. HubSpot reports that while the size of the spike varies, nearly every industry sees some increase in site traffic and engagement during Super Bowl week.
Industries with built-in February seasonality — like Health & Wellness or Accounting — tend to experience the most significant bumps. Others, such as Education, see a smaller relative lift. But the overall trend is consistent: buyers are active, even if marketers assume they’re not.
That dynamic presents a clear opportunity for demand generation, particularly for teams trying to do more with less in a tight budget environment.
Paid ads underperform while owned channels shine
One surprising wrinkle: while email and web traffic outperformed, paid ad performance actually softened during Super Bowl week.
That’s not entirely unexpected. Between elevated CPMs around the big game and brand-heavy ad saturation, the cost-efficiency of paid media tends to dip. But the contrast highlights a key advantage for brands that double down on owned channels — email, content and web — when attention is high and competition is low.
“If you’re only focused on paid reach, you’re missing where the real engagement is happening,” Desai said. “This is exactly the kind of window where efficient, owned-channel marketing can outshine spend-heavy strategies.”
Rethink the Super Bowl blackout
B2B marketers often take cues from the consumer playbook — assuming the Super Bowl is too crowded, too noisy or too irrelevant for business buyers.
But that logic doesn’t hold up. HubSpot’s data shows that not only are buyers paying attention, they’re more likely to open, click and explore when others have gone quiet. With engagement holding steady into the following weeks, the Super Bowl isn’t just a big event for B2C — it’s a prime moment for B2B, too.
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