Portent Blog

What Are Google Ads Sitelinks, and Why Should You Use Them?

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 14:00:45 GMT

Updated 8/4/20 to include new information.

Google Ads sitelinks are ad extensions that allow advertisers to promote up to four additional links to their website within one PPC ad. These links typically lead to pages beyond the ad’s main landing page, directing users to specific parts of your site that may be more applicable to their search intent straight from the search engine results page (SERP).

Before we discuss more benefits and best practices, let’s take a look at the features of a sitelink and how they appear when shown as part of an ad.

Sitelinks (shown in the red rectangle below) are composed of three elements: one headline (also known as the link text) and two description lines. The headline has a 25 character limit and appears as blue clickable link text, while description lines have a 35 character limit per description, and show as plain text that is not clickable.

Example of sitelinks shown in their entirety on a desktop browser

Entire sitelinks (one headline + two description lines) are usually displayed when an ad is in the first or second ad position on the SERP, while ads in lower ad positions may only show the headline (blue clickable text) or might not show a sitelink at all. The number of sitelinks eligible to show depends on the device: up to six on desktop, up to eight on mobile.

Up to six sitelinks can show on a desktop ad without descriptions

Why Should Advertisers Use Sitelinks?

Implementing sitelinks as part of your Google Ads strategy can provide a ton of additional value to your advertising efforts. Here are my top four reasons why you need to start using sitelinks now:

Sitelinks increase your presence on the SERP. Along with other ad extensions, sitelinks can help increase the size of your ad, making your ad stand out against your competitors.
Ads with sitelinks can help drive a 10-15% uplift in CTR. By including relevant sitelinks, a user is shown additional information about what content your website has to offer, otherwise unknown to them unless they spend time on your site. In the screenshot above, sitelinks helped the user understand which sneaker brands the store carries. If a user favors any of these brands, they are more likely to interact with the ad.
Increase conversion rates. By providing users with pertinent links and landing pages to fulfill their search intent, you can potentially funnel your customers toward a conversion point faster. When implemented strategically, you may see an increase in conversion rate when sitelinks are present.
No change in cost-per-click. Sitelinks do not increase your cost-per-click! Sitelinks are free to use. If a user clicks on a sitelink, Google will charge you the same amount as you would be if the user clicked on the text ad’s main headline.

How Do You Create Sitelinks?

To create a sitelink, you can be on any campaign view level. In the middle menu drawer, click on the ‘Ads & Extension’ menu item to reveal the ‘Ads, Assets, Extensions, and Automated Extensions’ menu items. Once you click on ‘Extensions,’ you will be shown the default extensions screen for all extension types. You can choose to filter for sitelinks only for easier viewing.

To create a new sitelink, click on the blue plus icon to reveal the ad extension options.

Click on ‘Sitelink extension’ to reveal the sitelink creation screen.

When creating a new sitelink, you can choose to use it on the account level (all search and video campaigns) or select specific campaigns/ad groups. To make this choice, click on the dropdown below ‘Add to’ to reveal your options.

One great feature of the sitelink creation screen is the sitelink preview section. Though the purpose of the preview section is self-explanatory, I’ve got a sitelink extension pro tip! To get entire sitelinks to show in the preview screen for desktop, you will need to fill in all of the available text fields (except Final URL).

In the example below, you’ll see that sitelink descriptions have been filled out, but are not showing in the preview.

These sitelinks look naked and afraid

When you fill out all available fields, you can generate a useful sitelink preview to share with your stakeholders. A screenshot of this can be forwarded to help illustrate what sitelinks can achieve.

Ahhh, sitelinks in their full, beautiful form

Sitelink Best Practices

When it comes to creating and implementing sitelinks, use these best practices as a guide:

Create at least two sitelinks to ensure they are eligible to show on the SERP. We recommend creating four sitelinks to maximize ad presence.
Avoid applying sitelinks on the account level. While general sitelinks can be applied across the account (e.g., Contact Us, About Us, Blog), it is important that sitelinks are relevant to your campaign strategy. By applying on the campaign or ad group level, you can obtain granular performance data for sitelink testing.
Do not use the same link text for multiple sitelinks, which can create a confusing user experience.
For the same reason, do not create multiple sitelinks that lead to the same landing page.
Link text and descriptions should relate directly to the landing page they lead to.
Sitelinks will not serve if the landing page URL differs from the domain of the ad’s final URL.
Link text and landing page content should directly relate to the ad it is paired with.
Sitelinks should be implemented strategically based on your campaign/ad group structure and your advertising goals.
Don’t focus too much on one specific page or message to promote. Use a variety of landing pages to give your users different content options directly from the SERP.
Just like text ads, stay away from symbols, excessive punctuation, and emojis.

To Recap

Sitelinks are a powerful way for advertisers to increase click-through and conversion rates. When executed properly, these extensions can provide a ton of extra value on top of your standard PPC ad. And with no extra cost associated with these ad extensions, all advertisers should be using them when applicable for their Google Ads campaigns.

You know what they say [about sitelinks]: Use it or lose it! ‘It’ being clicks.

Okay, ‘they’ don’t say that…just me.

The post What Are Google Ads Sitelinks, and Why Should You Use Them? appeared first on Portent.

Where to Start When Leading Through Crisis

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 14:00:53 GMT

I don’t take the opportunity to write about how I lead Portent as much as I’d like to.

As an agency dedicated to creating positive change and driving engagement for our clients, our attention has little room to slip as the brands we partner with look to us as guides through uncertainty.

Over the past five months, my role has shifted focus due to the environment we find ourselves in today. We’re in the midst of a global pandemic. We navigated a social justice moment that re-sparked a movement. And we are approaching what may end up being the most intense election cycle in many of our lifetimes.

Through that, we’re expected to keep the lights on and continue to push our clients forward. We’re expected to drive results for our clients. We’re expected to show the path forward for our people.

Running a marketing team is hard. Leading a marketing team through crisis is even harder. And to be honest, I couldn’t be more impressed with how our leadership team has led over the past five months.

Yes, this is a proud agency leader moment.

The environment we continue to find ourselves in for the foreseeable future demands a shift in approach from agency leadership across our country. It’s evolved for the better at Portent, and I want to share the approach we’ve taken because I don’t think it’s only relatable to folks who find themselves in leadership roles at a marketing agency.

We’ve relied heavily on these principles over the past five months to guide the Portent team. And while many marketing agencies find themselves in a fragile place as client budget drastically fluctuate, I couldn’t be more proud of this agency or optimistic about our future together.

Be Transparent

Yes, it’s cliché.

It’s cliché for a reason.

We opened up the books for everyone to see internally. We’ve shared all of the wins and all the losses. We’ve talked about what success looks like, and we’ve talked about what happens if things take a turn for the worse. We started doing live Town Hall events with anonymous Q&A sections. Our leadership team answers every single question.

Somewhere towards the end of March, I lost count of how many times I said, “I don’t know.” I’ve felt vulnerable saying that as the agency’s leader, but sometimes, “I don’t know” is the truth and the truth builds trust.

But this honesty is just one part of the puzzle; equally important is what follows. After I say, “I don’t know,” we figure out how to right-size a path forward to fit our needs.

Everything is on the table for everyone to see.

Provide Space

It’s time for more agencies to actually take care of their people.

I’m tired of meeting good people who have been taken in only to be spit out at the end of their agency career jaded by the industry as a whole.

No matter the role of the people on your team, the lives of those team members have changed significantly in the last five months. For most of us, the easy change to see is to a remote-based environment filled with Zoom calls and little opportunity for personal connection. But the impact this “new normal” has had on individuals stretches farther than our professional lives, and continues to evolve and change.

Why do we still expect our team members to work in the same way or need the same things they needed at the start of the year?

Since March, we’ve reshaped our approach to billable hours, time tracking, last-minute deadlines, and unreasonable client requests to better protect our people.

Our benefits have changed and will continue to change as we navigate uncharted waters. Proactive communication, effective prioritization, and better-disciplined project management keep us on track to get through what we must get through. The leadership team has hounded (in the best of ways!) their team members to take paid time off through all of this.

That approach provided everyone in the agency more space; to flex when they work and are in a flow, to flex when their mind isn’t with the agency and our clients, and to flex when the daily news cycle is too much to take an eye off.

Guess what? Engagement from the team is stronger than it’s ever been, and client retention—despite today’s environment—is as high as we’ve ever seen it.

Get Feedback

Lead with genuine empathy, and you may find that you receive more openness and honesty than you ever did before.

Remember that part about not knowing what to do?

The questions, conversations, and input we have received during this time continue to directly shape what we do and how we do it.

We’ve always worked to get feedback, but the cadence, openness, and directness of it has substantially increased this year. Thank you, again, to all of the Portent team who has helped here.

Looking Forward

And while we remain remote and dispersed for the foreseeable future, I think many would agree that in some ways, we’ve grown closer than ever as an agency.

Yes, there have been bumps along the way, and I don’t expect us to be in the clear anytime soon. But we’ll continue to be transparent, provide space, and get feedback as best as we possibly can. I mentioned earlier that the external environment caused us to change our approach to leadership and adopt new principles along the way. I’m an optimist; I believe we will eventually settle into a new normal free of constant crisis. And when we do, these principles won’t change.

The post Where to Start When Leading Through Crisis appeared first on Portent.

How to Use YouTube to Supplement Your Paid Search Efforts

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 14:00:56 GMT

Paid search is a highly targeted marketing strategy with the ability to find users who are uniquely low in the funnel and ready to convert. A user who is not only problem-aware but also solution (product/service)-aware and potentially even brand-aware is exactly the type of person that makes paid search a strong ROI producer for many.

There are limitations to this, however. There are not endless amounts of people who fall into the category of low-funnel who are actively searching. This is especially true for more niche industries or brands, but all businesses experience this limitation in some way.

So, what can we do to push that limit further and maximize potential reach and return for paid search? The answer is to have a full-funnel approach that looks at the entire user journey. While it’s easy to get blinders for only the super high converting lower-funnel efforts, don’t forget the importance of upper-funnel strategies.

One upper-funnel strategy to consider to fulfill this need is YouTube advertising.

Why YouTube Advertising

There are a few solid reasons to explore YouTube advertising to supplement your existing paid advertising efforts. Here are my top three.

It’s Huge

The obvious first reason to look towards YouTube for advertising is the sheer volume of users. YouTube touts 2 billion users; this represents a third of all internet users and a quarter of the entire world population! This makes it one of the largest audiences you will find anywhere.

But while volume is great, the real benefits are in the targeting available and the cost.

Targeting

YouTube has robust targeting options, including geographic, demographic, remarketing, and, most importantly, interest audiences. Interest-specific audiences like affinity audiences and in-market audiences are available in other forms of upper-funnel strategies, like Google Display Network advertising. But there is just so much content on YouTube! This provides really powerful opportunities to reach people who are uniquely qualified while they are consuming highly-relevant content.

Low Cost

Finally, the cost to advertise on YouTube in a brand awareness strategy is low. YouTube advertising has a few bidding options to choose from that depend on your goals for the campaign, ranging from conversion-focused strategies to maximum CPM strategies. Choosing the right one depends on your needs. But in general, you should expect surprisingly low costs, considering the quality of views you can earn.

How to Get Started

I won’t dive into the nitty-gritty details of how to launch a YouTube campaign here. Hubspot has a great summary if you are trying to get this going for the first time and need some direction. You can also look to the Google Help article on creating a video campaign. What I will focus on in this post is the strategy side of things.

From an advertising strategy perspective, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Audiences

As mentioned, there are many targeting strategies available. And because of the very large amount of content being consumed on YouTube, you can get very granular without limiting your reach. To attract new users consider targeting strategies like:

Affinity audiences
Custom affinity audiences
In-market audiences
Custom intent audiences

Layering these types of strategies into more basic targeting like demographic, geographic, life events, and similar audiences will help you reach the right people for your goals.

Video Content

The type of content in your videos and how you format them should reflect your goals as well. Google/YouTube offers a few different types of ad formats. Some of the video options are:

Skippable video ads – Seen most commonly before a video but also can be seen during and can be skipped after 5 seconds.
Non-skippable video ads – Seen before a video and the viewers must watch before they can view the main video. They are typically 30 seconds, but some are 15-20 seconds.
Bumper ads – Non-skippable videos but usually shorter, up to 6 seconds before the user can watch their main video.

A few best practices to keep in mind when developing your videos are:

Include a call to action
Have an early hook to earn attention before a video is ignored or skipped
Include a brand name and/or logo early on for the same reason
Re-cut old content to repurpose it for the format you want rather than produce new content every time

Focus on the Right KPIs for Your Goals

If you are using YouTube to fill the upper-funnel as a supplement to your paid search efforts, it’s important to look at it through the right lens. You may have some specific target ROAS or CPA that you use for most of your Google Ads efforts. Don’t fall into the trap of expecting video ads on YouTube to meet that standard. That is not the goal.

Instead, focus on metrics that help you understand and optimize brand awareness, views, click-through, etc. Google Ads offers a wide range of metrics for different goals that you can consider to judge video performance better than your traditional conversion metrics. They have some prebuilt reports that focus on different goals for:

Views – views, average CPV, video played percentage
Audience – max CPV, view rate, earned subscribers, earned likes
Branding – max CPV, views, impressions
Conversions – max CPV, views, conversions, conversion rate

For an upper-funnel strategy, I recommend focusing on either Branding (my personal go-to) or Views. View rate specifically is a great metric as it includes more than just when people saw your ad (impression). It shows you how often they engaged with your ads (actually watched or clicked).

What to Expect

The main takeaway from all this—as it relates to paid search—is that you are trying to grow what is already working well.

When the whole funnel is working to introduce new users to your brand and move them down to a point of conversion, you should expect to see things like a rise in branded searches and increased conversion rates for other paid search strategies. People will be more aware in general, and when they do interact with your brand, they will be more likely to convert because they aren’t entering the funnel at the bottom.

That is true for all upper-funnel strategies, including YouTube advertising.

The post How to Use YouTube to Supplement Your Paid Search Efforts appeared first on Portent.