Latest Google Ads Features For Dentists

New tools to enhance your Google pay-per-click performance

Over the last few years we’ve written several blog articles covering the use of Google Ads (formerly AdWords) as part of comprehensive dental marketing strategies and how it is becoming commonplace to support organic SEO campaigns.

Google Ads done well, can pay off handsomely and it’s well worth getting on board to help boost new patient enquiries.

As with all sophisticated marketing tools, you do need expert assistance to get the most from it, together with the use of comprehensive reporting systems to quantify the payback. With these things in place, Google Ads can be an excellent way to help grow you practice.

Google makes a huge proportion of its revenues from Ads (> 90%) and consequently they put a lot of time and resources into the tool. This ranges from regular technical and feature updates, to providing support in helping you set up you campaigns. If you do go the DIY route, just be careful as to the quality of the support however, because it can be a little bit hit and miss!

In today’s blog we’ll take a look at a couple of recent and useful additions to your ad campaigns which we’ve already found useful to improve conversions. We’ll already assume that you are using the full Google Ads suite of tools (not the Express “lite” system which is rather poor) and that you have all of the basic features in play. This means a granular account with appropriate data hierarchy, correct choice of keywords, negative keywords and a range of carefully crafted ads. We’ll also assume that you have your account integrated with Google Analytics so you have clear visibility on performance. If you are yet to implement some of these features, please take a look elsewhere in our blog for advice or give our team a call.

Recent Google Ads features for you try

You will likely have seem some ads on Google which stand out much better than others? These prominent ads are making use of the full suite of tools available in the ads management system to help make them stand out i.e. they take up more screen “real estate” than ads which are less-well configured. This is very important as the users eye is more readily drawn to the ads which stand out more – easy enough to understand, but how do you achieve that?

As well as the basic ad text, there are features known as extensions which boost the ad content, adding elements such as links to your website pages, location details, telephone number etc. These have been in play for a number of years and we cover them in more detail elsewhere in this blog.

More recently, Google has added to the list of extensions which you can use. Here’s a couple you might not be familiar with but are well worth using:

Structured Snippet extensions

These extensions add additional information to your ad which highlight specific features of products and services. They have a “header” e.g. Orthodontics and then a list of related services e.g. Invisalign, Cfast, Damon etc. They are customisable and are useful to show people an overview of your services before they actually click through to your website or landing page. They increase the relevance of your ad and ultimately your return on investment – give them a try!

Responsive Text Ads

For years Google has been evolving their ad format options, from simple text ads, mobile only ads etc. It was quite a chore to keep up with all of the changes. Now we have the latest format, responsive text ads, which allow users to quickly and easily configure ads which automatically adjust to the screen size on which they are being displayed. They are easy enough to set up but you do need to be a little bit patient in providing all of the information Google needs to help configure the ads optimally. There are tools within the configuration system to guide you through.

If you are serious about your campaigns, you need to deploy various different ad types with tweaks to the ad copy to see which performs best over time. Just a single, simple ad will not cut it and your campaigns will likely disappoint.

There are many different types of ads, a lot of them associated with ecommerce, but feel free to do your research to see which ones fit your business best. There are two or three main variants which are typically most appropriate for dentists promotion but if you need some guidance, please give us a call.

Summary

As we’ve discussed previously, Google Ads are a great way to advertise your business quickly and in a targeted way. Some investment is required, both in the click costs you will need to pay to Google, and also a fee to have your campaigns set up and run expertly. You may wish to try advertising yourself but please note that there is a steep learning curve and it’s very easy to waste money if you don’t really know what you are doing. Unfortunately Google won’t give you any leeway for doing a bad job, they will still take your money!

A third-party ad marketing expert will also be fully abreast of the latest ad features as they are introduced and should be bringing these into your campaigns to benefit you where appropriate. It may not be the sort of thing you stay close to when running a dental business and so you could easily be falling behind if you do take the DIY route. More often than not, paying a reasonable fee for specialist services makes good sense and this is very much the case when it comes to pay-per-click marketing.

If you are considering using Google Ads for the first time or simply need a review of existing campaigns which may not be performing as you’d like, then please contact the PPC team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 for a no obligation discussion.