Get deeper faster
Google introduced organic site links way back in 2006 – those 8 or so links going to deeper content beneath the first organic listing. These are great because they let your potential customers get closer to what they want to find faster, and we know that, for the most part, customers want the fastest path to purchase. And now you can put the same thing in PPC ads – this is like getting 11 ads for the price of one (you can add up to 10 sitelinks – business win!) and making it easier for your customers to find what they want at the same time. Plus it’s right at the top of the results page where more of your potential customers will see it.

For the ProFlowers ad below (I’ve borrowed the images from the Search Engine Land post so that we can compare apples to apples), imagine I’ve googled “send flowers USA” because I need to send flowers to my grandmother for her birthday. Rather than getting a generic ProFlowers ad, this one lets me see that it’s cheap, they guarantee it, and they do birthday-specific arrangements. And I can easily see the other stuff they offer (imagine this for lead generation and awareness of services!), I can check out discounts, and maybe send my wife flowers just for the heck of it from the comfort of the Google SERP.


Google's new PPC sitelinks make it easy to see what the site has to offer.

Sitelinks also provide a way include calls to action for a potential customer to engage with your company. I just googled “Kayak” and a paid sitelink for kayak.com told me to download their free iPhone app. This could easily be extended to connecting on Facebook, following on Twitter, or signing up to a mailing list.

See what you’re getting
Again, Google’s stealing from their organic listings – now you can put product images in PPC ads. Sure, Google chooses which products to display and you have to have a Google merchant center account, but this feature will let your customers get a feel for what you offer and what it’s going to cost them before investing a lot of time on your site. Plus, if they already know what they want, it’s a one-click jump to your shopping cart.


Show products images, titles, and prices right in your PPC ads.

Comparison shop
More and more we hear in our usability testing and buyer behavior research that customers are turning to search to comparison shop. Now they can do it right in a PPC ad. Currently it’s only available for mortgage companies and will be rolling out for credit card companies in the near future, but there are certainly lots of other places this can go too – electronics, insurance, cars… the list goes on. Customers are able to do this right on the SERP and then instantly engage with your company, and you get the information they’ve already provided by interacting with the ad. There’s no question that this would be a pretty motivated customer who’s about ready to seal the deal, and they’re happy because it’s been an easy and painless process for them.


New comparison ads will allow customers to compare offerings right on the SERP.

A search-related aside…
This is also an opportunity from a business perspective to enhance your presence on the SERP. Imagine you’re ranking well, but you’re not in the top organic position. Suddenly you can have a PPC ad with sitelinks or product images showing at the top of the page, pushing your competitors down and capturing more of the searcher’s attention. Apparently the early experiments with sitelinks have resulted in a 30-40% increase in click throughs. So if you can’t get that top organic position (and even if you can), this is definitely something you should consider.

What’s next?
It seems like Google is providing more and more options for owning a bunch of real estate on the SERP by enhancing your PPC ad options, and it seems like they’re doing it with things that are already working in the organic results. My prediction: Google Teleport is the next feature to make it into PPC ads.


Maybe the next feature to be incorporated into PPC ads will be Google's Teleport search.


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