You may have noticed over the past few years that if you search for just about anything on Google, there are a ton of ads before you get to the actual organic search results. If you’re on social media, you’re probably also used to seeing ads every few posts when you scroll through your feed.
It’s no different when patients are searching for a healthcare provider. Sure, you can do SEO and eventually get to the top of the organic results in Google, or post frequently on social media to try to gain visibility, but even that visibility isn’t what it used to be 5-10 years ago. For businesses like medical practices, search engines and social media are very much becoming a “pay to play” space, especially if you operate in a heavily saturated, competitive market.
Let’s take a look at how the online ad space has evolved, and when it might be time to consider starting ads for your practice.
Paid Search Ads on Google
Just how prevalent have ads become in Google search results? According to WordStream, “Organic results account for just 14.3% of above-the-fold pixels.” In this case, “above-the-fold” means all of the content you see on your screen on a search results page before you have to scroll down. Based on this assessment, users typically aren’t seeing non-ad content in search results until they get to the very bottom of the screen. Sometimes, you might even have to scroll down to see non-ad results.
Do people recognize ads in search results?
Do people know that they are seeing ads, and if so, do they scroll down to see the non-ad results? The same WordStream article mentions that “45.5% of people couldn’t identify paid ads on the search engine results page if there wasn’t a right column.” And even when they know a search result is an ad, people may still choose to click on it. A Clutch survey found that 33% of people click on paid search ads because they provide the answers they are looking for. Furthermore, 75% of people said that paid search ads make it easier to find the information they are looking for.
Is it worth it to pay for Google Ads?
Due to the prevalence of paid search ads, especially on Google, it’s almost becoming necessary for practices to run ads for highly-competitive searches. This is especially true for medical practices located in larger cities, where there is typically more competition. If your practice is in a really small market, or you are going after less competitive searches, you may be able to get satisfactory results without running ads.
If your practice’s website does rank well organically for the searches you are targeting and you are happy with those results, then maybe you don’t need paid search ads. That said, we’ll give you one more paid search stat from WordStream to consider: “If an advertiser buys ads for keywords they already rank for organically, 89% of traffic generated by the search ads is new traffic outside of organic reach.” So, even if your organic traffic is great, paid search can help you grow even further.
Social Media Ads
Marketing a medical practice on social media typically isn’t the first strategy we recommend, just because of the effort you have to put in to get a return. That said, if a practice has the time and budget to make it work, it can be beneficial.
What is the best social network to market a medical practice?
Facebook tends to be the most popular social media platform medical practices use, especially for the ortho, spine, and neuro practices we work with. It makes sense to market a medical practice on Facebook–by the end of 2022, Facebook was the largest social network in the world, and 70% of American adults use it.
But social media is free–is it really worth it to pay for ads?
While it’s free for businesses like medical practices to set up and post to social media pages, the reach of those posts, and thus the benefit, has continued to decrease over time. According to Hootsuite, “the average organic reach for a Facebook post is about 5.5% of your follower count.” Unless your practice’s follower count is huge, your feed posts probably aren’t getting in front of very many patients.
Social media ads are much less targeted than paid search ads, especially in the healthcare space because HIPAA regulations restrict how you can target users for ads. However, they can be great for building awareness beyond your minimal organic reach. If there is something you want your community to know about, and it’s something patients wouldn’t already know or seek out, then social media ads are a great way to get a word out. Examples of this include new office locations, new providers, or new procedures & services.
The reach of a paid post vs. an organic post is definitely worth it if you have an important message to get out to patients. According to Sociallybuzz, impressions for social media ads (the number of people who see your ads) increase by 20% each year. On average, Facebook users clicked at least 12 ads per month in 2020, which indicates that people aren’t just scrolling past ads all of the time.
Should online ads be a top focus for your practice?
The key thing to remember with ads is that once you stop paying, all of the traffic you were getting from those ads will go away.
With the way things are trending, we definitely think ads are worth it if you have the budget for it. However, we don’t recommend focusing only on ads and ignoring your organic search presence and other avenues of getting traffic. Having a steady stream of traffic from diverse sources ensures that if something changes with one of those channels, you still have several other ways of reaching patients.
As the P3 Marketing Manager, Ashley ensures that our clients’ marketing strategies are put into action. This includes content writing, SEO, online advertising, analytics, and interfacing with the tools, systems, and team members needed to help our medical practice clients accomplish their marketing goals.
Scott Zeitzer
Scott has been in the healthcare industry for his entire adult life. Prior to launching P3, he earned a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering and spent 10 years selling medical devices (total hips, total knees, trauma devices, and CMF devices) to orthopedists and neurosurgeons.
