Google Ads for dentists: what works, what it costs, and the rules

The economics: work back from a patient, not a click

Dental keywords are among the more expensive in Australian search, and that is fine, because a dental patient is worth far more than a click. The question is never "is $18 a click too much". It is "what does a new patient cost me, and what is that patient worth over the next five years".

Run the numbers before you run the ads. If clicks cost $15, one in twelve people who click makes an enquiry, and you convert two-thirds of enquiries into a booked appointment, a new patient costs roughly $270 in ad spend. Against a general check-up that is uncomfortable. Against an implant, a full orthodontic case, or a family who stays for a decade, it is cheap.

That gap is the whole strategy. The clinics that do well on Google Ads are the ones that bid for the treatments worth bidding on, and let the general terms go.

Advertise the treatments, not "dentist"

The word "dentist" is the most expensive and least useful keyword in the category. It is bid on by every clinic in your postcode, it attracts people comparing five practices, and it tells you nothing about what they want.

What works better is treatment-level targeting, split by value and urgency:

• High-value elective work. Implants, veneers, clear aligners, full-mouth rehabilitation. Expensive clicks, long consideration, high return. These deserve their own campaigns, their own budgets and their own pages.
• Urgent care. "Emergency dentist", "toothache", "broken tooth", "wisdom tooth pain". People searching these book quickly and rarely shop around. Bid aggressively when you can actually see them, and pause when you cannot.
• Anxiety and access searches. "Dentist for nervous patients", "sleep dentistry", "bulk billing dentist", "payment plan dentist". Lower competition, and they select for people who have been putting off treatment for years.
• Family and routine care. "Children's dentist", "family dental clinic". Lower immediate value, high lifetime value. Worth running at a modest budget once the others are working.

Split these into separate campaigns rather than one bucket. An implant enquiry and a check-up enquiry are worth wildly different amounts, and if they share a budget, the cheap clicks will quietly eat it.

The campaign setup for a clinic

Nothing exotic here. Dental accounts fail on fundamentals, not on advanced tactics.

1. 1Search campaigns, tightly geo-targeted. Most patients travel fifteen minutes, not fifty. Set a realistic radius, use presence targeting rather than interest, and exclude areas you do not want. Paying for clicks from the other side of the city is the most common waste in dental accounts.
2. 2Phrase and exact match to start. Broad match on $15 clicks is an expensive education. Widen later, once you know what converts.
3. 3A serious negative list. Negative keywords should block "dental assistant jobs", "dental nurse course", "dentist salary", "dental school", "free dental", and every treatment you do not offer. If you do not do implants, "implant" is a negative, not an opportunity.
4. 4Ad scheduling matched to your front desk. If reception finishes at 5pm and nobody returns calls until morning, bidding at 8pm buys you missed calls. Unless you offer genuine after-hours emergency care, in which case that is your least competitive hour.
5. 5Call assets, and a phone number that goes to a human. Most dental enquiries are calls made in under a minute on a phone.
6. 6Conversion tracking that counts calls and forms. Set it up properly before spending, not after.

Then mark, in your practice management system, which enquiries actually became appointments and what they were worth. Without that, you are optimizing for enquiry count, and enquiry count is not the goal. If tracking is broken, pause the victory lap and fix measurement first. A campaign with no call tracking is an expensive trust exercise.

The advertising rules dentists have to work inside

This is where dental advertising differs from every other service business, and where a generic agency will get you into trouble. Dentistry is a regulated health profession in Australia, and advertising a regulated health service is governed by the National Law and enforced by Ahpra.

The rules that most often catch clinics out:

• Testimonials about clinical care are not allowed in advertising. This surprises people, because it is the opposite of what works everywhere else. Patient quotes about treatment outcomes cannot be used in your ads or on the pages you advertise. Reviews left independently on Google are treated differently from testimonials you publish yourself, but you cannot solicit and republish clinical praise as advertising.
• No misleading claims, and no offers that encourage unnecessary treatment. Time-limited discounts on clinical procedures are a risk area.
• No claims of superiority you cannot substantiate. "Best dentist in Adelaide" is not a slogan, it is a compliance problem.
• Before and after images carry conditions. They must be genuine, consistent in lighting and angle, and accompanied by appropriate context about variability of results.

Ahpra publishes the current guidance in its advertising resources, and it is worth twenty minutes of your practice manager’s time before any campaign goes live. Ask any agency you are considering whether they have read it. The answer tells you a lot.

Compliance is not the enemy of good advertising here. It just moves the proof: instead of patient quotes, you lead with clinicians, credentials, technology, comfort, pricing transparency and availability. Those convert perfectly well.

The landing page, and the gap between a click and a booking

A clinic came to us once with decent click volume and disappointing enquiries. The ads were fine. The problem was the page: a broad headline about "quality dental care", no pricing, no named clinicians, four different calls to action, and a booking form that asked for a Medicare number before it asked for a phone number. Tightening the page improved the enquiries before a single ad was rewritten.

For dental, a page that converts usually carries the same things:

• One treatment, matching the search. Implant clicks land on the implant page. Not the homepage, and not a general "our services" list.
• A price or a range. The most common unasked question in dentistry is what it costs. Answering it beats every trust badge you could add.
• The clinician, by name, with a photo and credentials. People choose a person.
• Availability. "Appointments this week" removes the main reason people stall.
• Online booking that works on a phone, plus a phone number. Offer both. Older patients call, younger patients book at 11pm.

The structure is covered in more detail in how to build a high-converting landing page. And do not forget the free half of this: your Google Business Profile is what people check after they see the ad. Our guide to optimizing a Google Business Profile covers it.

When not to run Google Ads

Do not advertise if your chairs are full. It sounds obvious and it happens constantly, usually because a practice signs a twelve-month agency contract during a quiet quarter and never revisits it. If your next available appointment is four weeks away, ads buy you frustrated callers and a longer wait list. Put your fees up, or hire, or do nothing. All three beat advertising.

Also hold off if:

• Reception cannot answer during ad hours. Missed calls are pre-paid patients walking to the clinic down the road. Fix the phones first, even if the fix is a call answering service.
• You have no page for the treatment you want to advertise. Sending implant traffic to a homepage is paying premium prices for a poor experience.
• Your budget is under about $1,000 a month in a capital city. At dental click prices that is roughly sixty clicks, which is not enough to learn anything. Spend it on your Google Business Profile and reviews instead.
• You are only chasing check-ups. The maths rarely works on routine care alone at current click prices. Use ads for high-value treatments and urgent care, and let organic and referrals carry the routine work.

For the budgeting method in full, see how to set a PPC budget. The account structure principles carry across service businesses generally, which we cover in Google Ads for tradies. If you would rather hand it over, our Google Ads work for service businesses is where to start.

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