AdWords Sitelinks
AdWords Sitelinks have proven themselves a valuable tool in improving click through rate. Many times CTR on ads with active sitelinks is double or more, that of ads in the same position without sitelinks. While I find that the ads with sitelinks often receive much higher CTR, I see when reviewing data in the AdWords User Interface that many times the actual sitelinks are not clicked, instead the more traditional title link is clicked.
The screenshot above compares the overall CTR of the campaign, the CTR of the ads with sitelinks included, and the CTR of the actual sitelinks themselves. As the screenshot shows in this case the sitelinks were not used very often. The CTR of the ads when the sitelinks are shown is substantially higher than when the sitelinks are not shown. This increased CTR could be attributed to the ads positioning as the sitelinks will only show in the top positions above organic results which generally elicits higher CTR’s so keep that in mind when evaluating data so that you compare sitelink ads to ads in similar positioning.
Data shows that just seeing additional messages has a positive effect on CTR for most advertisers. Why the sitelinks themselves are not clicked more often I cannot say for sure. It might be that many people are not yet aware that these links are clickable. Regardless, the data should still be tracked and evaluated as sitelinks are likely here to stay and as they dig in they will be more widely recognized and used.
Understanding Sitelinks
What are Sitelinks?
AdWords sitelinks are additional links that appear with your text ads. They can appear as a listed format including multiple lines or a single line of links.
To Qualify
To be eligible for sitelinks to run with your ads you must first meet the following criteria:
- Your ad must be positioned in the top sponsored results (above organic listings)
- You should have a high Quality Scores.
- Your sitelinks URLs take visitors to the main website, as in the same top level domain as your ad’s display and destination URL.
Why Sitelinks Work
- Expand your message. Use your sitelinks to include extra messages about services, offers, and more.
- Take up more real estate on the search results page. Your ads are more visually noticeable and attract more attention which generally results in higher CTR.
- Take visitors to specific landing pages with specific sitelink destination URL’s. When people click one of your sitelinks they are taken to your website and the specific URL you designate for that sitelink.
- Give your visitors direction. Offer your potential site visitors options to help them find the products/services they desire when they use general/generic search terms.
Sitelink Formats
Sitelinks appear under text ads on Google.com, in two formats:
One line format
One line Ad Sitelinks provide for more general targeting with your ads and keywords, but on some occasions may also include brand terms.
Two line format
Two line sitelinks are designed to trigger in situations where an ad provides the ideal answer for a search query. These ads are most likely to trigger on unique brand terms.
How Many Links Show?
You can create up to 10 sitelinks but no more than 4 will be displayed at one time for ads that qualify. Google’s algorithm will determine what site links will appear with the search result. If you prefer some control over what links appear with your ads then I suggest creating only 4 sitelinks for any given campaign.
Planning for Sitelink Implementation
Sitelinks can be used to send a variety of messages, a few examples are:
- General messages: about us – Our Products – Coupons
- speak to a categories of products: Lotion – Diapers – Strollers – Cribs
- speak to an individual subcategory of your products/services: Umbrella Strollers – Single Strollers – Double Strollers – Triple Strollers
Sitelinks are a campaign level setting so be very sure that the message you send via sitelinks is appropriate for every ad group in the campaign. You may be restricted in your sitelink messages based on your account structure, finding you are forced to stick with more general sitelinks that work for every ad group in the campaign. There are times that you may want to test if sitelinks will provide better performance from your Adwords account. By better performance I don’t just mean better CTR, I mean better overall performance and return on investment. Testing is always a good idea, to identify potential areas of improvement and sitelink messages are a great testing idea. For example, if this baby product advertiser (sitelink examples above) wanted to really push their strollers, they may consider separating strollers into its own test campaign. This would allow them to create a powerful sitelink message specific to strollers that included brand terms to see what brand drew the most attention on a general term like ‘baby strollers’: Graco – Chicco - Britax – Baby Trend.
It needs to be determined if creating additional campaigns to test sitelinks is worth the extra work and if your budget will support an additional campaign(s). I do not suggest that advertisers start pulling their entire accounts apart to test sitelinks as account history can be negatively affected by large structural account changes. However, small controlled tests are always a good idea and if you see the effect you are looking for with a certain segment of your account it may give you data to support further testing.
Implementing Sitelinks
To implement sitelinks visit the Ad Extensions tab.
If you do not see the ad extensions tab see the screenshot below.
Once you are on the ad extensions tab select sitelinks from the drop-down.
Then click + new extension.
The sitelink section will load.
Before you get started actually creating your sitelinks read on, below is important info on creating custom destination URL’s to identify and track your sitelinks.
Tracking Sitelink Data
Performance data on sitelinks is limited in the AdWords user interface. Currently advertisers can see the following metrics:
Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Average Cost per Click and Average position. This data can be reviewed under the Ad Extensions tab that we discussed in the section above, or by segmenting your data on the Campaigns or Ad Groups tab by ‘Click Type’.
It is helpful to see the data in the AdWords UI but it is limited and leaves us asking for more.
By coding your sitelink destination url’s and using an Analytics program, such as Google Analytics to track goals, it is easy to collect the data you need to evaluate your sitelinks performance.
Tagging Sitelink URL’s for Tracking
Tagging your sitelinks destination url’s with specific parameters allows you to identify and gather performance data such as what specific sitelink was clicked, time spent on the landing page, bounce and exit rates, if a conversion occurred (setup goals), if revenue was generated (when ecommerce is tracked), and more. To collect this data we code the destination URL with specific tracking parameters and to collect and review this data we go to Google Analytics.
What Parameters to Include?
The list below contains custom parameters as well as some {value track} parameters that collect and pass data to your analytic program. This link contains the full list of value track parameters. I suggest that you review and identify if any of these value track parameters would be of use to you personally.- http://goo.gl/cDm2l
These are a good set of parameters to start with:
- origin=sitelink – this parameter identifies traffic generated via a sitelink.
- campaign=campaignname – This parameter identifies the campaign that generated the traffic. Important note: replace text ‘campaign name’ with a name to identify YOUR AdWords campaign.
- {copy:adgroupid} – This parameter identifies the ad group that generated the sitelink traffic and the data will populate with the ad group id.
- sitelinkname=identifythespecificitelink – This parameter identifies the specific sitelink that generated the traffic. Important note: replace text ‘identifythespecificsitelink’ with a name that identifies the specific sitelink i.e. sitelinkname=aboutus, sitelinkname=strollers.
- keyword={keyword} – This parameter identifies the keyword from your AdWords account that generated the traffic.
- matchtype={matchtype} – This parameter identifies the match type that triggered the visit, data will populate with an “e” for exact match, “p” for phrase match, and “b” for broad match.
Again, there is a larger list of parameters that you can use to collect data and you can create your own custom parameters. Identify and collect what is important for your own analysis.
Building your Custom Destination URL
To build your new destination URL start with your website destination URL:
Example: http://adwordshelpexperts.com - if your destination URL is an internal page, instead of the home page that is fine, use whatever is the most appropriate destination URL for the advertising directive, we will add from there.
To add your first parameter you are going to include a ? between the URL and the parameter. For each additional parameter you are going to separate the parameters with a & symbol. The language you are creating is to track a specific parameter and other parameters.
Example of a completed sitelink URL:
http://www.adwordshelpexperts.com?origin=sitelink&campaign=babystrollers&{copy:adgroupid}&sitelinkname=graco&keyword={keyword}&matchtype={matchtype}
Before implementing your sitelinks I suggest that they be tested to see that they are not receiving any browser errors. Copy and paste the customized destination URL into a browser and confirm that the link is working properly. Then implement the sitelink in AdWords.
Segmenting and Reviewing your Sitelink Performance in Google Analytics through Custom Filters.
Now that you have planned, created, tested and implemented your custom sitelink destination URL’s it is time to learn how to segment and review your data. This process outlines how to do this in Google Analytics but the concept is the same across any analytics program – segment out this data through filters.
An easy way to do this via Google Analytics run a Top Content report, then filter the report to contain data you would like to see. For example, I often collect all the sitelink data by filtering on the origin=sitelink parameter as all the sitelinks are coded with this parameter for identification purposes. I can then further filter this data by campaign, adgroup, etc.
Evaluate
Dig into the sitelink performance data from the AdWords interface as well as this Analytics data to get a better understanding of what these additional messages mean to visitors. Evaluate visitors on-site behavior via sitelinks, and review if the sitelink traffic is generating leads, revenue, awareness, etc., and make adjustments as necessary to improve performance.
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