I'd like to know of anyone's feedback or opinion of the Ad Sitelinks available with Google Adwords, info here:
http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2375416
We had a free adwords consultation with a Google Adwords employee last month, who advised us to add the Ad Sitelinks.
I was slightly dubious but even so added the Ad Sitelinks to our best performing campaign. This turned out to be a real mistake for us, as 6 weeks down the line, these sitelinks generate a lot of clicks but zero sales
Just wondered if anyone else had any experience of these good or bad?
I've had good results when utilising sitelinks for client accounts... but you have to consider carefully where they are deployed and how they compliment your existing campaigns / ads.
As you know sitelinks are set at campaign level (not ad group) so the same set of sitelinks will be served for each ad within the campaign.
In my experience using sitelinks usually increases your CTR as you are making your ad more prominent compared to your competitors and this is probably why you are seeing "a lot of clicks"...
Again what I find is your ad CTR when served with site links will increase HOWEVER the sitelink itself isn't clicked, rather the headline.
You can see this for yourself by selecting a campaign
> Ad Extensions > View select Sitelink Extensions > Segment > Click Type
You'll now have a breakdown of CTR & conversion data for Headline & Sitelink clicks.
Now the issue is you are probably getting a better CTR however you are not seeing this trend extend to your conversions.
I find sitelinks work best in very granular account structures, as I mentioned they are set at campaign level so you won't get the benefit of highly targeted site links if you are using lots of ad groups within the campaign.
In this scenario I almost treat a campaign like an ad group and if I feel there will be a benefit I split out lots of campaigns with highly targeted sitelinks, I use the sitelinks to extend the ad messaging by offering additional calls to action or list features / benefits / USPs.
I will then get the benefit of using site links to increase CTR whilst ensuring the traffic is qualified and relevant for my conversion action.
I could talk / type about sitelinks pros / cons until the cows come home but hopefully this will give you some ideas about how you could deploy them within your account structure and achieve better performance.
