A cautionary tale for dentists – don’t make this mistake.

Are you running Facebook/Instagram ad campaigns for your dental practice, or perhaps more importantly, is an agency running these on your behalf? If so, then this blog has some important security information for you.

A few weeks ago, one of our long-term clients had their Facebook (Meta) ads manager account hacked. The hackers waited until the early hours of the morning and then increased the daily spend limit of the account to £15,000. They then very quickly published scam adverts and churned these out to tens of thousands of unsuspecting users – all paid for by the client’s credit card! It was 8am the following morning before the hack was spotted but by this stage, thousands of pounds of the client’s money had been spent.

This is a “churn and burn” attack i.e. the hackers know that it will likely be spotted quickly but by accessing overnight, they can still push out lots of spam ads and spend a lot of money before it gets closed down – very dangerous. Their ads purported to sell personal medical devices which very likely didn’t get delivered to the folks who clicked the ads and paid for them. This was a clever scam, but at the same time appalling. Unfortunately the hackers were able to access the top-level client’s account where there are no controls on the daily click budget – so they could simply change it to whatever they wanted.

What happened – how did the hackers get in?

Our client couldn’t understand how the hackers got in as they use two-factor-authentication (2FA) – and we do too. So in theory this should not have been possible. We are linked to the client’s account to facilitate the administration of the ads, however we are extremely cautious and we knew that the hack hadn’t come via ourselves. This meant that the hack either came via the client (they were adamant that it hadn’t) or something else. It didn’t take us long to see what had gone wrong.

Access from a third-party agency

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What you need to know before jumping in.

As a dentist reading this blog, you may already have dipped into social media ads? There’s a chance that it worked well for you but also the strong possibility that it didn’t. Unfortunately, social ad campaigns that don’t work as well as expected are becoming more and more common, so what’s going wrong? In this blog we’ll take a look at what’s changed, together with what you need to do to give yourself the best chances of success when advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

Before looking at specifics, it’s worth noting the changing way that marketing agencies are advertising their own services via social media as this gives a good clue as to what’s going on. A couple of years ago, marketers were running their own basic ads that typically offered “twenty leads per month” and little else. As things got harder, it quickly became 30 leads per month, then 40 and so on. Then around a year ago, marketers started to offer to work for free if they didn’t meet the pre-agreed number of leads delivered.

Now we not only see that, but also lead-qualification services where the agency filters the leads, essentially working for the dentist. I’m even seeing the so-called leading Invisalign marketer offering free services – that evolution is a really good indicator of how things are changing and how everyone is trying to compete, supplier and dentist.

Of course what you also need to understand, particularly as the marketing companies try to avoid mentioning it, is that you need a big daily budget to make any of it happen. Unfortunately the leads from social media ads can be quite speculative, with a high proportion coming to nothing. So for the marketer to achieve the objective, lots and lots of leads have to be generated – hence the ever increasing budgets. I draw the analogy of panning for gold; while there are golden nuggets to be had, there’s a lot of rubbish to be filtered through first.

So what’s driven these significant changes in a relatively short space of time and made the social ads space trickier to navigate and get good returns?

Increasing competition

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So you want prominence in Google but don’t know how or when to start?

Most people would agree that getting your dental practice website prominent in Google is important but just how important is perhaps less-well understood. To help understand a little better, let’s take a quick look at typical visitor statistics for websites in different positions on page one of the Google search index:

  • Position 1 – 32% of traffic
  • Position 2 – 24% of traffic
  • Position 3 – 18% of traffic
  • Position 10 (traditionally bottom pf page one) – 2.5% of traffic

Traffic drops away progressively as you fall below half way and then peters out to very little at all as you move on to page 2 of the search results. You’ve probably heard that it’s pretty pointless having a website on page 2 of Google and it’s not wrong – languishing back there means that very few folk are going to find you from a Google search unfortunately.

Of course there are other ways to get traffic to your website but most of the viable alternatives to a “traditional” Google search involve paying – either ads on Google, social media or both.

Hopefully the data above serves to illustrate just how important good search rankings are for any business, not just dentists. We also know from our SEO work with lots of dental clients, that their fortunes in terms of new patient acquisition improve hugely as their websites climb up page one. Similarly we see the opposite effect when clients gain prominence but then decide that the “job is done”, stop their SEO and slide back down the rankings.

Suffice to say then, that prominent search ranking positions are extremely important indeed.

When should a dentist start SEO for their website?

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Here’s why it’s lazy and a bad idea….

Along with most of us, you’ve probably marveled at the capability of AI and how it can effortlessly generate text, images and even video from just a few simple commands. Extremely useful right? Well no doubt AI has some very handy applications and is great for making some routine tasks very simple, but there are other areas where its use can be unexpectedly problematic – one of these is generating content for a dental website or blog. So why is this? Let’s jump in and take a closer look.

Why is AI content bad for your website or dental blog?

On the face of it, using the wonders of AI to generate lots of content for your website certainly sounds compelling and a great idea. After all, search engine optimisers often tell us how great content can bring lots of website visits and help to propel us up the Google rankings – so easy peasy then? Well, unfortunately not and the main reason why it’s not, is down to Google.

Google’s main aim is to return the best answers for questions that users ask when using their search engine and they do this by surfacing web content which achieves that in search results. For example, the dental websites which they consider to be the most useful and authoritative are typically promoted to the top of the ranking results and hence get lots of traffic for their owners.

In an effort to differentiate good websites from poorer ones, Google has developed and finely tuned algorithms to index and “understand” website content so that it can be best matched to user’s search queries. As part of this incremental algorithm development over the years, Google has become extremely adept at recognising unique, compelling content and promoting it, while at the same time relegating poorer content.

You can probably see the issue here? If everyone is using AI to generate content and then publishing it on their websites, how is Google ever going to determine which of it is actually worthy of being top of the web rankings – it’s not even unique in the truest sense of the word. So we can see why they are skeptical about AI content and taking a stand to relegate it where it’s found.

A new challenge for SEO

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Using Google Analytics for comprehensive conversion capture and analysis.

Are you in the dark when it comes to fully understanding how your dental practice website is performing? Perhaps you’ve installed Google Analytics to get an idea of how much traffic the website receives but other than that, you’re unsure how many enquiries were generated and from what source?

This is a picture we see all too often when dentists approach us for advice about making best use of their website. Many of them have had a website built but then been left in the dark about how it performs. In an effort to get some insights they often have a member of the reception team trying to record enquiries on a spreadsheet, checking to see where an email came from or asking patients on the ‘phone how they found the practice. As you probably realise, this is very inaccurate and simply not good enough to get a clear understanding of how your website is performing.

How then, do we help dentists track website users? Even more importantly, did they make an enquiry and what mechanism did they use – ‘phone call, contact form, chatbot or WhatsApp?

Without this knowledge, you can’t measure your website’s performance and consequently you can’t manage it.

First let’s take a look at Google Analytics and how it can be used to provide a holistic performance assessment of your dental website.

Google Analytics

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How dental paid ads on Facebook and Instagram are likely to be affected.

In January 2025, Meta started the roll-out of data sharing restrictions to certain categories of websites. We already know that this includes dental websites and so will have some impact on dentists who rely on the Facebook website pixel to gather data for optimising Facebook ads for example.

These new restrictions are primarily around the prevention of unauthorized data sharing, an area where Meta already has somewhat of a chequered history and been subject to lawsuits and fines. So it certainly looks like Meta is now implementing quite stringent actions to try to stay compliant with the legislation and keep out of trouble.

What do we know so far?

To begin with, Meta is placing organisations into specific categories e.g. Health and Wellness and further into sub-categories like “provider” or “patient portal”. This determination is made based on the type of information you’re already sharing with Meta e.g. from your website or perhaps an app.

Meta is then looking to restrict certain “events”, for example those recorded via its data pixel. How your dental website is categorised will dictate which events will be restricted and subsequently not be shared back to Meta. This will then be unavailable to help optimise ad campaigns.

We already know that dental websites have been placed in the Health and Wellness category and we’re also seeing indications of inclusion in the “patient portal” category.

What does this mean for dental advertisers?

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Why Google Ads for dentists make sense.

Many of our dental marketing clients run Google Ads, also known as pay-per-click (PPC), alongside their search engine optimisation and social media campaigns. For those dentists who may still be skeptical about PPC, perhaps worried about the cost, in today’s blog I’ll explain why PPC is important and also very effective when done well. Hopefully this will give some confidence that it’s a promotional channel well-worth investigating in the new year ahead.

First let’s have a short recap about what PPC is and then how you can use it to your advantage.

Google Ads – how they work

If you use Google, and who doesn’t these days, you’ll very likely have seen the three or four results at the top of the page which advertise various products and services, including dentistry. These ads are typically very prominent and look very much like the traditional organic (non-paid) results. What is very important to know is that around 30% of all traffic from Google now results from clicks on ads.

In basic terms, Google Ads are a form of auction whereby the advertiser bids on clicks – so every time someone clicks your ad, you pay a sum of money to Google. The more you bid for clicks, typically the higher up and hence more prominent your ad appears in the Google results. There are actually quite a few more factors in play, not just your click bid, but in principle you can consider that Google Ads is an auction of the type just described.

When a user clicks on your ad, they will be taken to your landing page (an optimised page specific to the treatment you are advertising) or a selected page on your website. Alternatively you can also deploy your ads with call assets attached, so people call you directly from the ad instead.

Understandably, competition plays a big part in Google Ads bidding and treatments such as implants and Invisalign tend to attract higher click bids than other treatments. This should be kept in mind when starting an ads campaign and factored into the return-on-investment calculations. Seasoned PPC practitioners such as the team here at Dental Media, will be able to advise.

So now we know a little bit more about what Google Ads actually are, let’s consider how and when a dentist might use them to bring new patient enquiries to the practice.

When should dentists consider using Google Ads?

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Here’s why persevering with an outmoded website is a big mistake.

It’s likely that a lot of dentists who don’t update their old, failing websites secretly know that it’s costing them money. Perhaps what they don’t realise however, is just how much it’s costing them and the key reasons why. In today’s blog I’ll list the main reasons why old websites are a drain on your budget as well as failing to convert web visitors into useful treatment enquiries. I’ll also illustrate why your old website is very likely pushing potential new patients across to your competitors.

Dated dental websites are uninspiring and don’t engage visitors

In this fickle world we live in, increasing numbers of people are shopping around when seeking out dental treatments, particularly where those treatments require a significant level of investment such as orthodontics and dental implants. It can’t be stressed enough that “first impressions count” and a potential new patient’s first port of call will often be your website.

Consider then, what happens next? Will the patient be engaged and impressed by your dated website that doesn’t showcase your facilities, skills and patient successes appropriately and professionally. Or will they more likely enquire at the local competitor practice with the new, professional dental website which shows off the practice and services to best effect? The answer is clear and also backed-up by the huge amount of statistical data we see from the numerous marketing campaigns we manage.

Missing out on a few high value treatment cases because patients were enticed to look elsewhere means a lot of lost revenue on a recurring basis, funds that could easily have covered the cost of a new website and much more to boot. It’s really easy to demonstrate this but unfortunately a lot of dentists still ignore the advice and subsequently miss out.

You’re likely still paying your existing web designer over the odds for looking after an underperforming website

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These important Internet elements are key building blocks for your web presence – here’s what they do and why.

Here at Dental Media we provide fully managed website and digital marketing solutions for dentists ensuring that dental professionals can concentrate on what they do best whilst we look after their web presence.

However, even with a fully managed web service, there are a few key elements which a dentist or dental practice manager should understand and how they support important website and email services. So for example if they wish to change provider at some point, then they know exactly what needs to be shifted over and how to make sure it’s done quickly and efficiently with no loss of service.

In today’s blog we will discuss domain names, the DNS system associated with domain names and website and email hosting. These are the key elements which work together to support your online presence. How they link together and how well they are managed is important for any business to understand, dentists included.

Let’s step in and take a closer look.

Your dental website domain name

This is effectively your Internet address, often prefixed by www (world-wide-web) albeit that isn’t essential these days. There are numerous domain extensions e.g. .com, .co.uk etc and you can ‘rent’ one of these as the address for your website. It’s probably worth clearing up here that no-one actually owns a domain name, it is leased to you by a domain authority for a certain period of time via companies called domain registrars. However, the domain is for your exclusive use as long as you keep paying the renewal premiums.

Dental Media manages many hundreds of domain names on behalf of dentists but it is also possible for the dental practice or dentist to register and manage their own domain name(s). The key considerations for a domain name are a) make sure it is registered in your name and not the name of an agency who may be looking after it for you and b) ensure it does not expire – we see this too many times where a client manages their own domain name and simply forgets to renew. This results in a panicked call to us to report that their website and email has stopped working!

If you do decide to allow your design agency to manage your domain name, please be certain that they are trustworthy and will transfer the domain elsewhere quickly and professionally should you ever need this to happen. Unfortunately we’ve seen quite a few cases where an agency has ignored domain transfer requests and made it as hard as possible to take over the website and hosting services. Whilst there is a domain recovery service, for example via Nominet for .co.uk domains, this is convoluted and should only be a last resort.

The DNS – domain name system

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Why you need a realistic budget to succeed.

Last week we added two more dentists to our popular Google Ads (pay-per-click) management portfolio. They had both been trying to run Google Ads themselves but not getting any meaningful return on their investment; fairly typical for DIY Google Ads in the dental sector unfortunately.

On checking closely, it became obvious why their ad campaigns were failing, including basic set up problems but also unrealistic click budgets. It’s the latter element, click budget, that we’ll focus on today as it seems that there is very limited understanding amongst the dental community of what is realistic

We’ll also make a quick review of what Google Ads actually are, how they work and why the budget you allocate to click costs is a key to whether you succeed or fail.

How do Google Ads for dentists work?

We’ve reviewed this in detail elsewhere in the Dental Media blog but as a quick recap, let’s take a look at Google Ads in the context of an online auction. When running an ads campaign, you effectively bid against competitors with similar interests in your location. Every time a user clicks on your ad, you pay Google the “click cost” – this can range from pence to several pounds depending on the level of competition (“the auction”) in which you are taking part.

Whilst there are numerous factors which dictate where your ads appear in Google searches, one of the key factors when it comes to who sits at the top, is your click bid i.e. the money you are willing to pay to Google when the ad is clicked. In very simple terms, those who are willing to spend more, can typically expect their ads to appear highest. Hence the importance of your “click budget”.

What is a realistic budget for your Google Ads?

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