Google Sitelinks for More Paid Search Traffic and Less Ad Dollars

By Lydia Chen Shah, Director Marketing Communications

Last November, Google launched a new AdWords feature called Ad Sitelinks. The enhancement allows advertisers that have a high quality threshold to include additional links.

Sitelinks has created some controversy, as described in the AdAge article Google’s Newest Search Ad Format, Loved and Hated by Brands. However, capitalizing on Sitelinks can lead to real benefits for online advertisers. We have garnered some impressive results for our clients, including driving incremental traffic from paid search at a lower cost per click.

In a nutshell, we “drove more traffic for less total ad dollars” – as highlighted in an article from MediaPost, Owning Google Sitelinks Brand Terms Becomes Paid Search Tactic.

How Did We Do This?

Since the MediaPost article has been published, we’ve been asked how we drove more traffic for less total ad dollars. Here is an explanation of the execution, from our VP of eMarketing Michael Behrens:

Focus on protecting brand-based search for advertisers facing 1 of 2 challenges (and in some cases both):

1. Retailers bidding for branded traffic (when we represent the brand)
2. Competition bidding on branded traffic

Since Sitelinks are reserved for only those that have superior click through rates, it really can only be applied to branded terms and cannot be leveraged to satisfy a general search strategy (however, Plus Box can do this).

An example of this working very effectively is Lexington Law, a well-branded advertiser that has 10's of thousands of searches for its own name. There are usually 2-3 a competitor bidding on the company’s branded term to try and sell the company’s credit repair service. It is important for Lexington law to own this search marketing real estate and drive as many people as possible seeking information about Lexington Law to Lexington Law (organic or paid). We integrated Sitelinks to increase visibility and provide an even more differentiated ad to break through the clutter and get the branded click.

We saw a 24% increase in click through rate and a 30% drop in CPC in the first month. This is the advantage to Google’s auction model. This advertiser drove more traffic for less total ad dollars.

Here is an example of what site links look like for Lexington Law. The 4 Sitelinks in the PPC ad was the only change that drove the 24% increase in click through rate (CTR). Not only did we get an increase in CTR we were able to do a better job segmenting the users and driving traffic to 4 of our most popular site destinations.