Every month, thousands of medical practices pour money into Google Ads. Most of them have no idea whether it's working.
They see clicks. They see impressions. Their agency sends a report with charts that go up and to the right. But when you ask a simple question: "How many of those clicks became consultations?" the room goes quiet.
This is the visibility trap. And it's costing practices tens of thousands of dollars in wasted ad spend.
The Visibility Trap
Here's how it typically plays out. A practice decides to "do Google Ads." They hire an agency or set it up themselves. They target keywords like "dentist near me" or "orthodontist [city]." Clicks start coming in. The dashboard shows activity. Everyone assumes it's working.
But activity isn't outcomes. Clicks aren't consultations. Impressions aren't patients.
The practice is paying for visibility without measuring what that visibility produces. They're essentially running a billboard campaign with digital tools, and billboards are famously impossible to measure.
The Numbers Behind the Problem
The average cost per click for healthcare search ads typically ranges from $5 to $9, with some specialties like orthodontics and cosmetic surgery at the higher end. But the real story is in the cost per lead.
Healthcare cost per lead varies dramatically by specialty. General practices can achieve CPLs in the $30-50 range, while cosmetic surgery practices often exceed $100 per lead. The difference often comes down to campaign structure and tracking, not budget size.
Why DSOs and Corporate Practices Win
Here's something that might sting: DSOs and corporate dental groups aren't beating you because they have bigger budgets. They're beating you because they track everything.
When a DSO runs Google Ads, they know exactly which keywords produce consultations. They know which landing pages convert. They know the cost per new patient for each procedure type. They have closed-loop tracking that connects every dollar spent to every case signed.
This isn't magic. It's infrastructure. And it's infrastructure that any practice can build.
The difference is that DSOs treat marketing like a measurable investment. Most independent practices treat it like an expense they hope is working.
The Homepage Problem
One of the most common mistakes we see: sending paid traffic to your homepage.
Your homepage is a generalist. It tries to serve everyone who might visit your site. It has navigation to every section. It mentions every service. It's designed for browsing, not converting.
When someone clicks an ad for "Invisalign in [city]," they have a specific intent. They want to learn about Invisalign. They want to know if you offer it, what it costs, and how to take the next step.
Sending them to your homepage is like handing someone a phonebook when they asked for your business card. You're making them work to find what they already told you they want.
The fix is straightforward: dedicated landing pages for each major service or procedure you advertise. When someone clicks an Invisalign ad, they land on an Invisalign page. When someone clicks a dental implants ad, they land on a dental implants page.
This isn't just better for the user. It's better for your costs. Google rewards relevance. When your landing page matches your ad matches the user's search, your Quality Score improves and your cost per click drops.
Call Tracking: The Missing Link
If you're running Google Ads without call tracking, you're guessing.
Most medical practices get leads through phone calls, not form submissions. A patient searches, clicks your ad, lands on your site, and calls to schedule. But without call tracking, you have no way to know which ad, which keyword, or which campaign drove that call.
You're left with two disconnected data sets: ad platform data showing clicks and costs, and your front desk knowing the phone rang. The connection between them is invisible.
Call tracking solves this. It assigns unique phone numbers to different traffic sources so you can trace every call back to its origin. You can finally answer the question: "This patient who just scheduled a consultation, which ad brought them in?"
This changes everything. Instead of optimizing for clicks (which cost you money), you can optimize for consultations (which make you money). You can see which keywords actually produce patients, not just traffic.
Keyword Segmentation by Intent
Not all searches are equal. Someone searching "orthodontist near me" has different intent than someone searching "Invisalign cost" or "braces for adults."
Generic searches (orthodontist near me) are high volume but lower intent. The person is early in their research. They're comparing options. They might not be ready to book.
Specific searches (Invisalign teen cost, clear braces vs metal braces) are lower volume but higher intent. The person has already decided they want treatment. They're looking for a provider.
Most practices run one campaign with one set of ads for all these searches. This is a mistake.
When you segment campaigns by intent, you can match your messaging. For early-stage searches, your ads and landing pages can focus on education and differentiation. For late-stage searches, you can focus on the consultation offer and make it easy to book.
This segmentation also lets you allocate budget more intelligently. If you know that high-intent keywords convert at 3x the rate, you can shift budget accordingly.
Quality Score and Why It Matters
Google doesn't just auction ad positions to the highest bidder. They use a formula that combines your bid with your Quality Score.
Quality Score is Google's assessment of how relevant and useful your ad and landing page are to the searcher. It's based on expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
Here's why this matters: a higher Quality Score means lower costs. If your Quality Score is excellent, you can outrank competitors while paying less per click. If your Quality Score is poor, you're paying a premium for every visitor.
The biggest Quality Score killer we see in medical practices is the mismatch between ad and landing page. An ad promising "affordable Invisalign" sends traffic to a generic homepage that doesn't mention pricing or Invisalign prominently. Google sees this mismatch and penalizes you.
The fix, again, is dedicated landing pages that align with your ad messaging. Consistency from search query to ad to landing page improves Quality Score and reduces costs.
The 90-Day Optimization Curve
Paid search isn't a set-it-and-forget-it channel. It's a system that improves over time with data and optimization.
When you launch a new campaign, you're starting with assumptions. You think certain keywords will work. You think certain ad copy will resonate. You've built landing pages based on best practices.
Over the first 30 days, you gather data. Some assumptions prove correct. Others don't. Certain keywords get clicks but no conversions. Certain ads outperform others. Certain landing pages have higher bounce rates.
Days 30 to 60 are about responding to that data. You cut underperforming keywords. You shift budget to what's working. You test new ad variations. You improve landing pages based on behavior data.
By day 90, you have a refined campaign. The waste has been trimmed. The winners have been identified and scaled. Your cost per consultation has dropped significantly from launch.
This is why judging Google Ads performance after two weeks is misguided. You're looking at an unoptimized system and concluding the channel doesn't work. It's like evaluating a hire after their first day.
What We Actually Track
At Decabrand, we don't optimize for clicks. We optimize for consultations.
Our dashboards are built around the metrics that matter: cost per consultation, consultation volume by source, conversion rate by landing page. We track calls, form submissions, and chat inquiries back to their origin.
When we report to clients, we don't show them impression counts. We show them how many new patient consultations their marketing produced and what it cost to acquire each one.
This approach requires more infrastructure. Call tracking, CRM integration, proper conversion setup. But it transforms marketing from a black box expense into a measurable investment.
The Bottom Line
Google Ads can be one of the most effective patient acquisition channels for medical practices. But only if you approach it as a measurable system, not a hope-based expense.
The practices that succeed with paid search share common traits. They have dedicated landing pages for major services. They use call tracking to attribute leads. They segment campaigns by intent. They give campaigns time to optimize. And they measure what matters: consultations, not clicks.
The practices that fail throw money at generic campaigns, send traffic to their homepage, don't track calls, and judge performance by vanity metrics. They're paying for visibility without accountability.
If your current Google Ads feel like they might be working but you can't prove it, that's a sign. The infrastructure for proof isn't hard to build. And once you have it, you can finally answer the question every practice owner asks: "Is this actually working?"
We'd rather show you consultations than clicks. Because consultations become patients, and patients are why you got into this in the first place.