Greatest American Dog premiered last night on CBS (Thursdays at 8pm ;) and it was a huge hit. Another huge hit is Dogster’s partnership with the show.

We directed a ton of viewers by promoting the show all over our site and a ton of show viewers came to our site too. Once on Dogster, viewers could meet the dog contestants and chat it up with other fans.

An important lesson we’ve learned in our four years is that TV promotion of a website in and of itself does not drive traffic to that site. In 2006 when we were an on-air sponsor of the National Dog Show with a viewership of 20 million, we experienced almost no traffic bump. This is because there was no actionable reason that a show viewer should move over to their computer and go to our site. (This is the same reason Bud Light or Pizza Hat air 10 ads in a single football game - it’s the only way to get in your head). It’s important to note this is not a TV phenomena. When we’ve had similar brand-only placements in newspaper inserts, radio shows and in-store promotions, they performed at the same low rates. Without a call-to-action for something the potential customer actually wants, you may as well not do at all.

Therefore, we made sure the call-out in this partnership was not primarily about Dogster.com, it was about offering show enthusiasts the ability to engage even deeper in the show. The message we conveyed was: “Meet the dogs! Talk with other Fans! … on dogster.com”

Here’s a low-res clip of one of the shout-outs. It was only 5 seconds, and during the credits, but by making sure there was a call to action that resonated with the viewership, it generated the highest concurrent web users we’ve served in a long time and tons of participation on the site.

Here’s the clip that worked.

[Click through if you do not see the video above]