Before Super Bowl XLVI could conduct the coin toss to officially start the game on Sunday, most of the ads that would air during its broadcast on NBC were already available on YouTube.

Savvy brand marketers know that buying a $3.5 million spot on what was the most-watch television event in history is just the beginning. And they know that once an ad is developed, the opportunity to make the most of the content is too great to ignore.

The best of the ads – including Chryslers’ “Half-time in America”, which references a reelection campaign ad produced by Ronald Reagan called “Morning in America” – go viral and produce a ton of commentary on blogs, Twitter and across the mainstream media.

But even less exalted affairs can garner a ton of attention and drive traffic to sites that deepen the brand’s engagement with their target audiences.

Acura’s “Transactions” spot received 4.9 million views on its official YouTube channel over the course of the weekend. Chevrolet’s wonderful “2012” spot for its Silverado pickup truck gained 3.6 million views. And Volkswagen’s “The Dog Strikes Back” amassed a total of 5.2 million as of Monday.

Because these marketing strategies often include the use of dedicated hashtags for Twitter, or tiny URLs, or specially developed QR codes (in the case of the GoDaddy.com ad), tracking just how well content is doing is easier and measurable.

Smart marketers turned their destination sites, including landing pages, microsites and Facebook Pages, into content-rich spaces that featured not only the original piece of content developed for the Super Bowl, but also aggregated tweets using the associated hashtag, streams of related articles and posts, photo galleries, and other content-rich ways to deeply engage an audience.

For instance, this ad for Coke, featuring its popular polar bear characters, drove traffic to http://www.CokePolarBowl.com, promoted the Twitter hashtag #GameDayPolarBears, and included links to its Facebook Page.

Using original content to spark interest, engage audiences and create conversations around your brand is just the first important step. By creating destinations that bring those audiences back – again and again – you get at true engagement that can lead to increased customer loyalty, improved lead generation, and increases in sales.

Using the Daylife Publisher Suite, any marketer can instantly generate pages of constantly updating media in just a few clicks – all of which relate to a specific topic, like the Super Bowl or your piece of newly viral content.