Patients4you PPC Marketing Campaigns Include:

• Competitive Analysis and Market Review.
• Reporting on Form Submissions and Phone Leads for Each Campaign.
• Expert Ad Writing and Banner Design.
• Analysis and Ongoing Improvement of Campaigns.

What is PPC marketing?

Pay per click marketing refers to marketing done mainly using the Google Ads platform. It is called pay per click because the pricing is typically based on “ad clicks” or visits to a website. Nowadays, the Google Ads platform is very sophisticated and has a whole assortment of products, not all of which are priced on a per click. Some newer products, for example, are priced on a per-call or a per-lead basis, but the term PPC is still widely used in the industry to refer to all of Googgle Ads.

While Google Ads is the predominant platform when it comes to dental paid advertising, it is important to note that it is not the only one. Microsoft search, otherwise known as Bing, can also provide great results in some use cases. Bing has a 3% market share to Google’s 93%, but since Bing’s user base skews older and is more desktop oriented (as a result of being the default search engine on many computers), then it can provide a great way to reach older target audiences at a lower cost. This can work well as many high value patients such as dental implant candidates tend to be in the older demographic.

One other very important paid advertising platform for dentists to be aware of is, of course, the Meta and Facebook Ads platform. Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram, which allows advertisers to advertise on both networks from the same ad platform. Facebook and Instagram can work very well for cosmetic procedures, and for dental offices that can create eye catching visuals that will capture the attention of users.

Facebook/Instagram Dental Advertising Pros:

• Huge user base – you can reach a majority of the population using these mediums.
• Great retargeting options. As a majority of people are on either Facebook or Instagram, this platform can be great for retargeting users who have already shown interest in one of your dental products or services.

Facebook/Instagram Dental Advertising Cons:

• Users are not actively searching for a service, as opposed to Google. This typically results in lead quality being much worse than Google, with users who are merely curious about a product or service, but who get turned off quickly when they learn of the costs involved.
• Ad fatigue sets in quick. Due to the barrage of content and heavy advertiser competition, it is common for an ad to become “stale” in a couple of weeks and lose its effectiveness. This requires advertiser to constantly be refreshing their ads, thinking of new hooks and ways to interest patients in order to continue to get new leads.

Finally, TikTok is an up and coming platform for advertising that is not yet saturated and plenty of opportunities can still be found. The platform is focused around short form video content, and similarly to Facebook, the creatives are king when it comes to determining whether an ad will work or not.

Is PPC a good way to get new patients for your dental practice?

Yes, PPC can be a great way to get new patients for a dental practice, particularly one that is starting out or is seeking to expand rapidly. This being said, it is important for dental practice owners to be aware of some of the limitations of PPC marketing. Namely, PPC has to be actively managed to ensure costs are kept in line and patients are being acquired at a reasonable patient acquisition cost. This requires your practice to have an efficient system for converting leads to patients, and in converting new patients to long term patients. As you evaluate your marketing channels for dental patient acquisition, you will find that while PPC may not be the least expensive, in many cases it will be the most scalable and least volatile of all your marketing channels.

What kind of patients are a good fit for PPC marketing?

Given our specialty in emergency dental marketing and running emergency PPC campaigns for dentists, we believe that dental emergency patients are a great fit for PPC marketing, as these are patients who are very likely to convert on a phone call and can show an immediate return on the marketing dollars spent.

Other kinds of patients can also be effectively acquired through PPC marketing, but it is very important to understand the competitive dynamics and buyer journey of the patient in order to have effective campaigns. That means thinking in terms of long term patient value and not just in terms of obtaining a return on ad spend on the first patient visit. Effective campaigns incorporate offers such as free consultations, and other enticements to get patients in the door, which in combination with our proven ads, will create a pipeline of new patients which you will then be able to convert into high production cases.

Can PPC conflict with my Search Engine Optimization strategy?

When done correctly, a PPC marketing strategy should complement, not detract from your SEO. For example, a practice will have a hard time ranking for competitive terms outside a 5 mile radius from their office location, yet they can still show high in the search results through PPC marketing in these areas and acquire patients outside their immediate proximity. A very valid strategy for any dental practice is to go after domination of the Search Engine Results Page, also known as SERP Domination. This involves ranking high on the page through the use of Google Ads and PPC, ranking in the local map pack through the use of an effective local SEO strategy, and ranking high organically through general on page and off page SEO. This strategy allows your practice to capture as much screen real estate as possible and keep yourself top of mind whenever a prospective patient is evaluating different dental practices.

What other factors should be considered when carrying out PPC marketing for dentists?

Dental practice managers and owners should be aware that the management of Google Ads Campaigns is only one component of the strategy, and in order to ensure the spend is profitable, it must be accompanied by landing page optimizations and by strong conversion processes once the leads come in. At Patients4you we specialize in complete dental website design, but we are particularly good at optimizing landing pages for conversions. This is because we have spend over 10 years running PPC campaigns for dentists using a pay per lead and pay per show model, which has required us to have the best performing and converting landing pages in the industry. In many cases, we recommend dental practices have a separate landing page that is used only for PPC advertising, so that it can be iterated on and optimized continuously.