When I watch ads during the Super Bowl Big Game, I usually find myself muttering “call to action, call to action” to the point that my wife starts putting away the sharp objects.  The amount of air time that’s wasted without clear benefits or calls to action is a sin, particularly to a direct response guy like me.

I now watch the games with my iPad in hand so I can try things out on websites in real time or see the comments on the ads on Twitter and Facebook. I’m not alone and it’s something that’s really powerful–the combination of mass media advertising with quantitative direct response marketing.  Watch the ad, buy the thing. Beautiful!

I just wrote a quick post about four technology solutions to improve your advertisements when you’re thinking about wasting your money making a fine media buy on the Big Game.

Full disclosure: I wrote the original blog post for Neustar‘s corporate site and I am employed by Neustar.