Dental Marketing 101: How to Improve your Dental PPC Campaign

With paid ads currently increasing brand awareness by 80%, PPC campaigns continue to prove to be an efficient dental marketing solution. This advertisement model is significantly impacting lead generation strategies for dentists. 

PPC allows dentists to recoup 200% of the ads budget, which is higher than many dental marketing strategies or advertisement platforms. However, it is not enough to set up and run PPC campaigns; you have to optimize them to get the best results. This article discusses tips to improve the performance of your dental PPC campaigns. 

What is a Dental PPC Campaign

As the name implies, pay-per-click marketing is an online advertising model that charges dental practices when a web user clicks their online ad. As opposed to advertisement models that charge based on how many times the ad is viewed, this approach prioritizes the action that your prospective patients take when they see your ad. With this strategy, you pay for what matters. 

From Google Ads to Google Display Networks, there are several PPC campaign options to consider and incorporate into your dental marketing strategy. Any of these options can improve your dental practice’s online visibility and attract more patient leads. However, it is advisable to consult with a dental marketing expert before choosing an option. A Connect the Doc ads specialist can work with you to determine your dental practice’s best PPC campaign option. If you’re already running PPC campaigns, the following tips can help improve them. 

How to Improve Your Dental PPC Campaign Performance

1. Set Clear Goals

As with any other marketing strategy, you need to set clear goals for your PPC campaign. If you already set a goal for your current campaign, consider reassessing your goals. Are your current goals realistic and attainable? Are your goals all over the place? Redefine your goals and ensure they are within the scope of what’s possible during the set period of your PPC campaign. 

2. Check Your Keywords

Sometimes, all it takes to get better results is a new keyword addition. PPC campaigns are a targeted marketing approach that uses keywords to reach the right audience. You need high-performing keywords (or keywords with a high click-through-rate) to ensure your campaign’s success. So if you haven’t already done so, you should take a step back and conduct a comprehensive keyword research — or hire an expert to do it for you. 

Consider testing location-based and localized niche keywords for your campaign. Location-based keywords are specific to a geographical location (e.g., dentists in Seattle), while localized niche keywords are specific and long-tailed (e.g., gum surgery dentists in Seattle). Such keywords are great for targeting specific segments of your prospective patient base and attract patients who are ready to schedule appointments with you. 

3. Add Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are keywords that you specifically want excluded from your PPC campaign.  When running a Google ads campaign, you can add negative keywords, and this lets you focus your campaign on the search queries that matter to your prospective patients. By ensuring your campaign is highly targeted, you can boost your conversion rate and ROI. 

4. Use Ad Extensions

Ad Extensions are additional details that allow you to target more prospective patients with your dental ads. These extensions could include your practice’s phone number, address, or links to specific relevant parts of your dental website. By adding these extensions to your PPC campaign, you can increase your ads’ visibility and boost your campaign’s click-through-rate while providing more value to prospective patients. 

5. Optimize your Landing Pages

Landing pages are the first place prospective patients visit when they click your ads. Ideally, this page should be hosted on your website and designed to encourage visitors to take action on that page. Your landing page is your opportunity to convert strangers to patients. Add a form with a call-to-action for visitors to submit their contact details or schedule a phone call or appointment with you. Landing page builders, like Unbounce, are great for designing useful and high-converting dental landing pages. 

6. Use Call Tracking

Consider optimizing your ads for phone calls. Add your phone number as an ad extension. If you’re already using ads to get prospective patients to call your dental practice, be sure to incorporate call tracking into your PPC campaigns. Call tracking allows you to learn the keywords that work for your callers and pinpoint the traffic source of their call. With this information, you can fine-tune your PPC campaign and improve your ad performance. 

7. Write engaging copy

Your ad copy should clear, relevant, understanding, and actionable. Your prospective patients should know your dental practice’s unique value proposition and the next steps for them to take after reading your copy. Refrain from reusing ad copy from other dentists’ marketing campaigns. Instead, get creative with your ads and make them unique to your practice. 

8. Keep your ads account organized

If you always have to click through each ad in your ad account to remind yourself about the ad details, you might have a disorganized ad account. An organized ads account can go a long way to being more effective with dental marketing strategies. It can save you time, help you track your metrics better, and improve the way you run your ads. Your ads should specify your campaign types, bidding strategies, and device options. 

Your ads account is crucial to the success of your PPC campaign.  If you’re having trouble keeping your ads account organized, consider working with a dental marketing expert who can manage your account and ensure your PPC campaigns are giving you the best results.

Each of these eight tips can go a long way to helping you maximize your marketing budget, improve your ad performance, attract more patient leads and convert them to active patients. Connect the Doc can work with you to identify and fix gaps in your PPC campaign strategy. You don’t have to keep losing money on ineffective PPC campaigns. Contact us today to start implementing proven methods to help you get the most out of your dental marketing efforts.