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I’d hate to scare anyone away from paid advertising, but I’m sure the the rest of my team would agree, we’d rather see you not run paid ads without having a good strategy in place first. There are so many variables to think about before running any paid advertising, and if you skip out on them, you’ll probably end up saying “Paid ads don’t work!” when in fact, they can work wonders if set up correctly and managed properly.
While most companies will get great results with Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, YouTube Ads and retargeting, you’ll want to make sure that you address the following issues on your site:
Is your website set up so that you can track everything about the paid traffic campaign? Without tracking, how do you know what is producing the best ROI? The old adage rings true “Half of my advertising is working, I just don’t know which half.” Don’t rely on the new customer to tell you how they found you!
Do you have the Google Adwords Conversion code installed?
Do you have Google Analytics installed?
Do you have the Facebook tracking pixel installed?
Do you use call tracking numbers to separate calls from Organic Traffic from SEO vs AdWords vs FB ads?
Sending someone to your homepage is most likely a huge mistake. Do you have landing pages setup for your promotional offers and individual treatment plans and services?
Do you have calls to action and a system in place to make it easy for the prospect to make an appointment? This could be a tool like LocalMed or other online scheduling software.
Do you have a retargeting strategy in place in case the paid traffic doesn’t convert on the first visit? Most companies aren’t going to close the deal on the first visit. If your sales cycle is measured in the weeks or months, you need to have a strong retargeting campaign that nurtures the lead and moves them to the next stage in the buyer’s journey.
Let’s take a cosmetic dentist for example. If you are marketing All-On-Four and dental implants, what happens if the visitor doesn’t become a new patient on the first visit? Just like that pair of boots follow you around the web until you buy them, you should be retargeting your prospects with valuable content, educating them about you, your practice and your passion.
Is your team trained to handle a new patient calling in from an AdWords ad or Facebook ad campaign? They need to be treated differently than a referral.
Convincing a referral to come in is simple. Convincing someone who saw you ad on Insta to schedule an implant consult is much different.
Is your front desk actually answering the phone? The number of practices that send new patient calls to a phone tree or voicemail is insane.
These new patients want to talk to someone to schedule an appointment. They aren’t going to leave a voicemail. They are going to call the next dentist on the Google search results.
If you roll your phones to voicemail while everyone is at lunch, don’t run paid ads.
If you don’t have a solution for taking calls from 7am to 8am or 4:30pm until 8pm, don’t run ads. We see so many prospective patients calling in on their morning commute or after they get home at night.
Are you willing to commit to testing different ad variations, different copy, different promotions over the next 30 to 45 days? Paid ads are amazing, but you will have to test and tweak campaigns to improve performance over time.
Good companies can do a great job right out of the gate, but even the best will need to run tests to find out what works best for your practice and your audience.
