Dental Google Ads, run for high-value treatment and measured on what gets booked

What I run

Google Ads for dentists, as I run it, is mostly search. A search campaign shows a text ad when someone types a query into Google. That's where people researching an implant or aligners show intent, and it's where the money should go first.

Each high-value treatment gets its own campaign with its own budget, keywords, ads and landing page. Keywords are the words I tell Google to match against searches. Match types decide how loosely that happens: broad match can show an ad on searches that are only related to the keyword, phrase match on searches that include its meaning, and exact match on searches with the same meaning or intent.² I choose the match type per treatment and per budget, and I check what it actually buys in the search terms.

A negative keyword is a word or phrase that stops your ad appearing on a search. It's the main defence against waste. I keep shared lists so every treatment campaign gets the same exclusions. The categories I exclude, with example query patterns, are on the page about NHS, job-seeker and out-of-area searches.

Performance Max, Google's automated campaign type that runs across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign,⁵ only goes in once offline conversions are working. My reasoning is on the page about Performance Max for a practice.

For implants in particular, search sits inside a longer plan. The full picture is on marketing single and multiple implants.

How it is measured

A conversion action is the thing Google is told counts as a result. The usual setup counts a form fill or a click on the phone number. Those are enquiries, and many never turn into a patient.

I set up the account so the result that matters comes from your practice system. When a patient who clicked an ad books a consultation, attends it and later starts treatment, each of those events is sent back into Google Ads as an offline conversion. An offline conversion is a result that happens outside the website and gets uploaded afterwards. Google only imports these if they arrive within 90 days of the last click, or 63 days for enhanced conversions for leads,¹ so the upload has to run on a schedule rather than when someone remembers. Treatment completed after that window is measured in your own report.

Google separates primary conversion actions, which are used for bidding and appear in the Conversions column, from secondary ones, which are only observed.⁶ I make booked consultations and treatment starts primary. Form fills and calls stay secondary, so the bidding system chases patients rather than paperwork.

Value-based bidding is where each booked treatment is sent with a value, so Google can favour the searches that lead to higher-value work. I only switch to it once the values coming through are real.

Reporting is a live dashboard in your own accounts, cut by treatment, with a written summary each month. You don't wait for a monthly meeting to find out what happened.

Where spend usually leaks

Dental ad accounts commonly lose money in the same few places. None of them needs a bigger budget to fix.

The out-of-area leak surprises people. Google's default location setting is "presence or interest", which includes people who have only shown interest in your location. "Presence" limits ads to people likely to be in, or regularly in, the area.⁷ For a practice with a real catchment, presence is usually the right call.

The homepage problem gets its own page on what a treatment landing page needs. How much to spend is a method, not a figure, and it's set out on setting a Google Ads budget from your targets.

Emergency searches are a separate decision with different economics. I don't mix them into treatment campaigns. They're covered under emergency dentist campaigns.

What I need from you

Ad spend is paid by you directly to Google. I never hold or invoice your ad budget. I work remotely, inside your own accounts, so you can see every change I make. I also take one practice per catchment, so I'm never bidding against another client for the same patients.

Healthcare ads carry platform rules as well as UK rules. Google's side is covered in Google's healthcare policy for dentists.

Google Ads is one module of a wider engagement. See what an engagement includes for how it fits with SEO, the website and tracking.

What I refuse to run

• Paid search with no booked-treatment measurement. I fix measurement first.
• "Just run my ads" on its own. Ads without a landing page, tracking and intake behind them waste your money.
• Promises of a lead count or a cost per lead. I commit to the work and to measurement you can check.
• Copy that breaks UK rules. Claims of outcomes, misused before-and-after photos and misleading titles get rewritten before they run.
• Two practices in the same catchment.
• Accounts held in my name. The account, the data and the history belong to the practice.

To talk about your practice, email me at Fayez@imfayez.com. Tell me which treatment you want more of and what tracking you have now. I review what your ads, site and local results show from the outside first, at no cost, and reply with what I find. I'll tell you plainly whether paid search is the right next step.