In case you missed it, Google changed how they display their search results. Google now grants even more priority to Google ads. With the top 4 positions of any search result allocated to their advertisers. This is good news if your website isn’t ranking on Google. Your dental ads can easily be placed above dentists who are ranking in the top organic positions.

Not only are advertisers occupying the entire top fold of the search results, relegating organic listings further down the page, but Google has also adapted the appearance of Google Ads. This gives the ads a more natural look, and will undoubtedly increase the click-through rate of your dental ads.

With these recent improvements, it’s fair to say that PPC advertising is now the best lead generation marketing strategy for local businesses.

Does Google PPC advertising work for Dentists?

Despite the many improvements to Google PPC Advertising, there’s a belief amongst some dentists that Google ads don’t work. In a recent communication I had with one independent dentist, he said:

“I’ve had a very poor experience with Google Adwords with a campaign that was run by a fairly reputable online marketing company.”

The implication being that because a reputable marketing company ran the Dental ads campaign, the reason it failed must be the advertising, and not how the campaign was managed.

While it’s frustrating to invest money into dental ads that don’t pay off, a bad experience in Google Advertising doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. There are specific reasons why a Google Advertising campaign can fail, including a lack of industry-specific intelligence of the dental industry.

If a marketing agency is to manage dental ads in the same way it does for businesses in other industries, then the results of the campaign can be jeopardized. The performance of the dental ads campaign can often rest entirely on whether the campaign manager is aware of the subtle factors that differentiate the dental industry from other types of industries.

Here are five of the most common reasons a dental ads campaign will not work as it should:

1. Dental Ads Campaign Structure

One of the most significant components of any dental ads campaign is ensuring that the ads show for the right people. We only want ads showing for people who are most likely seeking a dentist in the dentist’s local area.

A well-structured Google ads campaign will dictate which dental services are to be advertised. It will state how much budget is allocated to each service, and how geo-targeting is managed in the campaign. Conversely, a weak campaign structure will waste a portion of the advertising budget. The dental ads will show in the wrong locations, and to people who are unlikely to become a patient.

It’s common to see a dental Ads campaign with a weak campaign structure. Therefore, this is the first place to look at when assessing why the campaign isn’t working.

2. Keyword Management

Poor keyword management is a standard issue with dental ads campaigns. Not only is it crucial to target the right keywords but it’s just as important to eliminate the wrong keywords from the campaign.

For example, a keyword most dental practices want to target is “dentist.” This keyword can drive lots of traffic to a dental website. But it can also waste a significant portion of an ad budget if it’s incorrectly managed. This is because it triggers long tail keywords too. Long tail keywords are keyword terms such as “Dentist Nuse” or “Dentist jobs” or “Dentist advertising.” None of which are a good match, and will attract the wrong audience.

There are a couple of ways to overcome this. The first way is to use modified broad match keywords, and then add an exhaustive list of negative keywords. Ensuring that the ad doesn’t show on non-relevant searches.

The second way is to use exact match keywords only. This will result in less traffic. However, it will only show your ad when a searcher types the exact word or phrase.

3. Quality Score Optimisation

Quality Score is Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and dental ads. It is used to calculate your cost per click (CPC). Quality Score depends on multiple factors, including:

• Your click-through rate (CTR).
• The relevance of each keyword to its ad group.
• The quality and relevance of your landing page.
• The relevance of your ad text.

If Google grades your dental ad campaign with a low-quality score, you will pay higher rates for advertising. The better your quality score, the less you pay, and the better your dental ads campaign will perform.

4. Text Ad Optimisation of Dental Ads

One of the four factors that improve quality score is click-through rate (CTR) of your text ads. To increase CTR, the copy in your text ads must entice more people to click on it. To get more clicks, you need to stand out and be different. However, most dentist text ads look very similar. The key to improving CTR is to run a test between two different text ads.

Testing is the process used for scientifically improving the performance of an ad. When we test two text ads, 50% of the searchers will see text ad ‘A.’ While the remaining 50% will see the variation text ad ‘B’. The winning Ad is kept, and the loser is replaced with another text ad. The process continues over and over to improve the performance of the dental ads.

5. Increase Conversion Rate

The key to making dental ads more profitable is to improve the conversion rate of the landing page. The conversion rate is the rate at which the landing page turns visitors into patients. A poor performing landing page will mean that the ad campaign is also performing poorly.

Therefore, the goal of dental marketing is to get more visitors converting into leads and sales. The more the conversion rate can be improved, the lower it will cost to acquire a new patient, and the more prosperous the dental ad campaign will be.

It is indeed apparent that dental practices are trying to increase traffic to their website. But far less have a strategy that improves the conversion rate of their visitors into sales.

Check out an article this link where I write about the power of a conversion strategy.

In Conclusion

There has been a lot of positive changes to the Google PPC advertising recently. However, if you want to gain an advantage over your competitors, your dental ads campaign manager must understand the dental industry