Our typical client would love to increase the number of dental implant patients that they see each month. If that describes you, you can increase your chances of running a successful Google Ads dental implants campaign by keeping in mind the following pro tips.

These tips will help you win the battle for these prized patients in your market.

senior citizen searching on laptop, looking at Google

Dental Implant Google Ads Tip #1: Define Success

This is the most important tip: establish clear expectations shared with the company running your Google Ads on what success looks like in terms of campaign outcomes. This may seem obvious to you, and that’s the danger.

Success is simple, right? More dental implant patients. But to some marketing experts, the goalposts for that achievement are very wide. You need to define:

  • What is the difference between a patient and a lead?
  • What constitutes a viable new patient lead?
  • What parameters do you have for what constitutes a viable patient?

There are “dental implant marketing companies” that tout a comprehensive marketing services approach to dental implant marketing. They are proud of how complex and expensive their programs are and are clear that they are not for everyone. That’s great. We do the same thing.

The problem is that these companies don’t do a great job of clearly communicating how a dentist is supposed to make money in their system. They use effective marketing technique like e-book downloads (for example, here’s one of ours) as ‘lead generators’ and then attempt to leverage a sales system that works well in other business sectors but is less effective in dentistry. Your team is expected to either engage in selling via email or to wait patiently while the funnel does the work for you. It rarely pans out.

Meanwhile, you’ve invested tens of thousands of dollars in video, photography, and landing pages. You have to carefully weigh the risk of this approach and think through if your team has the time to work the sales system and do the math to figure out if you got a return on your investment. Did you see the uptick in new patients that you expected? Unfortunately, we’ve heard more stories of failure than success.

To avoid this, it might be worth consulting a marketing consultant or advisor with specialized knowledge in dental marketing trends. They can offer marketing strategies that are tailored for dental practices, and help you understand current and emerging trends in the field of dental marketing. By conducting a thorough dental market analysis, including evaluating market conditions and competition, you can identify strategies that work best for your specific situation. This will help you not only promote a dental practice effectively but also enhance your dental patient acquisition efforts, and attract and retain new patients.

The stories of success are incredibly vague, and I have to wonder if the dentist is just very proud of the marketing, but not taking the time to determine its effectiveness. Look at how many of the leads are:

  • Spam
  • Just a first name and an email address
  • Looking for free dentistry
  • Just price shopping
  • Looking for Medicaid or other insurance coverage to essentially get free or cheap implants
  • Outside of your realistic service area

As with any digital marketing plan, you have to define the criteria that all parties involved will use to measure the campaign’s success.

Be Willing to Adjust Your Expectations

Dentists and dental office managers often have some misconceptions about how pay-per-click ads work. They often do not understand that:

  • Every person who clicks on an ad will not convert to a new patient, however, the clicks that do not convert still have value.
  • Even ad impressions (when people see your ad but do not click it) have value from brand awareness and repeat exposure.
  • The Rule of 20 plays a role in Google Ads as much as other methods of marketing and advertising.
  • Because of the repeated exposure that is often required to generate a conversion, and because the early months of a campaign are used for data collection, analysis, and campaign adjustment, the first few months of a campaign will tend to be less productive than the months following this period.

Tip #2: Do Some Competitive Dental Implants Research on Google

You need to know who the players are in your market. Don’t make any assumptions. Do some Google searches for dental implants in your area. Use a variety of phrases and see who pops up in the ads across multiple searches.

Don’t be afraid to click on the ads. Competitors will click on your ads too. It’s part of the game. Your marketing company can do this competitive research on a more comprehensive level, but you should still understand what other offices are doing.

Ask Yourself the Hard Questions

  • Does my website—specifically my dental implants page—beat the competition’s website in aesthetics, information, and usability?
  • If my neighbor visited my website and the website of the competition, why would they choose to contact me instead of my competitors?
  • If my neighbor (not a friend or relative) contacted my office as well as my competition, why would they choose to schedule an appointment with me instead of my competitor?
  • If the same prospective patient completed a consultation with my competitors and with my office, why would they choose to move forward with treatment at my office?

Many offices launch Google Ads for dental implants without first figuring out how they will move the patient through the case acceptance process. This is a mistake that will drive up the cost of your dental implant patient acquisition.

Don’t launch ads without answering these questions. Invest in training if your team isn’t up to the challenge of selling big cases or struggling to address cost and insurance questions.

Assuming that you are not interested in competing on price and volume, what sets your dental office apart from your competition? There are patients who chose to be treated at your office despite the service being more expensive than the guy down the street. Why? Try to capture that sense of loyalty, value, and community that you have with your most desirable patients and infuse your dental implants landing page with those added values.

Remember: if everything on your ads and website looks generic and the same as your competitors, and there’s no clear reason for them to choose you. This will negatively impact conversion rates at every stage: click-through rate on ads, conversion rate to phone calls and emails, scheduling rate for consults, and case acceptance rates. Build value at every stage.

Tip #3: Google Ads for Dental Implants Convert at a Higher Rate

Patients view dental implants as a product as much as they are a service, so people who search for implant keywords are easier to move along the buying cycle than people who search for TMJ keywords and other dental needs. People are certainly still looking for answers to questions, but ultimately, they are usually looking for a provider in their area. That means that when they click on your ad, you have a higher chance of the patient calling you or sending you a message through your website’s contact form. We call those phone calls and emails ‘conversions’.

Here are some ranges pulled from actual dental implant campaigns managed by Pro Impressions Marketing:

Average 2018-2021  Cost/Conv: $138.75
Average 2021  Cost/Conv: $162.59

Now compare those numbers to averages of campaigns that were not limited to dental implants:

Average 2018-2021  Cost/Conv: $160.06
Average 2021  Cost/Conv: $181.49

Overall, the cost per conversion is rising on Google Ads campaigns. This is likely due to a sweeping increase in Google Ads competition as well as an increase in the length of the buying cycle of consumers new to living through a pandemic. Cost per conversion may also be rising because we are constantly narrowing down what we define as a conversion. We continually refine the targeting of our campaigns to increase the quality of phone calls and emails to Pro Impressions Marketing member dental practices.

We are still innovating, and we’re proud of the low-cost-per-conversion campaigns that we’ve been running over the years. For example, we once ran a campaign for a dentist that achieved new patient leads for $50 each using Google Ads.

Tip #4: Dental Implant Google Ads Keywords Have a LOWER Cost Per Click

The keywords that we target for dental implants tend to be at a lower average cost and are more likely to convert. Check out the following cost-per-click (CPC) numbers from active dental implants Google Ads campaigns that Pro Impressions Marketing manages:

Average Cost per click 2018-2021 $10.41
Average 2021 CPC $9.82
Range of CPC 2021: $9.85-$48.34

More Clear Keyword Lists Mean Less Waste

When you launch a dental Google Ads campaign with the specific target of generating more dental implant patients, the list of keywords we add to the campaign settings is more narrow than when we target other types of patients. If your dental marketing company doesn’t understand this, then you’ll get more “leads” but they won’t be viable dental implant cases. Identify relevant variants such as metal-free dental implants if you offer porcelain implants, but beyond that, the list shouldn’t include much fluff.

Compare the above cost-per-click number to the following cost-per-click of active Google Ads campaigns that are not limited to dental implants keywords:

Average Cost per click 2018-2021 $11.65
Average 2021 CPC $11.61
Range of CPC 2021: $0.83-$48.34

Note that the range is wider when you add in other, less relevant keywords because the keywords are less expensive. However, the average cost per click was still higher in this broader set of keywords. Less focus and lower quality keywords can add to the overall cost of campaigns.

At Pro Impressions, we use negative keywords on all campaigns to further remove wasted clicks from students, vendors, and looky-lous. This means less wasted clicks and higher quality conversions. People who could actually turn into patients.

Tip #5: Don’t Wait! Get Started with Google Ads for Dental Implant

Any office that wants to see more dental implant patients should be running a Google Ads campaign.

If you follow the instructions above in the article, you should be able to do the math. What are your profit margins on these cases and how much are you willing to invest to generate these high-dollar patients? If your team can get them in the chair, pump money into the campaign until you find a point of diminishing returns.

Google will spend your money, so working with a dental pay-per-click management company that understands the importance of detailed data analysis will be critical. If they’re smart, they will know that retaining you as a client is a top priority rather than how much you spend. They should advise you when to spend more and when to spend less.

Consider partnering with a marketing agency that offers comprehensive marketing services to ensure that you are using the most effective marketing techniques available. The right marketing consultant can help in expanding and increasing the success of a practice, and contribute to practice growth through targeted marketing strategies. If you’re interested in membership, call us at (970) 672-1212 or email us here.