Google Beta: Ad Sitelinks Ready for Phased Rollout

Based on PM Digital’s beta work, Google’s Ad Sitelinks test well and offer a great new tactic for retailers this holiday season.

Google’s Ad Sitelinks are moving from beta to phased roll out next week.  Whereas betas are seen by only a tiny portion of users (about 1%), in a phased rollout, approximately 10% of Google users will now see these ads. 

Ad Sitelinks were developed specifically as a way for retailers to get better click through rates from their trademark terms.  Rather than sending all searchers to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks enable a marketer to direct consumers to specific pages.  PM Digital had several clients take part in the beta and has since rolled out many more.  We definitely saw significantly higher click through rates for Ad Sitelinks compared to regular sponsored ads.

Here is an example of how Ad Sitelinks look:

When Ad Sitelinks were first tested around the beginning of summer, it was done as an A/B/C split:  1) the normal sponsored ad containing a logo; 2) a logo plus Ad Sitelinks; and 3) Ad Sitelinks with no logo.  The winning beta was Ad Sitelinks with no logo, which is what will be rolled out next week.

Some facts about Google’s Ad Sitelinks:

• While Ad Sitelinks started out being for trademark terms only, they can now be displayed for any term in a campaign provided the keyword is in Position 1 on Google.
• In addition to being in Position 1, an advertiser also needs to meet a minimum amount of impressions for a keyword in order to be eligible to display Ad Sitelinks. 
• Eligibility for Ad Sitelinks for a particular keyword is identified in the Google User Interface in Campaign Settings with a Sitelinks Indicator displayed beside the keyword.
• The pricing model for Ad Sitelinks is CPC, and so far, the CPCs are the same as for regular sponsored ads.  With higher click through rates via Ad Sitelinks presumably improving quality scores, we would hope the CPCs might actually go down, but we have not seen this happen yet.
• Unlike the natural Sitelinks that show up within organic search listings, paid Ad Sitelinks give you more control over which links to display — to a point, that is.  The natural Sitelinks showing up in organic search can be deleted but not changed or added to (deletions are done by the advertiser through Webmaster Tools).  In the Ad Sitelinks program, Google controls which Sitelinks will display, although the advertiser is able to control the pool of desired links with a maximum of 10.  Google will show 4, depending on the impression share of each and possibly the click through rate. 
• Ad Sitelinks performance cannot be tracked in Google’s User Interface, but you can use a site analytics package to get at the data.  Through Google’s reporting alone, however, you will not be able to see which clicks come from which links.
•  Each Ad Sitelinks can have a maximum of 35 characters

To date, PM Digital has been very impressed with the performance of Google’s Ad Site Links.  If you are a retailer and can get white listed for next week’s phased rollout, this is a great new tactic to put in place before the holidays really start ramping up.

Suzy Sandberg is President of PM Digital.

2 Comments

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  By Matt Commins, November 3, 2009 @ 2:00 pm

  I’m very excited to try this new feature out! I bet there would be a lift in CTR and Conversion Rates.

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