5 ways to master healthcare ads without spending more money

Article Highlights

1. Ad headline optimization is one of the highest-impact, zero-cost improvements you can make to your healthcare ads.
2. One of the most cost-effective healthcare advertising strategies is reaching people who have already shown interest in your services through retargeting campaigns.
3. The difference between good and great healthcare advertising is a commitment to continuous testing and data-driven refinement.
4. Use the ad optimization AI tools available on each ad platform.
5. Don’t make changes to your ads or stop them before they have had sufficient time to perform! 

Advertising can feel like a money game, and it is. But there are also ways to get what you want from your ads without breaking your budget every month. With a constant stream of new advertising optimization tools and the proliferation of AI in different platforms, it’s never been easier to master healthcare advertising. So, what does it take to master healthcare advertising without spending more money? Let’s take a look. 

It’s all about the headlines.

Ad headlines are the first, and often only, impression potential patients get of your practice, making headline optimization one of the highest-impact, zero-cost improvements you can make. You have seconds to capture someone’s attention and hold it. You’d better get the headline right, no matter if you’re a physician advertising or a medical clinic advertising. To optimize Google Ads headlines, for example, focus on including your primary keyword, a clear benefit, and a compelling call-to-action within the character limits. If that sounds like a lot, start by testing different headlines that address specific pain points. For example, something generic like “Comprehensive Healthcare Services” does not have the same impact as something like “Easy, online scheduling available.” For optimizing on Google and Facebook ads optimization, basic SEO principles apply, including using location-specific terms, including negative keywords, and highlighting quality over quantity. 

*Quick Tip – Put together a Google Ads optimization checklist (or any other platform). It might include tasks such as: primary keywords included, benefits clearly outlined and specific, locally relevant, optimized for mobile, and compliant with healthcare advertising regulations.

Use optimization tools on all platforms

From Facebook to LinkedIn and everything in between, most platforms now feature ad optimization and AI tools. Use them. Tools like Google Ads optimization and others were built and trained on data from the platform, focusing on changes and additions that convert. Most ad platforms reward engagement and relevance. When thinking about how to optimize ads on Facebook, start with these ideas:

• So, start by creatively testing and optimizing for visuals, including running multiple ad variations with different images, videos, headlines, and body copy to identify what resonates with your target audience. 
• Use A/B testing features to isolate variables and make data-driven decisions about which elements drive results. 
• Refine your audience targeting by creating custom audiences from your patient database, building lookalike audiences from your best patients, and using detailed demographic and interest targeting to reach ideal prospects. 
• Monitor your relevance score and engagement metrics closely; ads with higher engagement receive better placement at lower costs. 
• Optimize your ad placement by reviewing performance across different channels and then doubling down on what works to achieve your goals! 

Implement advanced audience segmentation and retargeting

One of the most cost-effective healthcare advertising strategies is reaching people who have already shown interest in your services through retargeting campaigns. Since retargeting audiences have already demonstrated interest, they typically convert at 3-5 times the rate of cold traffic at a fraction of the cost, making this one of the highest-ROI optimizations available in medical clinic advertising.

There are levels to how engaged they might be, but you can create segmented retargeting audiences based on specific actions, like people who visited your services pages but didn’t book appointments, those who started but didn’t complete contact forms, and past patients who haven’t scheduled follow-up appointments. Using segmented audiences means you can deliver targeted content to each audience, encouraging them in unique ways to re-engage with your brand and complete the final action of becoming a patient. While retargeting can be hugely successful, it is important to remember that some people may become annoyed with constant reminders to engag,e which could negatively impact your brand if too many people click, “Stop seeing this ad.”

Quick Tip: Exclude converted patients from acquisition campaigns to ensure you’re not spending money advertising to people who are already your patients.

Leverage analytics and continuous testing for ongoing improvement

The difference between good and great healthcare advertising is a commitment to continuous testing and data-driven refinement (probably not very surprising overall). It really helps to have an advertising expert on your marketing team that can help you track and analyze robust metrics across all campaigns using Google Analytics, conversion pixels, and call tracking. This will give you a very clear picture of the complete patient journey, helping you maximize spend on the right channels, like Facebook ads optimization. It’s important to know how advertising is part of your broader marketing goals, and use those goals to pull out the correct metrics rather than just looking at everything. 

To really maximize the value of analytics, try creating an optimization schedule to review performance data and make adjustments based on that data. This can help save money and drive better results. After all, the data isn’t useful if it’s not being incorporated into campaigns, copy, and visuals.

Give your ads time to work

Unfortunately, one of the most common and costly mistakes in healthcare advertising is making changes too quickly before campaigns have sufficient data to perform optimally. Both Google Ads and Facebook use machine learning algorithms that require time to learn which audiences, placements, and bidding strategies deliver the best results for your specific goals. What does that mean for your campaigns? Well, platforms require a learning period of about 7-14 days to gather data and optimize delivery. If you make changes or turn off ads after a week, it resets the learning process and prevents the algorithms from reaching peak performance, meaning you won’t achieve your goals.  

Additionally, since patient acquisition cycles in healthcare are often longer than in other industries, most people take more time to make a decision. This extended cycle should be reflected in the length and composition of your ad campaigns. For example, a prospect who clicks your ad today might not schedule an appointment for weeks, meaning you need to track conversions over extended periods to understand true campaign performance, and use retargeting to stay top of mind with that prospect. For most ad campaigns to work, understand that meaningful improvements from testing typically take 4-6 weeks to validate, and building a consistently high-performing campaign is a months-long process, not a weekend project. 

If you’re ready to start getting more from your healthcare advertising campaigns, contact the experts at MDG. We know ads, and we know healthcare. We’ll help you master healthcare advertising on a budget.