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Google’s Ad Sitelinks Lets You Have More Links In Your Ads… But Is That a Good Thing?
By Anna Johnson on November 9th, 2009Last week, Google released a new Google Adwords feature, Ad Sitelinks, which lets you provide up to five destination URLs (rather than just one) in your Google Adwords ads.
The feature is currently available to advertisers whose ads meet certain high quality thresholds – an additional Campaign Settings tab lets you add more links to your site for a given ad.
Google’s explanation of Ad Sitelinks indicates that it’s likely to be most appropriate for online stores running general / non-specific ads. According to Google, early participants in Ad Sitelinks, such as Priceline.com, found that presenting multiple link options – gift registries, special deals, holiday or event-related promotions, and store locators, etc – enabled them to to direct users to relevant information on their sites, moving them deeper into the conversion funnel.
I think, however, that many Internet marketers should approach Ad Sitelinks with caution. For one thing, if you are promoting one, specific offer, you won’t need – and should not have – more than one link in your ad.
More importantly, you don’t want to give people any reason not to click on your links – including the reason of not knowing which link to click on!
Direct response Internet marketers have long extolled the virtues of limiting choice – and, specifically, limiting links on a sales page. Well, the same principle applies to any ad, including your Google Adwords ads.
You really want prospects to progress through very specific actions when they’re in your sales or conversion funnel e.g. click on link in ad, click on order button on sales page, submit payment information, etc.
Anything that is likely to impede someone from progressing through that conversion funnel – such as having to choose which link to click on – is likely to reduce, not increase, your conversions and sales.
Source: Dan Friedman, “Increasing choice and relevancy in search ads,” Inside Adwords, November 3, 2009
