Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) are the sponsored results you see at the top of Google Search Results.
Every result you see with the word “Ad” next to it is a website which is paying to appear there.
Are you in a rush to get new patients and fast? Then Google Ads may be the right option for you. A new account can be set up in a matter of hours, so your website could be appearing on patients’ screens before the end of the day!
One of the best features of Google Ads for Doctors is its ability to target people within a certain geographic area. After all, if you are an urgent care center in Chicago, then you don’t want to be paying for ad impressions in Texas!
You can also use the Google Ads schedule feature to schedule ads for when you want. We usually advise doctors to schedule ads for when they are open—so that patients can call to schedule. After all, why pay for patients to call you when you’re closed? However, if you offer online scheduling, then you may wish to keep your ads running 24/7.
There are many tracking options. Google refers to them as “Conversions”. Using a short code provided by Google, you can track the success of your ads. This includes tracking how many calls you received (and whether these calls were from the ad or from your website).
It also includes the ability to track if patients later scheduled an appointment on your website. By tracking results, your practice can calculate how much you are paying for each conversion. Read more about Healthcare Marketing Analytics.
Google Ads works on a cost-per-click (CPC) model. This means you pay for every click on your ads.
How much is each click? It usually ranges from $1 to $100 dollars but can be higher for more competitive keywords. Needless to say, the cost of a Google Ads campaign can quickly rack up. So you have to be careful to set it up correctly.
Some of the Google Ads Representatives are great and have found brilliant solutions for our Google Ads campaigns. However, others seem more intent on just increasing the number of clicks—and therefore the amount of money Google earns.
You would think that more clicks are a good thing, right? Well, NO—not always. You do not want to be paying for patients who have little or no chance of scheduling an appointment. So when setting up and managing your Google Ads for Doctors campaign, be sure to work with a Google Ads specialist and not just the Google employees.
Setting up your campaign badly can lose you a lot of money. We have seen practices set up campaigns to run 24/7, yet the practice only answers the phone from Mon-Friday, 9am to 5pm. So all those clicks and missed calls in the evenings and at weekends were wasted!
Worse still, we have seen local practices forget to restrict the location, resulting in them targeting the entire USA. Is someone in Alaska really going to visit your urgent care in Orlando? No. Money wasted!
The lesson here is simple: Be careful when setting up your campaign so that your ads, so that no dollar is wasted.
The number of new patients you acquire will depend on several factors:
1. How well your campaign is set up. The better optimized your campaign, the more relevant your ads will be, which means more conversions (i.e. more new patients).
2. The size of the target audience. The size of the target audience is also important. If you are geo-targeting a small village with a population of just 3,000, then you will get a lot less conversions than targeting a large city like New York or Chicago.
3. The budget. The size of your budget will greatly affect your number of new patients. The more you spend, the more patients you will acquire. Of course, the ROI will depend upon your specialty. For example, an orthopedic surgeon receives much more per surgery than an urgent care doctor performing a check-up.
Bottom line? If set up well, most campaigns generate good Return On Investment. After all, why are doctors spending so much on Google Ads? The answer is simple: Because they work.
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