
Finally! How to Setup Adwords Sitelinks Tracking in Google
First Step: Adwords sitelinks tracking can only be initiated by manually tagging the sitelink destination URL. You can use whatever tag you’d like, but I would recommend using “sitelink”. So, let’s say your url is (and mine is) https://www.ballisticwebsites.com
you’d add /?sitelink=
which sets the variable name & the value PPC-Management
(note that there are no spaces) to define which sitelink is being tracked, in this instance, “PPC Management”. Set a unique value for each individual sitelink in your account so that you can properly track. If you have the same name on multiple campaigns, I would recommend making them uniquely tagged so that you can properly track. The final result will look like this: https://www.ballisticwebsites.com/?sitelink=PPC-Management
.
Once you’ve got them tagged, you’ll want to sit on them for a few days of course, to gather data. Then, jump on over to Google Analytics. Navigate to Content -> Site Content -> Landing Pages
Then, in the “Filter” box (it’s the little box on the right side, just between the graph & rows) type “sitelink” & click the magnifying glass.
Custom Reporting -> New Custom Report
. Add the “Metrics” that you want to track & the “Dimensions” that you want to access & then (And this is critical) Select “Landing Page” under “Filters” and “Regex” from the dropdown, make sure to select “Regex” here![/caption] not “Exact” as this is what makes it work. Then put “sitelink” in that field. When you click “Save” you should see your MAginc Sitelinks report! Feel free to play around with this report & Metrics as much as you like, but do note one annoying little fact: the “Regex” filter automatically defaults back to “Exact” everytime that you edit the report, so if you find all your data gone (Oh NOoo!), just double check that drop-down box.So, it may not be as easy as we all think that it should be, but it’s certainly not that bad. If we go back up to the first image, this report shows us that sitelink #4 has 100% bounce rate! Clearly there isn’t enough data, yet, to make an informed decision, but at least we know to start checking it out. Setting up Adwords sitelinks tracking give you a lot of visibility into those extremely powerful AdWords extensions & hopefully it will help you choose the best way to use them on your own or clients accounts. If you are already tracking sitelinks, but using a different method to do so, I’d love to here about it!
Great post! I will be implementing this into my accounts asap.
I’ve only recently started to experiment with Sitelinks and this will help in that regard. Tracking CTR’s in AdWords gives me little info if I cannot break it down into CTR per SiteLink. Conversion and Bounce Rate tracking via Analytics is exactly what I needed.