Google Ads for Health Care Professionals

Marketing is a very general term that encompasses everything from branding to billboards and PR. In today's world, the most important aspect of marketing is arguably digital advertising, often referred to as PPC (pay per click). Here, I'll break down the first of the two major PPC options, Google Ads. You can read my broader article about marketing for healthcare professionals here - it's probably a good place to start.

Background to Google Ads

When you search for anything on Google, you'll likely notice that the first few results are marked with an AD symbol. This is how Google makes almost all of its money. Anybody (including you) can create one or more ads to be displayed when people search. Before I explain more detail, it's important to note that everything also applies to Bing Ads and Yahoo Ads, but given that Google Search has an 88% market share (that is, 88% of people worldwide use Google as their search engine of choice), I'll focus on Google's ad system here.

The basis of Google Search is to provide a search engine that can accurately and quickly identify what you're looking for, and give you the top results that are likely to match. Google's methods of doing this are secret, but a fair amount of the principal concepts are public knowledge. In summary, Google uses machine learning (ML), your search and website behavior, and massive amounts of data to semantically identify what you MEAN, not what you type. Based on this assessment, it will figure out the most likely results and show them to you in fractions of a second.

As a website owner, you're able to bypass this wall of data (somewhat) by paying Google for the privilege of displaying your ad before its normal search results. Google has gone out of its way to make their advertising platform accessible to everyone, but keep in mind that it's not necessarily best for you to manage your ads yourself. As with all aspects of marketing, you should engage with experienced professionals when the option is available.

For most PPC options, you'll be charged when someone clicks on your ad, not when it's displayed to them.

Important Terms

Google Ads (and PPC in general) is very data-centric. It revolves around raw numbers and optimization of those numbers over the long term. This is the power of digital advertising in general - you get extensive data, which can be used to great effectiveness in improving ROI. Here are a few important terms to be aware of;

ROI - return on investment. How much your spend vs how much you make.
Conversion - a person or user who takes an action. In some cases that may be a sign up, a contact form submission, or a purchase.
CPC - cost per click. The average charge you incur when someone clicks on an ad.
Impression - when an ad is displayed, regardless of whether they click on it or not.
CTR - click through rate. The ratio of clicks vs impressions.
Conversion rate - the ratio of clicks to conversions.

The Fundamentals

To create an account, you can simply go to ads.google.com and follow the steps from there. Once created, it's broken down in to a hierarchy;

Campaigns are the broadest grouping, which will typically dictate budget and major settings such as location targeting.
Under each campaign, you can have any number of ad groups. Depending on your business, you might have a single ad group, or one for each location and/or service. Ad groups have minimal settings, and are more for organisation.
Under each ad group, you can create any number of ads. The text of the ad is what a person sees when searching, and the link in each ad is where a person will be taken when they click on it.
Also under each ad group, you can specify a range of keywords. These are the words and phrases that are matched to any particular search.

When creating an ad campaign, you will typically create one or more of each of the above items, and then your ads will appear.

How Ads are Displayed

Coming back to the background, when a person searches for something, the normal search results are displayed based on the principals already outlined above. Once you've set up a complete campaign, Google will attempt to match your keywords and ads to any search that is performed. So, for example, if you've created a campaign with keywords related to "psychology CPD courses", Google will try to display your ads when somebody searches this phrase or related phrases. How this happens is complicated, and I won't get in to the details here, but keep in mind that it's designed as a bidding process, where your ads bid against competitive ads for the most relevant and highest paying position. The winner of the bid appears first, and so on down the search results.

Best Practice

I could write many articles about how to effectively manage your Google Ads, but for simplicity, here are a few critical points;

Think carefully about how you're targeting people. Set up your campaign to target only people in the geographic location that makes sense.
Don't get sucked in to Google's attempts to encourage you to use every feature. As a novice, for example, you shouldn't use Google Display Ads or Google Network Ads unless you know what you're doing. Keep your settings simple and targeted.
Always have multiple variations of ads. I typically have three ads per ad group, each quite different. On a weekly basis, I will remove the worst performing one and try something new. Either way, never have just one ad.
Do your research on keywords. There are many ways to do this, including in Google Ads itself. Avoid having more than a dozen keywords to begin with.
Optimize. That is, add new keywords, remove underperfoming keywords, and change your ads regularly. To do this, you'll need to keep an eye on conversion rates and other data metrics.

Pros and Cons

Google Ads are very powerful. They've been proven a thousand times over to be more effective than almost anything else out there. The reasons for this are varied. Most importantly, ads are displayed based on a person's intent. That is, somebody is looking to get their CPD points online, and will search for "CPD points online". If your ad displays, and they click on it, and your website is effective, then one can assume that there's a very high likelihood of a conversion, because the person had the intent of finding you or someone like you at the start.

However, the cost of using Google Ads can be very high, especially for small businesses. You should be prepared to commit a minimum of a few hundred dollars a month to it, on a continuing basis. On top of this, although it's designed to be accessible, the data-focused nature of it means that you can easily waste money if you don't do your research and have a head for numbers.

In all cases, I would strongly recommend using an agency to manage Google Ads for you, rather than trying it yourself. If you're inclined to try it yourself, it's best to spend a few hours watching YouTube videos and reading more detailed articles about Google Ads before starting.

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