Dental Success: 20+ New Appointment Calls A Month via Google Ads

Editor’s Note: this case study was written 4 months ago. We check in with Dr. Chien and he got 26 New Patients from Google Ads this month –showing how consistent Google Ads are in bringing doctors new patients.

The client only works 3 and a half days a week and gets 20+ appointment bookings a month with ~2 dental implants month.

Let me calculate that…

That’s more than one new appointment request per working day.

Even just one dental implant more than covers the marketing cost.

The stipulation from the client: no “free consultation”, no “free teeth cleaning”, no “20% off”,  nor any other kind of discount offers; he felt that discounts will cheapen his brand.*

Of course, this would cost more and make the ads harder to implement. Most ad agencies would have rejected the potential client right away because “they wouldn’t be able to make it work”. We accepted the challenge.

How we succeeded:

1. Create Larger Appealing Ads.
2. Target the right keywords.
3. Build specific landing pages for each keyword.
4. Secret Targeting Tactic that no other competitors use.

Create Larger Ads

Here is a quick tip on dental Google Adwords. The bigger the amount of space your ad takes up on Google, the more attention it attracts and the better its performance.

See the size difference between in the two? Our ads is bigger than our competitor.

It’s like bidding for ad space on Times Square – if you get the largest billboard, you’ll get the most conversions. Except on Times Square, the largest billboard costs 10x, 100x, or more money; on Google Adwords, it costs around same.

So how did we do this? We use ad extensions. So on Google, there is a setting to add different types of ad extensions: location extension, phone number extension, site-link extension, etc, etc that all add up to make your ad bigger. By default none of the extensions are enabled. You have to go in and make your own for each of them. Make sure you enable ALL of them!

Our larger ad actually costs a little less than the competitors. I know, you are thinking, “how does that even work?”

Google algorithm explanation time!

Google likes ads that convert more and get a high ratio of clicks for the number of views it gets. Since Google gets paid only when people click on your ad, if your ad sucks and no one clicks on it Google doesn’t get paid and Google doesn’t like it.

When Google doesn’t like your ad, they will show it less often and charge you more for each click. Here is a guide for developing a successful dental marketing plan.

Targeting the Right Keywords

We targeted the precise exact keywords that people are searching for.

Here’s where a lot of people go wrong:

1. A lot of people just use put in the keyword “dentist” in the dashboard and think they are done. Google default automatically broad matches “dentist” with any phrase related to it. So the result is, their ad shows up on everything related to the word “dentist” from “dental school” to “dentist salary”. This is all wasted money.
   1. We have an extensive list of negative keywords, like “school, CEU, and salary” that make sure Dr. Chien’s ad doesn’t appear on those search results. This negative keyword list is compiled from all the data we’ve gathered working with dentists.
2. Different keywords intent are different. For example, “dental teeth whitening” vs “dentist near me” may seem like both great keywords but if you target dental teeth whitening you’ll be losing a lot of money.
   1. Let’s break it down:
      1. A lot of people searching for “dental teeth whitening” are actually looking for at-home teeth whitening kits. So when they click on your ad, it’s wasted money. They aren’t looking for a dentist to whiten there teeth, they are looking to do it themselves.
      2. Whereas the keyword “dentist near me” is a high intent keyword. It’s for people who are intent on going to the dentist and they need to find one. This keyword is worth a lot more and is the one you want to target.

And this is also the reason why Google Ads works so well when you know what you’re doing. People searching for these keywords want to find a dentist, now. So they Google “dentist near me” your result shows up at the top. *Bam* then click and call to book an appointment.

Landing Pages Specific to Search Keyword

Then we build specific landing pages aka mini-websites for each keyword.

For example, we build a dental implant page specifically for the dental implant ad. And we build “patient-focused” page specifically for people searching for “patient-oriented”/”stress-free” dentists.

When potential patients click on your ad for dental implant they don’t want to be directed to the home page of your site and then have to go through the menu to find something about dental implants. If they can’t find it immediately they’ll leave the site and you’ll lose a potential patient. Same with people looking specifically for more patient oriented/higher-end quality of care dentists. Remember to include a dental gallery to stand out and showcase your practice.

The landing page needs to match what the people are searching for.

• But what a lot of advertising dentist do is just send potential patients to their home page no matter if the potential patient is searching for a simple teeth cleaning or complicated dental surgery.

Here’s a bonus: Because our landing page matches the keyword, Google ranks our ad higher and gives it a lower cost-per-click.

Here’s one of our landing pages designed specifically for the keyword “patient-oriented”:

Secret Tactic

So when/why do people look for a new dentist?

• The #1 reason: when they move to a new city/state.

Okay, this one is actually a secret that I came up with that no other competitors use. There is no option built into Google that let’s you target someone who just moved into a new location. It’s simply not available. So how do you target people who just moved in?

Here’s our secret work around. So what we do is, we research the area, and we find the zipcodes where new apartments/new homes have just been built. And we target those location.

What does new apartments mean? It means people moving in who need to find a new dentist.

So we geotarget new apartments, new homes. And we get incredible results this way.

Result: The dentist got high-quality leads and averaged one new appointment request from the ad every working day. The ad was immensely profitable.

Too busy/Not Good With Computers/Not Comfortable Running Google Adwords? No Problem, We Can Help.

Want the same result for your business? Apply here.