Additional site links in ads

Anyone use them? Results?

[Soze]

I just realized (late to the game, I know,) that I can now add additional site links to my ads. I was wondering if anyone uses them and how they are working out for you.

It seems like a great idea to get more clicks and improve CTR, but I figured I'd ask before I start adding them. I guess it could also decrease conversions if you add poor links, but I'm confident we could add a few good ones.

[smallcompany]

I added them but have no clue if they're showing at all. I don't see them when I run a query in the preview tool.
I know that Google decides when to show them, if at all.

I don't see anything in reporting (ad). It would be great if reporting would show the performance of added links vs. regular one.

In overall, if they show, ad is bigger which gives an advertiser more of the valuable space, that's for sure.

Plus, ads with added links look more like top organic result to those that do not distinguish paid from organic much. That may be good in some cases, hard to say anything concrete.

[Soze]

But did you see any increase in clicks after adding them?

[smallcompany]

He, he

How do you tell that on the site that gets 4-8K visitors a day and 70-120K impressions on AdWords?

One could try to see if CTR has increased on any of the keywords, but with over 6K keywords...

[Soze]

Well, I've added it to two campaigns. I will let you know how it works in terms of CTR.

[Soze]

Well, it will take a couple days to figure it out, buy as it looks now, CTR is up 10%. I don't mean 10% to 20%, but rather, 10% to 11%. Pretty good if you ask me. That's with 4 good additional links.

[smallcompany]

A correction to my previous no reporting claim.

While there is no way to see the performance of additional links in AdWords reports, there is still an option of tracking via your own links, however you do that, as each link has its own destination URL.

[Soze]

I'm a bit too lazy to do that haha. Since adding them to a couple more campaigns, I'm seeing even better CTR's. Hard to say if it's a trend or just a big couple days, but the difference is definitely noticeable.

[smallcompany]

The CTR should be expected to be higher as the ad takes more of the space on the screen.

Just be sure you don't put support link there. ;)

[Soze]

Yeah, mainly just links to other informative parts of the site -- special offers, member login link, other promotions. Users can get to everywhere on the site just as easily.

This is a seriously good feature if used properly. Changes made are almost real time. Gives tons of versatility with additional text and linking.

Awesome.

[PayMePerClick]

It's mistake to not utilize this offering. If for nothing else it doubles your share of ad space on the SERP. Has anyone seen these show up for non-branded searches?

My only complaints are that we can't seem to show up for non-branded searches even when we are highly relevant and in first position, AND you lose keyword level tracking if you use any other analytics suite besides Google Analytics.

Does anyone know anything about these issues or have any work-arounds?

[smallcompany]

keyword tracking

I remember keyword insertion - something like when you do {keyword} for ads.

[PayMePerClick]

smallcompany, were you replying to my question? I'm familiar with keyword insertion (not a fan, but that's another thread topic) but that's not what I'm talking about.

We put keyword tracking in the desination URLs of every keyword instead of at the ad level. If your tracking is set up at this granular level and someone clicks a site link you cannot then see what keyword led to the conversion. For the time being though you can assume it's a branded keyword so it's not a complete mystery at least.

[smallcompany]

There is a way of automating insertion in destination URLs. It's about keywords and ads.

[adwords.google.com...]

Check the example on that page, but here it is, just in case:

Buy {Keyword:Puppies}
From an Award-Winning Breeder
Satisfaction Guaranteed!
www.Example.com
destination URL: http://www.example.com/?kw={keyword:nil}

[Hyponeros]

I started a discussion on those links a few weeks ago without getting many replies but maybe you can help me:

I was taking advantage of the new adwords feature that allow to show 4 additional links in your ad and it is working as expected besides for one point:
I added 10 links in the order of preference but only the 4 first links are always showing even if I add a keyword related to the last link.

Let's say I am selling cakes and my site is 'GoodCakes.com'. I am bidding on the keyword "goodcakes.com" The title of my tenth link is "Chocolate cake". Even if my search query is "goodcakes.com chocolate" only my 4 first links are showing and not my tenth link. I would expect it to show since obviously it is related to the search query.

Did anybody else see only the top 4 links? Even if some search queries are related to one of the other titles? How can I have the other links showing up?

[Robsp]

Getting site links to work on other searches than brand searches is a challenge. The problem is that your ad needs to be on top and needs to do significantly better in terms of QS and CTR than number 2.

Anyone got this to work yet?

[baraklevanon]

you can tag the site link by a "sitelink=" in the url of the ad.
then, you can view the stats in Googlg Analyitcs