Google Ads can put your practice in front of people searching for a treatment today. It can also burn a monthly budget on clicks that never call. This guide is for practice owners and front-desk leads at dental, eye and aesthetic practices who run their own campaigns, or who want to check the work of whoever runs them: how to set up a small search campaign, the health rules that apply, what to track, and how to judge it.
- SearchAn adult looks for care near them.
- Your pageWhat you treat, who sees them, one way to book.
- Call or formThey call or send a request.
- Front deskBooks the visit and never guesses a cause.
- Clinical teamThe clinician decides the plan.
Start with search, one treatment, one area
Search campaigns show ads to people who type a query, which is the clearest signal of intent you can buy. Begin with a single treatment you want more of and can schedule quickly, and a radius around the office that matches how far your patients actually travel. One focused campaign you can watch closely teaches you more than five broad ones.
- Campaign type: Search. Leave display and other networks off at first, so you know where clicks come from.
- Location: people in your target area, not people “interested in” it, unless you serve visitors from elsewhere.
- Schedule: run ads when someone can answer the phone, or make sure after-hours requests are handled the next morning.
- Budget: an amount you can leave running for at least two to three months without changing it every week. Our guide on patient acquisition cost shows how to judge what a new patient may cost.
Keywords: intent beats volume
- Use: treatment plus action or place, such as “dental implants near me”, “LASIK consultation”, “Invisalign dentist” with your city.
- Avoid or exclude: searches for jobs, schools and courses, “free”, do-it-yourself, home remedies, and other practices’ names unless you have a clear reason.
- Read the search terms report every week for the first months. It shows the real queries that triggered your ads; add irrelevant ones as negative keywords.
Ads and landing pages
Write ads that match the search: name the treatment, the area, and the next step (a consultation). Send the click to the page for that treatment, not your home page. Google’s Quality Score help page describes how expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience affect your ads. A good landing page answers what the consultation involves, who will see the patient, what changes the price, and how to book, with a tappable phone number and a short form.
Keep claims accurate and provable. No outcome promises, no “best” or “painless” claims you cannot back up, and nothing that would mislead a patient. State boards and professional codes may add their own advertising rules.
The health rules that shape your campaign
- Healthcare and medicines policy: Google restricts some health content in ads, such as prescription drugs and unproven treatments, and some of it needs certification or is not allowed at all. Read the sections that apply to your treatments before you write ads.
- Health in personalized advertising: Google treats health as a sensitive category. Its health in personalized advertising policy limits building audiences, such as remarketing lists, around health conditions and treatments. Plan your campaign around search keywords and location rather than following past site visitors around the web with treatment ads.
- Tracking on your website: be careful with third-party tracking tags on pages where people book or send health details. HHS issued guidance on online tracking technologies for HIPAA covered entities; a federal court vacated part of it in 2024 (American Hospital Association v. Becerra), but the rest still applies, and state privacy laws may add more. Ask your counsel or compliance lead which tags may run on which pages.
Track calls and bookings, not clicks
Clicks are a cost, not a result. Decide what counts as a conversion before you spend: usually a phone call of a minimum length from the ad or the site, and a submitted request form. Then go one step further, offline, in your own records:
- log every call and form from ads with the date and outcome (reached, booked, attended),
- ask “how did you hear about us?” at booking, with “Google ad” as an answer,
- compare monthly: ad cost, calls and forms, consultations attended, and the resulting cost per new patient.
Keep patient details out of the ad platform. Count outcomes in your own system; do not upload names, phone numbers or treatment details to advertising tools unless your counsel has approved how.
The phone is part of the campaign
A paid click that reaches voicemail, or a form that waits a day for a callback, is money spent for nothing. Before you raise the budget, check that ad calls are answered and requests are called back fast. Our guide on speed to lead for medical practices covers response targets, a call script and a follow-up sequence.
Weekly and monthly routine
- Weekly: read search terms, add negatives, check that ads are approved and that calls were answered.
- Monthly: cost, calls and forms, consultations attended, cost per new patient; compare with your other channels.
- Quarterly: decide to grow, hold or stop, based on cost per new patient over three months, not one.
Common mistakes
- Broad keywords with no negatives, paying for job seekers and students.
- Every ad sent to the home page.
- Judging success by clicks or “conversions” that were never checked against real bookings.
- Ads running while nobody answers the phone.
- Remarketing or audience lists built around treatments, against Google’s health policy.
- Changing budgets and bids every few days, so nothing can be learned.
If you work with an agency
Make sure the Google Ads account is owned by the practice, with the agency given access, so you keep the history if you part ways. Ask for monthly reporting in the terms above (cost per attended consultation, not just clicks), and ask how they handle the health and tracking rules. Be wary of guaranteed results.
Where MediLeadGen fits
With ads, you pay for clicks and do the converting yourself. With MediLeadGen, you pay a fixed price per delivered request: a patient asked for your treatment near you, saw your practice as the match, and agreed to be contacted by your practice only. Many practices will use both; measure them the same way, by cost per new patient.
See how it works for practices
Questions practices ask
How much should a practice spend on Google Ads?
There is no standard figure. Start with an amount you can keep steady for two to three months on one treatment and area, then decide based on your cost per attended consultation compared with what a new patient is worth to you.
Can we use remarketing for treatments?
Google’s health in personalized advertising policy limits audiences built around health conditions and treatments. Plan around search keywords and location instead, and check the current policy before you build any audience.
What should count as a conversion?
Calls of a minimum length and submitted request forms in the ad platform, and consultations attended in your own records. Judge the campaign on the last one.
How long before we know if ads work?
Give a focused campaign two to three months of steady budget and weekly cleanup before deciding. One week or one month is rarely enough data.
General information for practice teams, not legal or medical advice. Ad policies change; check Google’s current policy pages. Last reviewed October 2026.
More resources
- Patient acquisition cost: how a practice calculates it per channel
- Speed to lead for medical practices: how fast to answer a new patient request
- Medical practice marketing ideas: 15 practical ones for dental, eye and aesthetic practices
- Washington’s My Health My Data Act: what medical practices need to know
- How to get more knee arthroscopy patients: a plan for practices