The Current Status of Invisalign Social Media Marketing – Q1 2024

Is advertising on Facebook and Instagram still worthwhile?

Several months ago I summarised the status of UK Invisalign marketing on this blog. This was against the backdrop of increasing competition, not just the dentists providing the treatment but also the large number of dental marketing companies jumping in to try to take advantage of the situation, many of them unscrupulously.

So what’s changed in the last 6-9 months and has the landscape become any easier to navigate? Or has it actually got worse, even to the point of saturation in some regions?

Let’s dive in and take a look at the latest state-of-play with Invisalign advertising in the UK; how to evaluate, how to choose an ads management partner, the input you will need to make and what to expect from your campaigns.

What’s happening right now?

In short, it’s all a bit frenzied, particularly in some areas. I commented on my last update that most practices now seem to have at least one clinician who offers Invisalign, not helped by the fact that you can seemingly do a very short training course and then start offering the treatment. Invisalign themselves are also actively encouraging practices to get on board. So as you’ll no doubt be aware, competition at the treatment provider level is generally quite intense.

Alongside this we also have more and more ads agencies jumping in, creating significant competition on the marketing side too. You’ll almost certainly have seen lots of ads on Facebook from agencies claiming that their system is the best and offering what seem to be “too good to be true” offers in terms of the leads and treatments they claim they can generate. As I illustrated in my last blog on this topic, much of what is being offered cannot be trusted – please take a look here to see why.

It’s actually been fascinating to watch the frenzy amongst the ad agencies as they’ve ported their offers and changed their own Facebook and Instagram ads to try to stay ahead. We’ve moved through the “guaranteed 20 leads a month” phase, to 40 guaranteed leads and more. We’re now at the stage where some agencies are offering to work for free unless they deliver leads, but as I mentioned above, you really need to look at their small print and what they expect from you, before you fall for such offers.

The latest ads I’ve seen are increasingly desperate and actually quite aggressive, suggesting that other agencies are just scamming dentists and the like – while this is close to the truth in some cases, it’s not really the sort of thing you’d broadcast on social media and tends to indicate just how frenzied the market has become.

Is it still worthwhile advertising on social media for Invisalign patients?

A few days ago I watched a video from a well-known ads agency where they were presenting to 40 or 50 dentists at a seminar or similar. In the video, the ads agency actively encouraged the audience to step away from Invisalign advertising and move to other treatments instead! They presented data which illustrated how they’d been able to bring in a number of implant treatments for a dentist based in North London but had been unable to secure a worthwhile number of Invisalign enquiries. Basically they’d given up because they believed the market had become over saturated.

Whilst I agree that it’s become much harder to gain new Invisalign patients in this way, I do not accept that it’s reached the point where it’s pointless trying, even in highly-competitive locations. You just need to do it better than your competitors. This is where that particular agency couldn’t compete effectively on behalf of their clients – their ad creative content and deployment likely wasn’t good enough and so they decided to port to advertising alternative treatments. I’ll talk more about this a little later.

Knowing your competition and setting expectations

Before setting out on your own Invisalign ads campaign, you need to understand what is happening in your own location and what your main competitors are doing. Almost certainly, one or more of them will be advertising already. It’s also important to point out that providers who are in adjacent locations could also be publishing ads in your area as they know patients are willing to travel a reasonable distance to get best value with high-ticket treatments such as Invisalign.

The easiest way to get a good idea of what is happening in your location is to look on Facebook. It’s easy enough to check who is advertising what with just a little bit of research. Facebook also provides tools to assist with this. One of the key things we offer our ads clients is competitor research and insights – anyone offering paid social ads for dentists should offer this before you sign up, so please check before you begin. Unfortunately a lot of ads agencies will just sign you up without evaluating what is possible and discussing what you should expect.

You can also research on Google as often the same practices that are using Google ads will be using social media ads too.

When it comes to expectations, please don’t fall for the agency spiel which suggests that they can book you 20 – 30 treatments per month. This is most unlikely to happen, particularly in competitive locations. More likely you may get 20 or 30 leads leading to 3 or 4 new cases per month. A conversion rate (lead to treatment) of 10-12% is very good. The best we ever achieved was 30 treatment cases booked into three consecutive open days – this was from a broad social ads campaign launched 8 weeks before the open days took place.

Whilst 3 or 4 new treatments per month may not sound like much, it can easily represent a threefold return on investment – and who wouldn’t take that?

Ensuring your Invisalign ads are successful where competition is significant

Unlike the ads agencies who are stepping away from Invisalign ads where competition is significant, we know that success can still be achieved if you are willing to invest in content which elevates your ads above the rest of the generic stuff which most agencies use.

Where static images and fairly plain ads used to work, now you need really compelling content to grab user’s attention. This also needs to include a great value proposition for the patient – remember that they are very likely shopping around and will have worked out who is providing the best value for their treatment. Unfortunately it doesn’t really matter if you’re a specialist orthodontist with lots of complex cases completed as many patients are more interested in value these days – they only see the fancy ad and the offer and can’t really different between a specialist service and that offered by the general dentist who went on a two day course.

So if you think you can still differentiate that way and push premium pricing, more often than not you’ll be disappointed. We’ve seen quite a few campaigns where the clinician has tried to differentiate based on reputation, only to see them comprehensively beaten by competitors with better ads and a better value proposition.

With regard to ad content, be prepared to work with your ads team to provide the following:

• a compelling value proposition – this can be achieved without pushing treatment price through the floor
• case studies
• patient testimonials
• video clips

Your ads team will then be able to build the most engaging ads for you and also ensure that your campaign is refreshed regularly so that the ads do not become stale and less effective.

If you cannot commit to this, particularly if you are in a competitive area, then my advice would be to forget advertising on social media. This is a very visual platform and without high-quality ads, you will likely be disappointed.

Summary

Competition for Invisalign treatments remains quite intense with ad agencies offering ridiculous guarantees to try to hook dentists into long term contracts. However, those guarantees usually aren’t worth anything so you must be careful before signing up. Indeed, it’s much better to find a service, like our own here at Dental Media, where there are no long-term tie-ins.

Invisalign advertising is still very worthwhile, even in highly competitive environments; however you need to be realistic about what can be achieved. Do your research first to see what your competitors are doing and also ensure that your ads provider is doing similar and keeping you updated.

Above all, you must be committed to working with your ads provider to deliver compelling content so that the ads which are published on your behalf are of excellent quality and a step above the generic material most agencies tend to fall back on. Without that excellent content, chances are your ads will be ineffective and you will be disappointed with the results.

Would you like to learn more about social media advertising for dentists? The pros, cons and what you should expect with full transparency? If so, please get in touch with the team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 or via the website contact form.