3 Strategic Approaches to Advertising Your Medical Practice on Google and Meta

We at NKP Medical are excited that more plastic surgery and med spa practices are using Google and Meta advertising and we understand that paid ads can be a tricky maze to navigate. We understand the hesitation of doing this by yourself. Over the years, we get several questions like:

1. Where should I focus the majority of my ad budget?
2. Are Google ads better than Facebook ads or Instagram ads?
3. What should I do before I even place ads?

In this article, we’ll discuss scenarios and strategies where prioritizing Google ads may be a better option than advertising on Meta, and vice-versa. We’ll also explore a strategy where both are used.

Google Ads: Prioritizing High Search Intent

When we talk about Google Ads, we’re talking about paid search across two main networks: Search and Display. For the purpose of this article, we’ll focus more on Search Ads than on Display Ads because our clients find more success with Search Ads.

The Search Network is primarily visible on Google Search. On the other hand, the Display Network pushes visual ads on YouTube, Gmail, and non-Google-owned websites.  While there are many similarities, their goals are on opposite ends of the advertising spectrum. Google Search ads appear to users who have a high search intent–meaning they’re more likely to click on the ad–and ads coming from the Display Network are more focused on brand awareness. 

According to a WordStream study, the Health & Medical industry has an average click-through rate (CTR) of 3.27% on the Search Network and a 0.59% CTR on the Display Network. While these seem like small numbers, we must consider that there are approximately  8.5 billion searches every day. That’s 99,000 searches every second, says HubSpot. 

So how can your medical practice reel in the patients that are already looking for your treatments online? Consider this scenario: 

You’re advertising to find Botox patients within your city. You can have the ad presented to people searching for anything with “botox” included in the search. You can then narrow this down to searches that demonstrate high purchase intent (for example, “botox for forehead wrinkles” or “botox near me”).  Finally, you can choose to exclude your ad from being shown on searches that you may not want exposure to like “cheapest botox near me”.

The magic phrase here is “high search intent.” Google ads allow you to get in front of people who are looking for a product or service that you offer at that very moment. By simply knowing what keywords your target market uses, you can advertise to people who are actively looking for nearby providers of the treatment (for example, “botox near me”) or confirming if such a treatment can manage a condition (for example, “botox for forehead wrinkles”).

In short, advertising on Google Search allows you to target users actively searching for specific keywords related to what you’re offering, increasing the likelihood of conversions as they allow for precise targeting of specific search terms and locations.

MORE INFO: PPC vs. Organic: Finding the Right Balance for Medical Spa Marketing

Advertising on Meta: Banking on Visual Appeal

Advertising on Meta is an entirely different animal altogether. Unlike Google Search Ads, Meta will display your ad to an audience that you create. A simple audience can be created using demographics like age groups or gender. You can further define an audience based on interests and geographic location. 

For example, you can choose to display your Botox ad to people that have an affinity for the Kardashians. Meta has additional tools to develop even narrower audiences: you can create a look-alike audience using information about your prior patients or create an audience of people that have visited your website.

One thing that Meta ads prioritize is visual appeal–crisp, authentic photos and videos. Based on their quick best practices guide, they recommend that text should be shortened as people generally scan content on social media platforms, rather than click the “read more” link if your caption is too long. If you really want to get your message across, create video ads that stand out.

Our Paid Advertising experts study our client’s results on Search and Social ads and we noticed that ads about popular treatments and procedures, like Liposuction and Botox, perform well. 

At the same time, we have found that Meta ads are useful to introduce new products and services. This is because an unknown procedure will generate very little search volume on Google initially, so Google ads will be less effective. Meta ads do a great job of driving awareness of something new to the market.        

Both Google & Meta: Use Their Unique Advantages for Medical Aesthetics Advertising

Many medical practitioners do come to us and ask, “Why not both?”

Depending on your budget, an ideal paid ads strategy should have all the platforms covered. Google’s biggest advantage is that you can precisely target users that are intent on getting a procedure that your practice offers right now. Meta is great for expanding brand awareness across users on Facebook and Instagram–your challenge here is defining and hyper-targeting your audience.  As you refine the audience on Meta, ads can be highly effective.

In short, use their advantages to your advantage.

For example: You want to increase the number of patients coming into your practice to try your new menu of treatments. There’s two ways to approach this:

1. Create a local ad campaign on Google Search when someone searches for “plastic surgeon [city]” or a “near me” search with any of your treatments.
2. On Meta, particularly on Facebook and Instagram, create static photo and video ads that indicate your up-and-coming treatments. You can target adult female users who follow beauty influencers living around your city or region.

They can both lead to a landing page where they can proceed to book a consultation online.

Conclusion

There’s so many factors to consider when you decide which platform is best for you. 

1. What’s your budget?
2. What are your advertising goals?
3. Where are your potential patients interacting more?
4. How much time do you want to spend monitoring your campaign?

Both platforms can be effective for medical practice advertising. Google ads are more suitable for targeting specific, high-intent audiences. On the other hand, advertising on Meta is better for broader audience targeting with some limitations in filtering options. At the end of the day, know that they’ll work–one might work better than the other over time and with close monitoring you can reallocate your budget.

NKP Medical is equipped with the latest strategies and information on medical practice advertising, especially on Google and Meta. Contact us today to get your ads running in no time.