Healthcare Google Ads

Google is where almost every patient journey starts. Someone notices a symptom, a niggle, a flare-up, or they get told by their GP they need to see a specialist, and within minutes they're on Google typing in a search. Our job is to make sure your practice is the one they find, book, and come back to. Our team has been running healthcare Google Ads for over a decade and we do nothing else. No e-commerce accounts, no SaaS side projects, no lead-gen for plumbers. Just healthcare.

What Healthcare Google Ads Actually Involves

Healthcare Google Ads isn't just Search. A properly built healthcare account uses Search campaigns for high-intent condition and service keywords, Performance Max for brand protection and remarketing, YouTube for awareness in longer consideration journeys like cosmetic surgery, Display for retargeting, and Local Service Ads (Google Screened) for practices that qualify. Each layer has a role. Search drives the bookings. PMax and remarketing pick up the people who weren't ready to convert on first click. YouTube pre-sells higher-consideration procedures.

Then there's the compliance layer sitting on top of all of it. Google runs healthcare advertisers through a verification process. AHPRA has a separate set of rules that apply to any registered practitioner regardless of what Google allows. And the TGA has its own requirements for anyone advertising therapeutic goods or restricted representations. Most agencies either don't know these rules exist or hope nobody notices. We build every campaign with all three in mind from day one.

Google Ads for Medical Practices

Google Ads for healthcare is one of the most cost-effective patient acquisition channels a medical practice can run, and most practices are either not running it or running it badly. When we audit existing accounts, the same issues come up again and again: broad match keywords eating budget on irrelevant searches, Performance Max campaigns swallowing up Search traffic and claiming credit for conversions Search would have made anyway, landing pages that don't match the ad copy, no call tracking, and conversion tracking that counts anyone who hits a thank-you page as a patient.

A well-built medical practice Google Ads account has tightly themed ad groups, phrase and exact match keywords doing most of the heavy lifting, a negative keyword list that's actively maintained, conversion tracking that measures actual booked appointments (not form fills), and landing pages purpose-built for each service. It sounds obvious. Almost nobody does it.

Google Ads for Doctors, GPs and Specialists

GP clinics and specialist practices have some of the highest-intent searches on Google. 'Bulk billing doctor near me', 'GP open Sunday', 'after hours doctor [suburb]', 'skin cancer check', 'mens health clinic'. These are people who need an appointment this week, usually this day. The ad needs to match the intent in one click, the landing page needs to lead with booking, and your phone needs to be answered.

For specialists, the game changes. A patient searching for an endocrinologist or a neurologist often has a referral letter in hand and is shopping on location and availability. Our campaigns for specialist practices lean heavily on location modifiers, health fund information, and wait time signals. We also run referrer-targeted campaigns separately, because GPs Googling 'endocrinologist Melbourne accepting referrals' deserve different messaging to patients.

Google Ads for Dentists

Dental Google Ads is one of the most competitive healthcare verticals on the platform, and it's where account structure matters most. A dental clinic that runs one campaign called 'Dental Services' is burning money. We split every dental account by procedure: general dentistry, emergency dental, cosmetic (veneers, whitening), implants, Invisalign and clear aligners, paediatric, and sleep dentistry where relevant.

Each of those procedures has a completely different patient value, a different keyword set, and a different conversion path. Emergency dental is phone-heavy and converts in hours. Implants and veneers are multi-touch, high-consideration, and need remarketing and YouTube layered on top of Search. We size budgets and build landing pages accordingly.

Google Ads for Allied Health

Allied health Google Ads covers physiotherapy, chiropractic, psychology, osteopathy, podiatry, exercise physiology, dietetics, speech pathology, and occupational therapy. Each has its own quirks, but the principles are the same: condition-specific campaigns beat generic 'physio near me' campaigns, location targeting matters more than broad geography, and the phone is still the primary conversion point.

For physiotherapists and chiropractors, we build condition-led campaigns around sciatica, lower back pain, neck pain, shoulder injuries, sports injuries, and post-surgical rehab. Google Ads for psychologists is more regulated because AHPRA is particularly strict on psychology advertising, so we stick to service descriptions, Medicare Better Access messaging, and bulk billing availability where it applies. No testimonials, no guarantees, no comparative claims. Google Ads for chiropractors runs into AHPRA's stricter rules around adjustment claims, so we stay well inside the evidence-based lane.

Google Ads for NDIS Providers

NDIS Google Ads has its own playbook. Participants and support coordinators search differently to private-pay patients, and the conversion path usually involves a service agreement rather than a same-week appointment. We build separate campaigns for participant-direct searches and support coordinator searches. Participant campaigns lean on plan-managed and self-managed keywords, service category terms, and location. Support coordinator campaigns focus on capacity, intake turnaround, and specialisation.

The other NDIS-specific challenge is keeping out job seekers. A huge slice of 'NDIS jobs', 'NDIS provider requirements', and 'NDIS application' traffic is worthless to you. We maintain aggressive negative keyword lists on every NDIS account we run.

Google Ads for Cosmetic Clinics

Cosmetic and aesthetic Google Ads is where the compliance layer gets serious. Before-and-after images are tightly regulated. Testimonials are off-limits if the service involves a registered practitioner. Restricted representations on cosmetic injectables (anti-wrinkle, dermal fillers) mean you can't name the product in your ad copy or landing page. TGA enforcement has ramped up in the last couple of years and we've seen clinics slapped with significant issues for ads we could have prevented.

Our cosmetic clinic campaigns stay well inside the rules and still convert. We rely on treatment category language, outcome descriptions that don't overpromise, and landing pages that educate before they sell. YouTube pre-roll and remarketing work particularly well for cosmetic because the research phase is long.

AHPRA-Compliant Google Ads

This is the layer most agencies get wrong, and the layer that matters most. AHPRA's advertising guidelines apply to every registered health practitioner: doctors, dentists, physios, psychologists, chiropractors, osteopaths, optometrists, pharmacists, nurses, and every allied health profession under the AHPRA umbrella. The rules are clear. No testimonials about clinical care. No misleading or deceptive claims. No creating unreasonable expectations. No using fear or discount pressure. No comparative claims about being the best or leading without solid evidence.

We've built internal checklists and ad copy templates specifically for AHPRA compliance. Every ad, every asset, every landing page goes through that review before it goes live. It's slower than what a generalist agency does, and it's the reason our clients don't get reported and don't get sanctioned.

Conversion Tracking, Call Tracking, and CPL Benchmarks

If your conversion tracking is wrong, everything downstream is wrong. Your bidding is wrong, your budget allocation is wrong, your reports are wrong, and your decisions are wrong. We rebuild conversion tracking from scratch on almost every account we take over, because form submissions and thank-you page views aren't patients.

We integrate with Halaxy, Cliniko, Splose, Nookal, Power Diary, and the major CRMs healthcare actually uses. Where direct integration isn't possible, we implement advanced call tracking with AI transcription so every phone enquiry gets logged, transcribed, and classified as booked, not booked, or wrong number. That data feeds back into Google's Smart Bidding and dramatically improves performance over 60 to 90 days.

CPL varies a lot across the accounts we manage. GP clinics and bulk billing practices sit at the cheapest end because intent is clear and competition is manageable. Allied health (physio, chiro, psych) is a step up. General dentistry is higher again, and dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, and cosmetic surgery sit at the top of the range because the underlying keyword markets are brutally competitive. NDIS sits in the middle depending on the service category. Metro costs more than regional, and account maturity matters a lot. If your current CPL feels high for your vertical, something's usually broken: match types, conversion tracking, PMax cannibalisation, landing page relevance. An audit will find it.

Search, Performance Max, and YouTube for Healthcare

Search is the foundation. It always will be. It's where intent is clearest and compliance is easiest to manage. Performance Max is a useful layer for brand protection, remarketing, and broader awareness once Search is working, but we rarely recommend PMax as a primary healthcare campaign type. It's a black box that often cannibalises Search conversions, and you have less control over where ads appear.

YouTube earns its keep in longer consideration journeys. Cosmetic surgery, orthodontics, IVF, weight loss, and allied health services with a longer decision cycle all benefit from YouTube pre-roll and in-stream. We build short (6-15 second) bumper ads for awareness and longer (30-60 second) in-stream ads for consideration, with remarketing audiences layered on top so Search sees warmer traffic.

Why Generalist Google Ads Agencies Fail Healthcare Clients

We audit Google Ads accounts managed by big-name generalist agencies every month. The patterns are consistent. They don't understand AHPRA, so their ad copy is either bland to the point of useless or quietly non-compliant. They rely on Performance Max because it's easier to manage, not because it's right for the client. They track form fills because actual booking integration is hard. They write the same landing page template for every healthcare vertical. And they've never built a negative keyword list specifically for medical, dental, or allied health traffic.

None of this is stupidity. It's scale. A generalist agency managing accounts across 15 industries can't afford to develop healthcare-specific expertise for one client. We can, because it's the only thing we do. If you want generalist Google Ads, there are a hundred agencies who'll take your money. If you want healthcare Google Ads managed by a team that genuinely understands your regulatory environment and your patient journey, there aren't many of us. Book a free audit and we'll show you exactly what we'd change.