How Do Dentists Benefit From PPC Advertising For Their Dental Practice?

Do you want to create a steady and continuous stream of new patients for your dental practice at optimal customer acquisition costs? Well, allow me to introduce you to the idea of online dental advertising. Online advertisement isn’t a new concept, but it is a dynamic phenomenon that could work wonders for a dental practice!

Like most other types of businesses, dental practices have a lot to gain from paid advertising in general and the Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising model. Dental practices are facing very stiff competition, regardless of where they are located. There are many dental practices at almost every geographical location, and there is also very little to differentiate between them. Acquiring new patients, retaining them, and raising awareness about the dental practice at low costs are challenges every dental practice faces. 

PPC advertising can heal all these pain points and many more for dental practices. Some of its most important benefits are:

• It generates more new patient appointments.
• It reduces new patient acquisition costs.
• It helps create a strong brand identity for your dental practice, enabling you to stand out from the crowd.
• It builds brand loyalty, which helps retain existing patients.
• It promises a high ROI and significant profitability if executed well.  

In this article, you will learn about why Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising model is vital for dental practices, how to implement PPC dental ads into your dental marketing strategy, and, most importantly, how to increase new patient appointments with PPC campaigns.

 

What is Paid Advertising and Pay Per Click (PPC)?

Paid advertising is any form of advertising that you have to pay to ‘rent’ an online ad space. 

One type of paid ad is Pay Per Impression (CPM), which is mostly has used for brand awareness campaigns. However, the most effective paid advertising model is Pay Per Click (PPC) that has been widely used by dental marketing agencies and dentists. It is often used synonymously with paid advertising.

The PPC ad is tied to specific keywords, and each time a user searches for the keyword, the ad would pop up on top of the search results or social media platforms. It may also appear on websites that offer products and services similar to those advertised as a display ad.

 

Different Types of PPC for Dental Practices

Paid advertising can take various forms. The nature and size of your business and the market, your target audience’s behavior and preferences, and your advertising budget, together determine which type of paid advertising is most suitable for your business. Here’s a brief overview of the essential types of paid ads that could prove beneficial for dental advertisement.

• Paid Search / Google Ads

  Paid search ads are the most common form of PPC advertising. They usually appear at the top of Search Engine Result Pages (SERP), above the organic search results. A dental PPC expert creates a paid search campaign for its clients based on the PPC strategy, targeted keywords, and competitor analysis. Then set a daily budget and bid in an auction for the cost of per click (CPC). The Google algorithm chooses the best (not necessarily the highest) bids from the ad auction. It assigns them spots as sponsored links on their result pages.

• Social Media Advertisement

  This type of PPC ad places on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, etc. They are usually presented as a combination of image(s), video, and text. The popularity of Social ads is increasing by leaps and bounds because of the extraordinary demand for social media as statistics show at least 90% of Americans in the 18-29 age group and 82% in the 30-49 age group use at least one social media platform.

  This makes social media advertising an extremely effective way to target specific demographics through PPC, brand awareness, and retargeting campaigns. Driving traffic to your website is easier and cost-effective with social media advertising.

• Youtube TrueView Ads:

  TrueView ads are another type of PPC advertising model. They are usually created and distributed in the video ad format on YouTube. Advertisers pay for the ad only when the users choose to watch it. There are two broad classifications of TrueView ads.

• Instream Ads:

  That you see before, after, or anywhere during a YouTube video.

• Video Discovery Ads:

  That appears alongside other videos on the YouTube search results page. For products and services that are better marketed with a demonstration, TrueView ads can come in handy for pitching your product or dental service to the audience while choosing to pay a price that you are comfortable with.

• Display Advertising:

  A display ad, aka a banner ad, consists of an image, multimedia, and text. It places on third party websites on the Google Display Network (GDN), social media platforms, or any website with advertising capability in place. The GDN currently has more than 2 million sites and reaches 9 out of 10 people on the internet.

  With display ads, your Dental Advertising Agency can create a targeted display ad campaign for your practice that is most likely to interact with the local audiences interested in the dental services you provide.

• Remarketing / Retargeting:

  Remarketing is a technique used to show ads to users who have already visited your site but haven’t converted yet. The retargeting ads or display ads. Retargeting is a great technique to convert seemingly lost leads to sales.

 

Why Should Dental Practices Use PPC in their Online Dental Advertisement Strategy?

Over the years, we have had dentists come up to us and say, “Well, we understand how it works in general. But how exactly does it work for our practice? What benefits can it specifically bring to my business? Why should we adopt it?” Well, here’s why:

 

PPC Ads Generate New Patient Appointments For Dentists

Targeted traffic for dental businesses always has a high potential for transforming into new patients’ appointments. No one searches for dental practices or dental treatments, thinking that they might need one at a later date. The nature of dental-related searches is urgent. 

PPC ads are also ideal for making the most of intent marketing opportunities. Intent marketing is the practice of giving consumers just what they need based on buying a particular product. For instance, a user who googles ‘best dentist near me‘ is genuinely looking for a dentist at that very moment. Intent marketing involves targeting such users and marketing a product or service to them when they need it. PPC ads satisfy his requirement by giving him what he wants – a reliable dental practice.

Statistics show that 40% of potential patients who search for dental services end up clicking on one of the sponsored ads at the top of the search engine result pages (SERP). If your dental advertisement and the landing page impress them, then it almost always guarantees a new patient for you. Along with PPC advertising, clinic’s correct website design generates patient appointments too.

 

High ROI & Profitability

Paid search ads are measurable, customizable, cost-efficient, and result-oriented. They also give you a high ROI. Google estimates that for every dollar spent on Google ads, advertisers get $2 in revenue. With this reliable estimation and quality leads generated from a PPC campaign, a high ROI and good profitability are virtually guaranteed with the PPC model.

A dental PPC agency can help you implement targeted Pay Per Click ads in your dental advertising campaigns to quickly generate new patient appointments for your practice at the lowest patient acquisition cost.

 

Control & Customization

With PPC, you can set, modify, and control your ads spending budget and PPC strategy. You may also monitor and change the keyword strategy, landing pages, your target audiences, locations, and many more. PPC is an accurate representation of customizable advertising.

 

Targeting Through Social Ads

As more people use social media sites daily, these platforms are becoming the better place to connect with your target audience. There are a plethora of advantages of social media advertising for dental practices, with the most prominent of them being the following:

• It is effortless to target users based on their profession, location, preferences, interests, etc., through social ads. You can reach the targeted demographic directly with your ads and ensure that they reach your target audience.
• Social media ads increase brand awareness. They allow dentists to communicate with people outside their customer base and effectively get the word out about their practice.
• Social media is also a great place to gain an insight into what your prospects want. You can learn about their likes, dislikes, demands, etc., and utilize this information to deliver a more pleasant experience to your patients and create more patient-oriented service packages.
• Social media advertising can help to forge solid dentist-patient relationships. When prospects see a dentist replying to their queries online and interact with them in a more informal environment, they form a positive image of your practice in their mind. You can build a stronger relationship with them, which usually creates customer loyalty.

• A substantial social media presence helps establish credibility and authority for your business. By posting helpful tips, articles, and other useful information, you can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise.

 

For example, a social media marketing agency can create Facebook ads for a dentist to promote their monthly offers to their neighbors or an Orthodontics advertising campaign that target the audience group most likely to hire their services. With most potential patients on social media, your practice would get a lot of exposure and the right audience.

Also, pay per click ads and content you publish on your dental practice page on social media sites have a perfect chance to go viral. Because people are extremely likely to share content they like with their friends. Dentists who use PPC ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram get tremendous audience Interaction and engagement.

 

Converting Leads Through Retargeting

A sizable proportion of users who visit your website won’t convert instantly. Some may decide against hiring your services, but some may need some time to weigh their options. Retargeting could help convert these fading leads and generate revenue from them. Well designed, targeted dental retargeting ads would more or less succeed in achieving this objective.

 

Brand Awareness

You do not need to be the first mover to leverage PPC’s benefits and the tremendous growth potential it offers. You can jump onto the bandwagon anytime you want. With a smart and reputed Dental PPC agency by your side, you can always penetrate the market, create brand awareness about your services and dental practice, establish trust with your audience and acquire new patients when they need your service.

 

Why Should Dental Practices Use Both SEO and PPC?

One of the most common questions dentists ask us is to use PPC with SEO and if that combination would do any good for their business. Well, the answer to that is a resounding yes!

For the uninitiated, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) generates leads and directing traffic to a website through organic and unpaid search results. Combining dental SEO with PPC has several advantages, such as:

• With a combination of PPC and SEO in your dental marketing strategy, you can expect to find your website at the top of SERPs, which translated to more exposure and increased website traffic. In the short term, PPC would get you an ad placement at the top of the SERP, and in the long run, SEO would do the same for you without spending on online advertising. If your ranking for specific keywords falls, you can always use PPC to reclaim the top spots temporarily.
• When you have both SEO and PPC working for you, you can collect and analyze twice the data than otherwise. This would give you an insight into the responsiveness and performance of various keywords and help you decide which ones you should pursue and which ones you should drop.
• You can test your keyword strategy with PPC before you commit to the more long term process of SEO.
• If done well, PPC and SEO could individually drive up your conversion rates. So when they work together in tandem, your conversion rates are bound to go soaring through the roof.

 

What Does a PPC Management Agency Bring to the Table for Dental Practices?

PPC and Paid Search Management are skills that can be learned and applied by anyone who wants to. But just because everyone can, doesn’t mean everyone should. I assume that dentists would be among the first groups of people to recognize and understand specialization’s value. Just like a dentist should be in charge of dealing with all oral health issues, a PPC Management Agency should be responsible for planning, creating, and implementing your online dental advertising strategy.

As the name suggests, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a particular type of marketing on search engines such as Google and Bing, among others. Every PPC Management Agency uses it to leverage search engines’ power for reaching potential customers at the right place and at the right time, and the optimal paid advertising cost. Efficient paid search management, one of the most crucial factors that determine the success or failure of an advertising campaign, comes naturally to Dental PPC agencies that are proficient at SEM,

PPC Management agencies have the requisite knowledge, experience, and insight to craft a successful ad campaign through attractive headlines, imagery, and ad copies. To give you an example, remember how I said that the Google algorithm allots the ad slots to the ‘best’ bids, which may not necessarily be the highest bids? 

Besides the bidding price, Google also assigns a substantial weightage to the ad’s quality, relevance to the search query, and your site’s quality score. Marketing agencies know how to curate ads to meet these requirements, and the best ones could get your PPC ad running at prices that are far lower than the highest bids. Agencies also know when, why, and how to complement the dental PPC strategy with other ad types such as Facebook ads, YouTube ads, etc., to get the requisite results.

 

Related: The ultimate guide to choosing the best dental marketing agency

 

Conclusion

This article aims to introduce dentists to PPC’s world and the limitless growth potential that it offers. Through the course of this article, we acquainted you with the concept of PPC and its various forms, how it benefits your dental practice, and how having a PPC Management Agency by your side can help you achieve the following business goals:

• Generate new patient appointments
• Create brand awareness
• Generate quality leads
• Improve conversion rate
• Minimize customer acquisition cost
• Improve the ROI
• Measure and track the performance of the advertising strategy
• As we mentioned before, it is never too late to launch PPC campaigns! So if you haven’t yet jumped on board with the idea, now is the time! 
• Do let us know what you think of this advertising model and whether you find it suitable for your practice.