Dental PPC Management: Google Ads for Dentists

What is Dental PPC?

Dental PPC stands for dental pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Meaning, when a dentist’s advertisement appears on search engine result pages (SERP), such as Google or Bing, everytime a prospective patient clicks on the paid ad the dental office pays a certain fee for each click. Hence the name pay-per-click.

Dental PPC is one type of paid online advertising. How does dental PPC work? Your dental office bids on keywords your patients might use to search for dental services, like implants, root canals, or Invisalign. If you win the keyword bid, like an auction, Google (or Bing, etc.) shows your dental ad to your target audience on their search results page. If a user clicks on the ad, your dental office pays for the click, which goes to your website or landing page.

Why is Dental PPC Important?

Dental PPC helps your clinic show up quickly in Google search results. SEO builds organic visibility, but results are never guaranteed and it can take several months to see progress. With PPC, your ads can appear at the top of results right away if you win the auction and your ads are approved.

Having a dental PPC strategy is important because it helps generate traffic faster and therefore quicker conversion results your dental office needs. Building an online presence for your dental office is the first step to success in a dental internet marketing campaign. Adding proven marketing techniques, such as PPC, gives your dental office quick lead generation results.

5 Benefits of PPC for Dentists

Dental PPC advertising can bring your practice multiple benefits. Here are a few examples of some of the best benefits of PPC for dentists:

1. 1. Increased Visibility

   PPC is one of the quickest ways to appear at the top of Google results. When your ad appears high on the page, it can bring more patients to your dental office, keep you top of mind and build brand awareness with people searching for dental care.

2. 2. Control Over Targeted Keywords

   SEO involves targeting strategic keywords. And keywords are a very integral part of PPC strategies as well! PPC makes it easy to manage your campaign's targeted keywords.

   a. Your dental office has complete control over which keywords we use in your PPC campaign. You can even change keywords during the campaign if they are not producing the desired results your dental office hopes for. Your dental office has customizable control of the keywords you want your ads to be shown for.

3. 3. Targeting the Right Audience

   Once you've found the right keywords, use them in your Google Ads to reach the right audience, including people looking locally.

4. 4. Clearly Monitor and Analyze Success

   Google Ads makes it clear and easy to track your ad results. Reports can cover web traffic, conversion rates and your wider marketing efforts. When one approach is not working, you can adjust keywords, geotargeting, budget or ad type.

5. 5. Easily Manage Budgets

   Your dental office can set your PPC ad daily budget. The budget will not surpass the maximum allotted amount unless specified otherwise. This gives you control over your spending, especially if you're on a tight budget.

How Much Does Dental PPC Cost?

Dental PPC has two costs: the ad spend you pay Google for clicks, and the fee for whoever manages the campaigns. Ad spend depends on your city, the treatments you promote (implants and orthodontics are usually more competitive than check-ups) and your daily budget. A useful number to track is cost per new patient: your total PPC spend divided by the new patients the campaigns bring in. Our dentist PPC cost guide explains the budget factors in more detail.

Avoid these Common PPC Dental Mistakes

While there are multiple benefits to pay-per-click advertising, it's important to be mindful of some of the cons to PPC advertising. Dental offices should be wary of the following:

• PPC Can Be Costly (If You Don't Know What You're Doing):

  While budgeting can be adjusted for PPC advertisements, if not done properly it can become costly with no return on investment. If your dental office is not aware of how to manage budgeting through PPC ads, it can result in throwing away money on advertisements that don't actually generate any positive results.

  PPC campaigns depend on many rules and optimization strategies, and it takes time to learn them. Working with PPC consulting experts can help ensure your time and budget are used well.

• PPC Requires Ongoing Time and Management:

  As a dentist, your day-to-day is already full of appointments, cleanings, fillings, etc. Finding the time to build an effective and successful dental PPC campaign can be overwhelming.

  Having a PPC expert take the time, bandwidth, resources, and expertise to work on your dental PPC campaign can help make the most of your PPC ad budget. Most digital marketing strategies require multiple technical steps that dedicated marketing professionals know how to implement for your dental practice. Let PPC experts do your dental Google ads, while your office focuses on its normal day-to-day tasks.

• Clicks and Impressions Don't Equal Conversions:

  Sometimes the difference between an impression and a conversion is confusing.

  An impression is when your ad is shown to a user.

  A click is when a user clicks on your ad.

  A conversion is the process of when a user clicks on an ad and produces a desired action/result such as a sale or call to your dental office.

  Don't assume higher impressions and clicks are the same as a conversion. These two aspects are valuable, but if they don't end up leading to a desired result or conversion, then your PPC campaign isn't successful. The results you desire from building PPC ads aren't doing what you want them to without conversions.

  Our PPC campaign experts will create and optimize Google Ads that generate high quality leads that result in new patient appointments.

Dental PPC Advertising Best Practices

If you're not ready to partner with a dedicated PPC consulting agency, or don't have the funds to do so yet, there are some dental PPC best practices to keep in mind when taking this on yourself. Google PPC ads for dentists is a great place to begin.

Start by coming up with a budget, learn how to choose the right PPC keywords, utilize local Google Ads for dentists, and optimize your landing pages.

1. 1. Determine Your PPC Ad Budget

   Setting yourself up for success and profitable dental PPC ads begins with planning your budget.

   Many practices set aside a share of revenue for marketing, and your ad budget should match your goals and local competition.

2. 2. Target the Right PPC Keywords

   Using the right keywords for your dental PPC campaign is critical to increasing online visibility with the right audience. Here's a step-by-step list on how to target the right PPC keywords for your dental practice:

   • Do your research: Use tools such as Semrush, WordStream or Google Keyword Planner to find keywords relevant to your practice. These tools show what potential patients search for. Our keyword research service can help.
   • Check Out Competitors: After researching the best keywords to use, you can look into competitors’ websites and gauge what keywords they're using for their PPC ads and landing pages.
   • Think About your Audience and Services: What are some of your niche specialties at your dental practice? Do you offer teeth whitening or root canals? Find ways to incorporate those niches into your keywords. This can help better set you apart from competitors who may also offer similar niche services.

3. 3. Create Local Google Ads for Dentists

   People want a trusted dental practice that is close by. Convenience is key, and your dental practice can gain a major competitive edge by showing up in Google searches for people within a specific radius or specific locations. Even more, leveraging local Google ads for dentists helps reduce the waste of ad spend on locations that won't convert.

   Local search is crucial for dental PPC. With local targeting in Google Ads, your ads show only to people searching in your geographic area, and you can exclude locations you do not serve.

4. 4. Create Tailored Landing Pages

   As you work to create effective dental PPC ad campaigns, you also want to make sure that your landing pages are tailored to your PPC ad campaign, ad copy, keywords, audience, etc. Users should be able to see your dental PPC ad and have a user-friendly experience upon visiting your landing page.

   For example, if your dental PPC ad includes a discount or specific service offered, the landing page the user is brought to should have some sort of information that further explains what you said in the PPC advertisement.

5. 5. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

   You can also optimize your landing page for better conversions by doing the following:

   Include a Call-to-Action

   A landing page call-to-action can include a link to book an appointment, or a specific link or code to access a special discount. This generates more clicks on your website, and increases your overall conversions and revenues for your practice.

   Each landing page should include one clear call-to-action that tells visitors what to do next. Competing calls to action can confuse visitors and lead to fewer enquiries. Our conversion rate optimization service can test this.

   Visual Appeal

   Once you’ve created a great and visually appealing dental PPC ad, make sure your website is holding up to the standard design aesthetic of your advertisement. Incorporate high quality videos or designs such as an infographic to help elevate your landing page’s visual appeal. This will ensure that user’s aren’t quickly leaving your website due to a poor user experience.

   Optimize for Mobile

   Since your dental PPC ads can be optimized for mobile, optimize your landing page and other website pages for mobile as well. That includes making sure your online sign-up forms and other documentation users need to fill out are mobile friendly.

6. 6. Use Ad Extensions

   Ad extensions allow you to feature even more valuable information people are looking for when searching for a dentist. Ad extensions permit dentists to include things like addresses, phone numbers, hours of operation, driving directions, etc.

   Overall, ad extensions provide more information about your dental practice which Google can then pull from when showing ads to your audience.

   When setting up your ad on Google, make sure you also fill in your information in the “Ads and Extensions” settings.

7. 7. Optimize Ads for Phone Calls

   Clicks cost money, but a visible phone number lets people call without clicking through to your site, and call extensions can also be billed like clicks. Include a phone number in your ad so people can get details quickly, and track calls as conversions.

8. 8. Monitor Results and Analyze Performance

   Monitoring your dental PPC ad performance gives you the opportunity to see if your ad campaign is working as expected or not. Google Ads showcase an array of important information such as your number of ad impressions, click through rate, and cost per click. By reviewing your data, you can more easily see where to make changes to your PPC ad campaign.

   You can track your ad performance in your Google ads account by clicking “All Campaigns” in the navigation menu. Then, click “Ads and Assets” or “Keywords” to see statistics tables. There are tables that show you a customizable view of all your data.

9. 9. Optimize and Pivot PPC Strategy

   Taking time to refine your strategies will go a long way in reaching your desired audience, increasing website traffic, and increasing overall revenue. Make sure you’re collecting data to guide the decision making process and pivoting your strategy if needed.

What to Look for in a Dental PPC Agency

• Call and form tracking: you should see which keywords and ads produce booked appointments.
• Healthcare ad policy knowledge: Google restricts some health claims, so ads and landing pages need to follow its policies.
• Clear reporting: look for cost per lead and cost per new patient, not just clicks and impressions.
• Landing page support: good ads still fail if the page is slow or confusing. Our conversion rate optimization service covers this.

Dental PPC FAQ

• 1. Can I Do PPC Myself?

  Yes. You can choose to do PPC by yourself if you so choose. While there are multiple benefits supporting hiring a marketing professional to do it for your dental practice, PPC advertising platforms allow anyone to create and maintain a PPC advertising campaign on their own.

• 2. How Much Should I Pay for Dental PPC?

  There is not a clear cut answer as to how much your dental office should pay for dental PPC advertising. It truly depends on your dental office’s goals, expectations, location, and results you’re wanting to achieve.

  Here are a few considerations your dental office should evaluate before deicing on a PPC campaign:

  • Local Competition: If there is a large volume of dental offices in your area, your dental office needs to find ways to stand out amongst the crowd. Investing in a PPC campaign can help your dental office appear at the top of SERPs to be there for people searching for dentists in your local area.
  • Budget: Instead of looking at PPC as having a set budget, you should also consider framing it as an equation where you introduce variables such as cost-per click, conversion rates, etc. In a PPC campaign, you control a lot of the variables, however some may result in negative results which brings you back to stage one. Depending on how well your advertisements succeed, you may need to spend more than expected.
  • Skill and Ability: Even the most earnest dental practices in competitive areas can lessen their investment by skillfully bidding on the best keywords, tracking results, and optimizing campaigns.
  • Dental Office Goals: How many new patients are you accepting? Does your dental office have a large influx of new patients? With this in mind, your dental office might want to consider SEO strategies over PPC.