10 Google Ads Hacks for Surgeons That Bring In More Consultations
Updated: 3 days ago
Why Google Ads Hacks Matter for Plastic Surgeons
Google ads are an investment every plastic surgery practice that’s looking to increase its reach and attract more leads should take advantage of, and the right Google Ads hacks make that investment work harder. Investing in Google ads will help improve all your other advertising efforts.
This is so because Google Ads gives you consistent traffic to improve your website’s visibility and also tests different procedure offers until you find the one that attracts more consults.
Additionally, Google ads compel you to take an interest in numbers and data. When your ads are live, you’ll see how much it costs to generate a visitor to your website and how many of those visitors become consult requests and surgeries.
By knowing the numbers, reviewing the data and defining how much you can afford to pay for advertising, a plastic surgeon can make better decisions about the ad budget for each procedure.
The Google Ads hacks below help a surgical practice get more from every dollar.
When you’re investing money into ads, and understand that all your traffic has a cost, you will be more pragmatic in investing in an advertising channel that works effectively and can yield good returns on your investment.
10 Google Ads Hacks for Surgical Practices
Google Ads hacks for surgeons: effort vs payoff | |||
Hack | Effort | Payoff | When you'll see it |
Quality Score fixes | Medium | Lower cost per click | 2–4 weeks |
Mobile landing pages | Medium | More calls and forms | Weeks |
Negative keywords | Low | Less wasted spend | Days |
In-market audiences | Low | Better-fit clicks | Weeks |
Microsoft Ads import | Low | New, often cheaper clicks | Days |
SEO alongside ads | High | Clicks you don't pay for | 6–12 months |
1. Raise the Quality Score on Your Procedure Ads
One of the most effective Google Ads Hacks to boost the percentage of your leads is to optimize the quality score. Google places quality scores in high regard because it tells Google how relevant your ad is to a patient’s search, such as breast augmentation near me. Google rates three parts: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.
If Google doesn’t perceive your ad as being relevant, it may not show it to your targeted audience. To optimize quality score, make sure you organize campaigns and ad groups with a functional structure. Keep closely related keywords together, such as all rhinoplasty terms in one ad group.
Google explains all three in its Quality Score guide.
Quality Score parts and how surgeons can fix them | ||
Part | What Google checks | Fix |
Expected click-through rate | How likely your ad is to be clicked | Put the procedure and city in the headline |
Ad relevance | How closely the ad matches the search | One procedure per ad group |
Landing page experience | How useful the page is after the click | Send each ad to its procedure page, not the homepage |
Not having a solid strategy will immediately compromise ad relevance and click-through rate because it’s harder to tailor ads to a large number of keywords without an efficient plan in place.
2. Outsmart Other Plastic Surgeons in Your City
Another Google Ads hack is to study competing plastic surgeons’ ads and build a better offer.
When you dive into your competitors’ campaign strategy, don’t only focus on spying, take your time to learn what it is they’re doing right and wrong so you can win the attention of patients comparing surgeons.
Make use of the important information obtained from your competitors’ ads to improve your Google ads and drive more leads to your surgical practice.
Targeting competitors: what Google allows | |
Tactic | Allowed? |
Bidding on a competitor's name as a keyword | |
Using a competitor's trademark in your ad text | Can be restricted if the owner complains |
Remarketing surgery ads to a competitor's visitors | No |
Claims about a competitor you can't prove | No |
3. Build Mobile Surgery Pages for One Thumb
This Google Ads hack makes your ads and pages work for patients searching on a phone. It’s important for your Google ad copy to display well on smartphones.
This is because mobile screens aren’t like desktops and you won’t have the space to place web elements and content as you normally would. So, keep your ad navigations mobile-friendly and make sure the essential links are visible. It’s also essential to optimize for performance.
Make sure that your website is optimized to load quickly on mobile devices to avoid sending potential patients away when your page takes too much time to load.
Use a responsive design so your before-and-after galleries and procedure pages work on every screen size.
Mobile landing page checklist for surgeons | |
Element | Why it matters |
Tap-to-call button | Lets patients call in one tap |
Short form (4 fields) | Fewer patients give up halfway |
Procedure and city in the headline | Matches what they searched |
Financing information | Price is the question patients ask most |
Fast first screen | Slow pages lose the click you paid for |
4. Know the Remarketing Rules for Cosmetic Surgery Ads
Be careful here. Google's personalized advertising policy treats cosmetic surgery and other invasive procedures as sensitive health content, so surgeons can't build remarketing lists or upload patient lists for those ads. Our Google Ads guide for surgeons covers what is allowed.
5. Reach Cosmetic Patients With In-Market Audiences
In-market audiences are a Google Ads hack for reaching patients who are actively researching or comparing procedures online. Google’s predefined segments are still allowed for cosmetic surgery ads, so a plastic surgeon can reach people Google sees as in the market.
In-market segments can be used to increase conversions and form a strong connection with patients. Leveraging real-time data based on demonstrated in-market behavior allows you to present the right offer at the perfect moment to those most interested in your procedures.
For surgery ads, use Google's own in-market audiences instead of remarketing lists. Google builds them, not your visitor data.
6. Use YouTube and Display for Procedure Awareness, Not Bookings
Both Google and LinkedIn are massively valuable for advertising. However, each has unique selling points that suit surgeons chasing different campaign types. LinkedIn now has over 1.3 billion members, but Google reaches patients across Search, YouTube and Maps.
Ads run on Google’s network reach Google searchers, including YouTube viewers, Google search, Google Maps, Google Shopping, and Display Network. For surgeons, Display and YouTube work best for building awareness of a procedure, not for booking it.
Google Ads is a platform that’s capable of reaching patients across many sites, with a well-tuned algorithm that helps you maximize your ad budgets. Keep Display budgets small and judge them on booked consults.
7. Copy Your Campaigns Into Microsoft Ads
Importing your Google Ads campaigns into Microsoft Ads is a quick Google Ads hack: the same procedure keywords, a new audience of patients. You can do this by fully importing your Google Ads account onto Bing’s platform.
For more control, use a selective import, which lets you choose the campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads that move over.
8. Find the Negative Keywords Costing You Consults
This Google Ads hack blocks searches you don't want to pay for. Google Ads charges you when someone clicks your ad, even if that person isn’t a surgical patient and doesn’t want the procedure.
The cost of these clicks adds up quickly. Plastic surgery clicks averaged $5.75 in LocalIQ's benchmarks, and competitive procedure terms often cost more. A negative keyword list makes the campaign more targeted and cost-effective.
You could prevent the wrong people from clicking on your ad by adding negative keywords for searches a surgeon doesn’t want to pay for, such as free, jobs, school or training. The quickest way to find negative keywords that are costing you money is to scan through the list of search terms that brought new visitors to your website.
If you see any terms that don’t match the procedures you perform, you can add them to your list of negative keywords. Your advertising budget will only be maximally utilized if you ensure that only the right people are clicking on your ads.
That is the point of this Google Ads hack: every click from someone who will never book a consultation is budget taken from someone who will.
9. Invest in Plastic Surgery SEO Alongside Your Ads
Investing in SEO is a Google Ads hack in disguise: every organic click is one you don't buy. Organic SEO has a lot of benefits for a plastic surgery practice. One benefit is that it will improve your search rankings on search engines.
Effective SEO can lead to higher rankings on search engine result pages which increases your visibility and attracts more clicks from potential patients. Investing in organic SEO and optimizing your Google ads is a perfect combination to outsmart your competitors.
Across 100 plastic surgery websites, the busiest quarter got 18 times the organic visitors of the quietest, a gap worth about $11,000 a month in ads they don't have to buy.
It also helps that integrating tools like Google Analytics with SEO provides you with valuable insights into your patient’s behavior so you can better create campaign content that resonates with your target audience.
Local SEO, backed by strong patient reviews, puts your practice in the Maps results that nearby patients see first.
10. Test New Procedures With a Small Budget
Google Ads is also a cheap way for a surgeon to test demand before committing to a new procedure.
Run a small campaign for a new procedure or offer, and see whether patients search and click before you build a full page around it.
This Google Ads hack shows you what patients want before you pay for a full launch, so you can tailor your campaigns and ideas to attract more leads.
Google Ads Hacks for Surgeons: FAQs
How Does a Surgical Practice Set Up Google Ads Conversion Tracking?
There are different ways for a surgical practice to track conversions on Google Ads. One way is to use the Google Ads tag and install the tracking code and another way is to use Google Analytics.
In GA4, mark the consult form submission or thank-you page view as a key event, then import it into Google Ads. You can also add the Google tag and set up conversions directly in Google Ads.
Why Is My Plastic Surgery Practice Not Getting Leads on Google Ads?
There are a lot of reasons a plastic surgery practice may not get leads from Google Ads. One could be that your budget is too low.
If you’re not spending enough money on your Google Ads campaigns, you’re not going to get adequate leads. It could also be a poor Quality Score, and raising it improves both your ad rank and your cost per click. It could also be the landing page: sending procedure clicks to the homepage loses patients.
The Google Ads hacks above fix most of these problems.
How Can a Plastic Surgeon Cut Junk Leads From Google Ads?
Three Google Ads tips cut most junk leads: add negative keywords for searches you don't treat, qualify patients in your ad copy and form, and check whether Display placements are wasting your budget.
How Do Surgeons Get More Consultation Requests From Google Ads?
The Google Ads tips that matter most here: target procedure keywords with buying intent, send each click to the page for that procedure, and make booking a consult easy on a phone.
Can You Target Other Surgeons’ Names on Google Ads?
Yes, within limits. You can bid on another surgeon’s practice name as a keyword, but the trademark owner can restrict its use in your ad text, and you can't remarket surgery ads to anyone's visitors.
Get More Surgical Consultations With Intellius Medical
If you’re looking to drive more leads for your surgical practice, Intellius Medical Agency is here for you.
Intellius Medical is an experienced digital marketing agency for surgeons and plastic surgeons that can take care of everything related to your practice’s Google Ads campaigns, from setting up your Google Ads account and keyword research to continuous optimization and management.
Intellius applies these Google Ads hacks for you so you can free up valuable time and focus on other areas of your surgical practice. If this seems like something you’re looking for, don’t hesitate to book an appointment with our expert team today.
