Google Ads Management for Dental Practices

A patient with a broken tooth pays no attention to your brand. They type what hurts, tap the first result, and call. Google Ads puts you above the map and the organic results for that search, and you pay when they click. Managing it well for a dental practice means paying for the clicks that become new patients and refusing the rest.

Strategic Web Designs is a South Florida agency. We manage Google Ads for dental practices in South Florida and, remotely, across the country. This page covers what we build, what most agencies skip, and what to expect.

Why Dental Search Needs a Different Approach

A click is not a patient. A cleaning and an implant are both dental searches, but one is worth far more than the other. We set bids by what each treatment is worth to your practice, using figures you give us.

Insurance filters the audience. Searchers add plan names to their query, and clicks from plans you don't take cost money and return nothing. We write ads and pages around the plans you accept and block the rest.

Your buyer compares three practices within two miles. The radius, the ad text, and the profile behind it have to be set up as one thing, since the searcher sees your ad, your reviews, and your distance side by side.

Much of the traffic isn't looking for care. Dental terms attract searches for denture prices, school clinics, jobs, and free services. Without a strong negative keyword list, budget leaks to them.

What we build

The general method sits on our Google Ads service hub, with the wider picture on our dental industry hub. Here’s how it applies to a practice.

Campaigns split by treatment: emergency, implants, clear aligners, general and family, and anything else you want more patients for, each with its own budget so a cheap cleaning click can't use up an implant budget.
Location settings matched to your real radius, targeting people in and around each office rather than the default setting, which also reaches people who merely show interest in the area.
A dental-specific negative keyword list covering free, cheap, jobs, school, courses, pets, and anything you don't offer, updated weekly from actual search terms.
Plan-specific ads and pages that only say what your front desk can actually confirm.
Call tracking and ad hours matched to when your phones are answered, since many patients call straight from the ad.
A dedicated landing page per treatment, with the phone number visible without scrolling.
Ad text naming the treatment, the plan situation, and distance, with no "best" or "lowest" claims, since unsupported claims are a common reason healthcare ads get refused.

The part most agencies skip

Most agencies report clicks, calls, and cost per lead. In a dental practice, a “lead” can be an existing patient, a wrong number, or a caller who hung up on hold. Counting those makes the account look healthy while the schedule stays empty.

Measuring booked new patients

We track calls by duration and ask your front desk which calls became booked new-patient appointments, then feed that back into Google Ads as the conversion the account optimizes toward. Without that step, Google steers spend toward whoever calls most, not whoever books.

Audience lists and health data

Google restricts personalized advertising based on health conditions. We don't build remarketing lists from treatment pages or patient portal pages, and we check policy before any audience list is created. We don't need access to patient records, and compliance decisions are your advisor's call, not ours.

Timeline and What Happens First

If you already run ads, we audit recent search terms first, which shows how much went to searches you never wanted. Ads can start running within days of Google’s approval, but early data is thin: two to four weeks is common before the first meaningful adjustments, and two to three months before the cost of a new patient can be judged. We don’t promise a lead volume, a cost, or a date.

Week 1

account access, call tracking, and treatment values.

Weeks 1 to 2

audit of an existing account, or campaigns built from scratch with location targeting and negative keywords in place.

Weeks 1–3

landing page fixes so each ad and page match.

Weeks 2–4

launch, with spend and search terms watched closely.

First report

what was spent, which searches produced calls, and how many became booked patients.

What It Costs

Two costs apply. Your ad budget is paid directly to Google and is typically $2,000-$5,000 per month for a single office, depending on competition in your two-mile radius and which treatments you advertise. Our management fee is typically $750-$2,000. per month, structured as a flat monthly fee, or 15-20% of ad spend with a $750 monthly minimum. Contract terms: a 3-month initial commitment, then month-to-month with 30 days’ written notice to cancel. The ad account and billing stay in your name, with Google paid directly from your card.

How We Report

One monthly report, in plain language, built around booked patients rather than clicks.
Spend against booked new patients, by treatment
Calls by outcome: booked, existing patient, missed, wrong plan
Searches that produced calls, and the ones we blocked
Impression share within your radius
We use multi-touchpoint attribution rather than last-click reporting, since a patient who clicks an ad Monday and books after a map listing Thursday should still show the ad that started the path.

Working with us remotely

We're a South Florida agency with no staff or local presence outside South Florida, and Google Ads is managed entirely from the ad account, phone data, and reports, so almost none of it needs anyone in the room. More detail is on our nationwide page.
Done by video: kickoff on services, plans accepted, and patient value; monthly report reviews.
Done without a call: account audit and build, keyword and ad work, landing page recommendations, call tracking setup, weekly checks.
Need someone at your practice: approving the account link, adding billing, approving treatment claims, telling us which calls booked, answering the phone during ad hours.
Communication runs through one named contact, by email between calls, with replies within one business day.

FAQ's

Do you guarantee leads or a cost per patient?

No. Click cost depends on the auction, and call volume depends on your area, your offer, and how the phone is answered. We show you the data each month.

Will we pay for clicks from outside our area?

Not if the location setting is right. The default setting reaches people who only show interest in your area, and we change it.

Why does the ad account stay in our name?

So you keep your history. If an agency owns the account, its search data leaves with it.

Do we need SEO as well?

Not always. Ads can fill the months while organic and map results build. We run both and will tell you which one the audit supports.

Do you work with practices outside Florida?

Yes, remotely, as described above.

Get an audit

The audit covers your recent search terms and the share that went to searches you never wanted, your location settings against your real radius, how your ads and pages handle the plans you accept, and how calls are answered during ad hours.