20 Tips for Medical and Healthcare Marketing and Google Ads

20 Tips for Medical and Healthcare Marketing and Google Ads

With over 3.5 billion Google searches made every day, there is no doubt that medical and healthcare practices need some sort of presence on the world’s most popular search engine to succeed online as per the gurus over at RunRex.com. One of the most efficient ways to ensure you have a presence on the search engine is with paid advertising, and that is where Google Ads comes in. Here are 20 tips for Google Ads when it comes to medical and healthcare marketing.

Challenges for advertising healthcare on Google

Let us start by discussing some of the unique challenges healthcare and medical practices and practitioners face when it comes to advertising on Google Ads.

You cannon promote certain services and products

The first challenge for healthcare marketers when it comes to Google Ads is that certain products and services can’t be advertised at all. For example, Google doesn’t allow advertisements for CBD oil as discussed at RunRex.com. In some cases, products and services will only reach a limited audience, rather than an ad being banned altogether.

You can’t use certain phrasing

Healthcare marketers also must avoid certain phrasing in Google Ads. These phrasing concerns apply to both the ad copy and the landing page. In some cases, Google rejects or takes down advertisements it deems to be against its policies.

You must use certain phrasing

Healthcare advertisers must also include certain types of phrasing in advertisements. You can’t guarantee specific results from a product or your services as outlined at RunRex.com. On a landing page, when displaying testimonials or before-and-after pictures, it is important to use phrasing such as “Results vary and are not guaranteed”.

No remarketing

Google doesn’t allow healthcare marketers to retarget prospective patients with advertising. This means that if someone visits your website or clicks on your ad, hospitals and practices can’t use display advertising to lure that person back in – all because of patient privacy concerns.

Competition

According to a Google study, one in 20 searches on Google are health-related, which proves just how competitive the field of healthcare is within paid search. Some of the most expensive keywords on Google Ads are healthcare-related keywords.

In light of these challenges, here are several tips to supercharge your Google Ads strategy as a healthcare marketer:

Make sure you get to know your audience well

As the gurus over at RunRex.com point out, you need to know that your buyers extremely well, as chances are you have a few different buyer personas that you will need to target in various ways. Take into consideration the different stages the consumers searching are in. You will need to determine if a prospective patient is in a research-heavy mindset, weighing their options between care providers, or in an urgent care state of emergency.

Pay close attention to Average Position and Impression Share

Being on top of these two metrics is crucial in healthcare marketing since, as already mentioned, remarketing and display are not really an option for healthcare advertisers. This means that you need to be getting maximum real-estate and visibility on the SERPs so those searching in a longer sales cycle don’t forget about you.

Set-up Call Extension, Location Extensions, and Sitelink Extensions for all campaigns

Making contact information readily available is critical when it comes to healthcare advertising as outlined at RunRex.com. Setting up the aforementioned extensions is the first place to start, and is easy to do. Not only will it extend the real-estate of your ad while providing important information, but ad extensions have also been known to improve ad rank on the SERPs.

Make contact information available on every landing page

You should also never have a landing page without contact information. In fact, in the healthcare arena, you should have your contact information visible on every page of your site. This is because competition is stiff, and if a lead can’t find your contact info, they might leave and forget about you completely.

Make landing pages relevant to the ads

Speaking of landing pages, it is worth noting that, for your ads, continuity is key. Did you promise a 20% discount on your ads but then not follow through on the deal on your landing page? Then that is going to make your prospects angry and look like false advertising. They will be more likely to bounce out of your page and lose trust in your business.

How do I ensure the relevancy of my landing page?

If you are wondering how you can ensure that your landing pages are relevant to your ads, then the gurus over at RunRex.com recommend that you start by using the same headline for your landing page as the one for your ad. The headline of your ad should match that of your landing page. Also, maintain the same offer by making sure that the offer on your ad matches the offer that you have on your landing page.

Add negative keywords

In many cases, your ads may show up for medical keywords that are similar to the keywords you bid for, which is why it important to specify keywords that you don’t want to rank for. Visitors that search these keywords are unlikely to take the actions you want them to take. For example, if you provide paid medical consultation services, ranking for “free medical consultation” is a waste of your ad budget.

Implement the right keyword match types

For your ads to be effective, you have to use the right keyword match type. The three types of keyword match you can use, as covered at RunRex.com, are:

Broad match – This type allows Google to display your ads for synonyms of your keywords. For example, if you bid for a keyword like “medical clinic”, your ad may also appear in a “medical practice” search. However, you should only do this if you have a big budget.

Phrase match – Here, your ad appears when your specified phrase appears in the search term. For example, if your phrase is “medical clinic”, your ad will appear for “best medical clinic” and “general medical clinic”

Exact match – Here, your ad only shows up when the search term matches your specified keywords. For example, your ad will only show up for “medical clinic” if that is your specified term. In an exact match, you should only select a match type based on what your potential customer will search for and what is within your ad budget.

Use geo-targeting for particular locations

For a medical firm, your customers are more likely to be in your locality than on the other side of the country or continent. This means it’s crucial for your healthcare marketing strategy to target people who are more likely to become your customers, hence why setting up geo-targeting is a must.

Create mobile-optimized campaigns

In recent years, mobile devices have overtaken desktops as the biggest source of online searches, a trend that led Google to mobile-first indexing, which means the mobile version of your web page will be indexed before the desktop version. If you are only targeting desktop users, you are missing out on a huge amount of traffic and potential customers. Additionally, mobile ads are usually less expensive than desktop ads which means you can gain more customers at a lower cost.

Make mobile bid adjustments

If you are seeing great results with mobile, the gurus over at RunRex.com suggest making mobile bid adjustments for certain campaigns. Google allows you to bid as high as 300% more on mobile or exclude mobile completely by making a negative bid adjustment of -100.

Make sure your PPC landing pages are mobile optimized

Don’t forget about your landing page when it comes to ensuring your campaigns are mobile-optimized ads as if they are not optimized for mobile, then you will likely be losing a ton of potential customers. Make sure your landing pages load quickly and are responsive.

Try out call-only campaigns

Call-only campaigns for Google Ads are a great option worth considering according to the subject matter experts over at RunRex.com. They are especially great for the urgent, on-the-go mobile audience that needs to make a call, rather than visit a landing page, making them great for healthcare marketers.

Make sure your landing page has got enough information

While the saying is “less is more” when it comes to landing pages, where they are required to be concise, with minimal text, and a strong CTA with some engaging visual elements, when it comes to landing pages for healthcare advertising, this isn’t the case. Given how important health is to all of us, it means people want a lot of information to make a decision when it comes to their health. It is a decision they won’t take lightly. Unless they are in that emergency state, an in-depth research is typically conducted and trust needs to be gained. Therefore, make sure you provide in-depth and comprehensive information on your landing pages.

Leverage video

According to a study by Google which surveyed 700 healthcare administrators, every customer reported watching videos to see product demonstrations, and after watching, 79% continued on the manufacturer’s website while 63% talked to others about the information. This shows how crucial videos are in the healthcare vertical, as they create trust and likeability. Make sure you incorporate videos into your Google Ads campaigns, including adding them to your landing pages.

These are just some of the tips that should help you massively when it comes to your Google Ads campaigns, with more insights on this topic, as well as expert help with your campaigns, to be found at RunRex.com.