Tips for Running Paid Ads at Your Dental Practice

In an era of widespread usage of digital services, platforms and devices amongst dental patients, dentists must implement digital marketing strategies to reach their patients exactly where they are. Paid advertisements, or paid ads, are an important aspect of digital marketing that allows dentists to maximize their reach, learn more about their patients, run targeted marketing campaigns and analyze their marketing insights.

In this article, we will discuss 8 tips for running paid ads at your dental practice. By implementing these tips, you will improve your dental marketing strategy, save money on ineffective ad campaigns and learn more about your patients. 

Tips for Running Paid Ads at Your Dental Practice

1. Don’t make assumptions about your patients

Your dental practice’s digital marketing strategy must be premised on in-depth research about your current and prospective patients. Before you begin running your paid ads campaigns, spend some time studying your patients’ patterns, demography, behaviours and inquiries. Learn about the different ways your patients interact with your dental practice, their income brackets and how they respond to different ad formats amongst other details. These insights should inform the steps you take as you run your paid ads campaign. Don’t make assumptions or generalizations about your patients.

2. Use targeted keywords 

Keywords are search terms that your current and prospective patients may include in their search queries on Google as they look up dental services. Keywords could be short-tail, such as ‘dentists near me’ or long-tail, such as ‘dentist needed for emergency surgery’. If you understand your patients’ pain points, you’ll be able to predict their search queries and keywords. Include these keywords in your paid ads campaigns to boost the chances of your ads being seen by your target patients. 

It is important to be strategic about your choice of keywords. Location-specific and emergency keywords can ensure your paid ads campaigns are seen by patients who are more likely to become qualified leads for your dental practice. Location-specific keywords—such as ‘dentist Lambton-county’—help you target patients looking for dental services in your local community. Your dental practice is most accessible to these patients and chances are they are searching for those exact keywords. Likewise, emergency keywords—such as ‘urgent denture repair’— target patients who are ready to schedule appointments with your dental practice. 

3. Run timely and seasonal paid ads campaigns 

Time is of the essence when it comes to running paid ads campaign strategy. Successful dental ads campaigns run at the best time of the day, month or year when their target patients are likely to see them. Some dental practices run their ads during office hours when their prospective patients are most likely using their computers and mobile devices to surf the internet. Others run their ads after work hours when their prospective patients may be reading the news or engaging on social media. When preparing to run your paid ads campaign, you must identify the times that your prospective patients are most likely to see them. 

Seasonal campaigns, such as ads ran over the holiday season when patients may be looking to take advantage of promotional discounts, are also effective. Depending on your goals, the right ads run at the right time will get you the best results. At Connect the Doc, we work with dentists to study the best time to run their paid ads campaign. When you work with us, you are assigned a dedicated account manager who ensures the timing of your ad campaigns are modified and updated to match changes in your patients’ behaviours. 

4. Add videos to your paid ads campaigns

Cisco projects that by 2022, online videos will account for more than 82% of internet traffic. This means 8 out of 10 patients who visit your dental practice’s website will do so after they watch an online video. You don’t have to wait till 2022 to start integrating videos into your digital marketing strategies. Start now by adding videos to your paid ads campaigns. 

Videos are a powerful tool for communicating your dental practice’s brand story, engaging your patients and generating qualified leads. With video ads, you can say more in less time and help prospective patients understand your value proposition. These ads allow you to be creative and promote your dental practice in novel ways. Consider adding captions to your videos, especially the first minute of your videos. Captions make your videos more accessible and engage online viewers.

5. Advertise on Google Maps

Google Maps is a great tool for searching for businesses in one’s local area. Chances are your patients visit google maps when looking up dentists in their area. You should position your dental practice to be found for location-specific queries on Google Maps. Using Google Adwords, you can run your paid ads campaigns on Google Maps so that your dental practice can be highlighted above other search results. 

In addition to your ad placements on Google Maps, you should make sure your dental practice can be found online organically. Create a Google My Business profile for your dental practice and keep your profile updated. GoogleMyBusiness optimizes your dental website’s listing on Google’s SERPs and helps you rank high for relevant search queries. Talk to a Connect the Doc specialist, today, about leveraging Google Maps and GoogleMyBusiness to generate more leads for your dental practice. 

6. Run remarketing campaigns

Remarketing is a marketing strategy that targets patients who have previously engaged with your dental practice’s website. When you run remarketing campaigns, your ads will be seen by patients who are in an advanced stage of their buyer’s journey. These ads allow your dental practice to stay top of mind for these patients and encourage them to revisit your dental website. 

Keep in mind that remarketing paid ads campaigns target prospective patients who may already be aware of your dental practice. Take this into account as you develop copy, images and information for these ads campaigns. Use these campaigns to remind patients to book their appointment or learn more about your dental practice. 

7. Optimize your Landing Pages 

Landing pages are web pages on your dental practice’s website that collects information about your patients. Also known as destination pages, landing pages are web pages your patients visit when they click links or call-to-action buttons on your paid ads. These pages help you close the deal or convert a visitor to a lead. As such, they must be well-designed and curated to build curiosity amongst your visitors. Your landing pages encourage your prospective patients to learn more about your dental practice and share their information with you. 

Features of a good landing page include clean design, clear messages, persuasive copy, engaging media, trust indicators—such as your current patients’ reviews and testimonials—strong call-to-action prompts and a lead-capture form amongst others. When creating and optimizing your landing page, showcase your value proposition in a way that is attractive yet simple and straightforward. If you need help designing or learning more about landing pages for your paid ads campaigns, you should contact Connect the Doc. We’ll assign a website manager to your dental practice who will optimize your landing pages and improve your dental SEO.

8. Analyze your results 

Effective paid ads campaigns are the result of an in-depth analysis of failed or less successful paid ads campaigns. The more you analyze your ads campaign results, the better your results and ROI from your future ads campaigns. You must have a system, timeline and KPIs in place for reviewing your ads campaigns. You should be testing your ad campaigns from time to time to learn more about your patients and discover the campaign practices that give you the best results. 

The last thing you want to do is throw money away by spending unnecessarily on ineffective ads campaigns. You should work with paid ads strategists who can analyze your ads campaign results, gather insights and make recommendations for future ads campaigns. Your ads strategist can advise you on the ad types, formats and platforms that are the best fit for your dental practice and your target patients. 

In Summary

As more patients continue to depend on digital platforms for information, it is important to integrate paid advertisements into your dental marketing strategy. As you do so, make sure you comply with the regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), implement an online reputation management strategy and keep improving the quality of your patient experience. Your paid ads campaigns should work in tandem with other lead generation and conversion strategies. 

The success of your paid ads campaigns depends on more than just the ads. You need a well-optimized landing page, GoogleMyBusiness profile, keyword research and a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. Connect the Doc provides holistic digital marketing solutions for dentists and dental practices across North America. We will ensure your dental marketing efforts nurture and convert more leads for your dental practice. Contact a Connect the Doc paid ads strategist to learn more about running targeted ads campaigns that reach your patients exactly where they are.