The Importance of AdWords SiteLinks Extensions

SiteLinks are a very useful component of your ad campaigns which can be found and edited under the ‘Ad Extensions‘ tab. Make sure to change your view to SiteLinks Extensions to be able to add and edit them.

On Google AdWords, advertising space is extremely limited, making it important to find ways to increase the size and versatility of your ad. Ad Extensions are so valuable because they give extra chances to make a pitch to potential customers – Google added the ability to edit SiteLinks earlier in the year, and to not take advantage of them is a waste of potential advertising space.

Here is a customer that is not using any Ad Extensions:

Since the ad is in one of the top positions, it has had the first description line appended to the headline, which I think makes the second line of text look a bit awkward. The ad would look more out of place if it was up against ads with SiteLinks and other ad extensions, such as those below.

Here are some ads with various Extensions:

The Seller Extension tells us how well reviewed these sites are. When I look at the top two ads, I don’t see the quality of the ad text, I see that Zappos has thousands more reviews and has a higher rating than Shoebuy.com – easy decision. If you’re a high-volume company with a Google Merchant Account then a Seller Extension is a must.  JustFab also has a seasonal Site Link and a link for handbags – not related to my search, but they could be after customers who want more than just shoes. Still, the yellow stars really make the top two ads stand out.

Functionally, SiteLinks can also help you place a customer closer to a possible conversion. It might not be in your best interest to link all ads to a ‘sign up now’ page, but a SiteLink can put customers there who want to be there while allowing the website to make the pitch to other visitors who might not be as close to converting. They’re also great for highlighting specific products, product lines or other areas of the site that a user might be interested in.

In the example below, with the search term ‘buy textbooks,’ the SiteLinks link to a ‘Buy Textbooks’ section of the site as well as other sections which would be interesting to me as a user even if not exactly what I’m searching for:

 

 

 

 

The one functionality which SiteLinks lacks is the ability to track traffic by individual SiteLinks. In the Zappo’s example, clicking on the Men’s Shoes SiteLink counts as a click for every SiteLink in that grouping, so from AdWords we couldn’t track the success of individual SiteLinks, just SiteLinks as a whole. The workaround would be to assess paid traffic landing pages via Analytics, but assuming that they have other ads which have Men’s Shoes as a landing page, then they won’t be able to differentiate the SiteLinks from the normal ads. It’s a minor gripe that tracking SiteLinks isn’t as detailed as one might like, but it does limit the ability to optimize them.

Even without this ability the importance of SiteLinks can easily be seen with their stats – we’ve put SiteLinks in all of our campaigns and when they have a high average position the SiteLink ads will gain over 90% of our search conversions with a lower average CPA. Staying on top of Google’s new features is key to running successful campaigns and using SiteLinks wisely will help your ad’s performances and keep you on top of the curve. Contact us if you’d like more info on how we can put SiteLinks and all of AdWord’s features to work for your company.