Online Advertising, or Digital Paid Advertising, is among the most effective marketing methods to boost new patient volume in a short amount of time for your medical practice. Effectively running Online Ads can accelerate your targeted new patient volume multifold. However, your Online Ad Campaigns need to be used strategically, not sporadically or randomly, to obtain the results you want. To effectively run ads for medical practices, you must be able to successfully craft and populate your ads at the top of the right target patient audience lists without violating healthcare ad policies. Failing to do so can equate to tossing money out the window without driving any result. Successful ad campaigns mean that your medical practice is being seen by the right patient audience at the correct time and place. What is critical is that the ads direct patients to a solid website or landing page which converts ad-driven patient web traffic into actual real-world patient visits. Some key online advertising channels for medical practices include Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Answers to some of your most pressing questions about Online Advertising for Healthcare.
To build digital ‘equity’ for your website and rank higher organically, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great solution, but it is a mid-to-long-term strategy that can take 6 to 12 months before seeing preliminary results. SEO is a vital investment in your practice over time, and the sooner you start, the greater and greater the SEO results can be when implemented strategically. However, in order to implement a holistic integrated patient acquisition strategy that drives rapid, short-term results, Online Ads can provide a quick boost in patient volume. By coupling PPC Ads with other longer-term strategies, you get rapid results while building-up your long-term online presence and reputation. To maximize your medical practice’s ROI, combining Online Ads with SEO, social brand building, and reputation management is the best strategy.
Over 80% of patients click on Online Ad links when exploring health information. At Curato Health, we tailor your Online Advertising strategy to maximize your medical practice’s website traffic and drastically increase your patient acquisition.
Online Google Search Ads are among the most effective ads to run for medical practices. Google measures the quality of your ad setup and provides it with a Quality Score. This score interconnects your ad quality with target keywords that patients may search so to determine whether or not your ad gets displayed by Google, and if it does, then where it actually populates on a patients search (its ad rank).
This score also determines your cost per click (CPC), the amount you pay for each click on your ad (this is the reason why Online Paid Search Ads are also called PPC Ads). Combining your Quality Score with your maximum bid rate will determine your ad rank in Google’s auction process for ad display.
Failing to run ads in accordance with search engine documentation and policies for the healthcare industry can result in your Google Ads account being banned, ads blocked, or ad spend dollars wasted. Thus, professional ads management is vital in order to reap the rewards of a >3x+ ROI.
As a medical practice, if you are serious about boosting patient volume, running well-managed Google Ads could be a transformative endeavor. Here’s why:
The better your Quality Score, the greater your ROI on your Ad Spend. Therefore, optimization of the factors that go into Quality Score is critical. Some of the most important considerations are:
Unlike Paid Google Ads that are based on keywords being searched by patients on Google, Paid Facebook Ads enable you to refine your ad targets by selecting a particular target audience. PPC Facebook Ads provide you with granular target audience pinpointing by offering retargeting tools and Custom and Lookalike Audience tools. Using these tools properly, and in accordance to healthcare policy, is critical to prevent your account from getting banned, your ads from getting blocked, or your ad spend from being utterly wasted! Hence, professional ad management is absolutely essential for running such ads.
The retargeting strategy on Paid Facebook Ads involves installing a Facebook Pixel on your website to track website visitors via Facebook accounts. When website visitors go back on their Facebook accounts, they will be served your ads again to maximize your chance of conversion by re-targeting these visitors, who are generally more likely to become new patients if they are served ads during multiple touch points.
The custom and lookalike audience strategy involves the Facebook system extrapolating user data of patients that also have a Facebook account and creating a model patient to target via demographics, interests, behaviors, and/or employment backgrounds.
Both these strategies are powerful ways to serve ads to target patients and increase new patient volume.
In addition to Search Ads and Social Ads, retargeting ads engage patients who have frequented your website with follow-up ads using cookies, tags, and pixels. It is vital that you run such ads in a HIPAA compliant manner. Display network ads share your ads across large networks of websites in banners and other pre-designated ad spaces. Local Service ads are a newer ad type that populates ads for practices at the top of localized search results, which can be tremendously beneficial to drive new patient volume in target geographies.
We drive proven results to top-rated healthcare organizations of all types and sizes.
A healthcare practice in any maturity stage requires a properly integrated marketing infrastructure; impactful patient attraction, acquisition, and retention tactics; and effective strategic analytics. Partner with Curato Health to grow and thrive.