While reaction to advertising is subjective and each of us has a different response, I would venture to say that the E Trade commercials were just OK this year in comparison to prior years.  The Chrysler commercial with Eminem was very well done, and that Groupon/Tibet commercial was just... not great.  I think my favorite commercial was the Volkswagon Passat ad with the miniature Darth Vadar.

Whether or not the investment in a Super Bowl commercial (or several) will pay off, though, remains to be seen.  Tracking success of advertising can be challenging to say the least.

If you are running a direct mail or email campaign which invites the recipient to respond in some way, you will be able to determine a % success rate.  For example, if you mail out coupons to a certain geography and track the number of coupons used in your stores, you will be able to determine cost of the campaign, % response rate, and $ return for initial responders.  If you see that you are able to sustain an increased level of sales (ie, the consumers came back multiple times after their first experience), then the return will be higher over time.

On line campaigns can be tracked through click through rates and eventual purchase activity.  Other metrics might include the number of visits (and unique visits) to your site, time spent on the site, and number of pages viewed.

Regardless of the type of campaign you choose, it’s critical to keep an end goal in mind.  If you are a small business, “brand awareness” is probably not enough.  Campaigns should be targeted, trackable, and representative of your product or service.  They should be designed to draw customers to you.

Make sure that you spend only what you can afford to spend, and stick to your budget.  It may make sense to set your advertising budget as a % of sales rather than a hard dollar amount such that you can increase spending on successful campaigns.