A Guide To Using Google Ads to Attract New Clients, Promote Services, and Enhance Visibility of Your Practice

Imagine a digital billboard that points right to your clinic every time someone nearby searches for pet care. That's Google Ads for you! Google Ads is a form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising that targets potential clients in your area, promotes the services your practice offers, and essentially just lets people looking for a veterinarian know that you’re there and ready to help.

Google Ads PPC advertising is a powerful tool veterinary practices can leverage to grow their client base as well as encourage new and existing clients to benefit from discounts and promotions. With Google Ads, vet practices don't just gain visibility; they also get a chance to showcase their unique and top-tier care.

To learn more about the different types of ads that are best suited for veterinary practices, explore our guide to PPC Marketing for Veterinarians. And if you're itching to discover proven PPC strategies that truly elevate veterinary marketing, keep reading. The journey to being the go-to vet in town starts here! Want to take your marketing incentives to the next level? Stay tuned.

How To Use Google Ads To Achieve Your Goals

If you have experience with running Google Ads or you have read our PPC guide for veterinarians, you will know that there are various types of Ads you can choose from, each tailored to the specific objective you're aiming for.

The primary goals we have identified in veterinary practices typically run along these lines:

• I want potential clients in my area to know about my practice and reach out to us.
• I want people who already know about my practice to become a client.

The Google Ads strategy you decide on should be directly associated with your goal. If you wish to gain as many new clients as possible, Search Ads and Click-to-Call Ads are your very best options. Alternatively, if you wish to get people who are familiar with your practice to become a client, Remarketing Ads are the way to go.

Getting The Most From Search & Click-To-Call Ads

At GeniusVets, we have witnessed countless veterinary practices grow their client base by using our proven Search and Click-To-Call Ads strategy. The following factors are the hallmarks of a successful Search Campaign:

Compelling Ad Copy

Our team conducts extensive keyword research and leverages historical data to create the best-performing headlines and descriptions for your Ads, based on the goals you provide us with. If you have any specific attributes or accreditations you wish to feature in your Ads, we will happily work with you to ensure your ads showcase the very best characteristics of your practice.

Strategic Ad-Extensions

The assets we can associate with your ads also play an important role in performance. If we host and manage your website, we can embed links in your ads that direct users to specific pages on your site, enhancing user engagement and conversions. High-quality images of your practice and team members can also be added to your ads, amplifying their appeal.

Boosting your Ads Campaign's quality further, integrating it with your Google My Business (GMB) profile is essential. This allows Google to furnish local searchers with detailed information about your practice, solidifying your reputation as a trusted local service provider.

Our clients enjoy the benefit of not having to put their creative hats on too often and trust our ability to craft the optimal blend of assets with the information they provide. Your website also serves as a valuable resource for us to highlight everything that makes your practice special so you can rest assured that if there is room for improvement, we are comfortably exploring that room and implementing the necessary adjustments.

The Ad-extensions we typically use for Search and Click-to-Call Ads include:

1. Images Call extensions Location extensions Sitelinks (links to other pages on your website)
2. Structures snippets (a list of all the services offered at your practice)
3. Callouts (a few strong phrases that highlights your best practice qualities and promote conversions)

Quality Landing Pages

Google gives your ads a Quality Ranking that is calculated based on:

1. The likelihood that someone will click on your ads when they see it (Click-Through-Rate)
2. How closely your ad matches the user’s search intent (Does your ad give the user what they're looking for?)
3. How useful and relevant the page that we’re sending your ads to is (Does the page the user sees after clicking your ad provide them with a good experience?)

The first two of these factors are within our ballpark. By creating the best Ads in the industry, we can contribute to a high click-through rate and excellent ad relevance. The third, however, requires a bit of input from your side. Your landing pages are a massive contributor to your ads performance.

What constitutes a good landing page? Well, there are several ways to create the ultimate landing page:

• The page should contain all the key elements of what you are advertising. If your intent is to familiarize people in your area with your practice, your Homepage is the best landing page to use, as it likely features your mission statement, services, contact information, and any other vital information prospective clients should have access to.
• The page should provide an excellent user experience by making it easy for users to navigate through your site and services, and contact you if they wish to. There should not be any discrepancies of information, links that don’t work, or errors in any action the user has the option of executing.
• The page should be optimized with images and/or videos showcasing your practice character and staff members.
• The page should be directly related to the product or service you are advertising on Google Ads. The relevance between the keywords your ads bid on and the keywords found on your landing page is a major determining factor of Quality Score. For instance, if you are advertising your Spay & Neuter services, you should have a well-optimized service page containing keywords related to pet spaying and neutering.

Google also has various rules and regulations when it comes to the landing pages used for Google Ads, but you can let us worry about maintaining compliance. Here is an example of a high-quality service page ideal for use in PPC Ads.

A Reasonable Budget

At GeniusVets, we always strive to accommodate your limitations and work within your means, so the budget you are able to set aside for Google Ads is the budget we will use optimally. That said, there is something to say for the phrase “It takes money to make money.”

There are numerous external factors that will play a role in how well your Ads perform, including the quantity and robustness of your surrounding competitors. The amount you are able and willing to spend on Google Ads is a prominent factor in determining whether your Ads outperform your competitors.

With our PPC services, you can be sure your Ads are structured in a way that is proven to drive results, but if a competitor is willing to spend a lot more for their ads to gain visibility, your campaign might come in second sometimes. Here is a simple overview of how a Google Ads Auction works and the role that budgets play therein.

To provide some perspective, here are some results of a client that is currently spending $82/day on Search Ads:

Evidently, a high budget of $82 daily led them to gain 613 conversions in the form of phone calls and online form submissions over the course of one month, while only paying $4.04 for every conversion. Additionally, 49% of all the people that clicked on their ads ended up reaching out to the practice.

Now, here is a client that is able to spend $10/day on Search Ads:

Although a budget of $10 daily can still have excellent results in terms of conversion rate, cost/conversion, and virtually everything else, the number of conversions are much lower over the course of one month. This is primarily because the daily budget limits the ads from showing up for everyone that qualifies to see them. Moreover, if a competitor in the area has a higher daily budget, their ads are more likely to show up for prospects than the ads that have a limited budget.

A Tailored Bid Strategy

Google has various options to choose from when it comes to the bid strategies you can use for your Ads. First, let’s clarify what a bid strategy is. A bid strategy is essentially a set of rules or algorithms that ultimately determine how much you are able and willing to pay for someone to click on your ad.

Your bid strategy should reflect your goals. For example, if your goal is to get as much visibility as possible, “maximizing clicks” would be the best course of action. Alternatively, using the bid strategy “maximize conversions” would result in Google’s algorithm ensuring your ads show up only for people who are most likely to convert by reaching out to your practice. Google knows a lot more about its users than one might think, and advanced machine learning algorithms are very effective at recognizing the prospects that ought to view your ads to deliver the highest possible ROI.

We here at GeniusVets have extensive experience in running Google Ads campaigns for veterinary practices. This experience has enabled us to determine the most effective bid strategies based on goals and industry trends. Our strategy involves allowing Google to investigate all aspects of your practice and your PPC goals for a limited time, during which we aim to get as many eyes on your ads as possible by using a Maximize Clicks bid strategy.

After your campaign has gained some traction and it’s time to take things to the next level, we signal to Google’s algorithm to show your Ads to those who are truly interested in making use of your veterinary services with a Maximize Conversions bid strategy. However, we always consider your goals when determining the ideal id strategy for your Ads and will continue adjusting and optimizing your campaigns accordingly.

GeniusVets: Your Personal Google Ads Manager

There are a myriad of topics to explore when it comes to Google Ads and the best practices thereof, but this endless stream of information can become quite overwhelming. So, instead of trying to understand this ever-changing world of PPC right to the bedrock, I thought I’d give you something visual to consider.

Industry PPC Averages VS. GeniusVets PPC Averages

Below are some figures to help illustrate the efficiency of our Google Ads strategy by comparing the results we generate to the averages in the veterinary industry. The figures provided are based on data gathered in 2023.

• Cost per Conversion

  • Our clients pay approximately $18.71 less for a conversion on Google Ads than the average veterinary practice.

• Conversion Rate

  • 37.8% of all the people that click on our clients’ ads convert by calling the practice, submitting one of their online forms, or performing any other activity that is considered valuable to the practice. In the rest of the veterinary industry, only 13.41% of people convert.

• Cost Per Click

  • Our clients pay approximately $1.17 less when someone clicks on their ad compared to the average veterinary practice.

Conclusion

Google Ads is an ever-evolving landscape, and keeping up with all the latest tricks of the trade can be daunting. That is why we have only the best team members on board, dedicated to staying on top of all the latest trends in the industry and equipped to keep our veterinary clients on the path to success.

If used properly and with adequate perspective and experience, Google Ads can be one of the most valuable tools your practice can utilize to raise visibility and promote the growth of your practice family. Your success is our top priority.