Several months ago I blogged about some of the tricks and stunts being used by marketers in the social media advertising space to entice dentists who are seeking new Invisalign leads.<\/p>\n
Over the last few months the number of agencies advertising their services has increased dramatically, names you\u2019ve never heard of but all claiming to deliver \u201cexcellent\u201d high-value leads for their clients. What\u2019s more, the \u201cguarantees\u201d they are offering appear too good to be true and I\u2019ll explain more about that in a moment. As one provider ups the ante and offers yet more guaranteed leads, then other providers come along with even more outlandish claims and promises.<\/p>\n
Those of us working in the paid ads space for a long time know that such claims are ridiculous and that new agencies will try anything to try to secure new work. The claims and guarantees might make us chuckle, but to a dentist, it looks very tempting and almost too good to resist. However, more often than not, the promises are never delivered and the dentist is left disappointed and out of pocket.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s going on here? How are dentists being pulled in to these contracts and why are they very often being left disappointed? First let\u2019s take a look at how the ads are worded and what some of the weasel words actually mean. Here are two of the main claims and \u201cguarantees\u201d\u2026.<\/p>\n
\u201c30 guaranteed Invisalign leads per month or we work for free\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201c30 guaranteed leads or we pay you ad spend\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s very common for advertising agencies to charge well in excess of \u00a31500 per month for their services and consequently they will do pretty much anything to deliver the 30 leads they promised. However, they don\u2019t guarantee the quality of the leads or how many enquiries will actually lead to treatment. They will often try to take over every element of the dentist\u2019s web presence<\/a>, including the practice website, so that any enquiry, however tenuous; can be claimed as one of the promised target.<\/p>\n The agencies also fail to mention what they expect you to spend on ad budget and if response looks slow, they will simply pressure you to increase it. Getting lots of poor leads with a big budget is relatively simple, so the agencies will be fairly comfortable with this \u2013 however you probably won\u2019t!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Another tactic an agency can use to meet their leads guarantee is by loosening the ad criteria and exclusively using \u201clead gen\u201d forms directly on Facebook. These forms pre-populate and make it very easy for anyone to make an enquiry \u2013 but with very loose ad targeting, i.e. where your ads are presented to pretty much anyone, those enquiries will very often be useless.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve discussed this very situation with two new clients this week alone. Both had subscribed to 6 month contracts with \u201cguaranteed\u201d leads but the return had been dismal, including lots of email contacts with foreign domain extensions!<\/p>\n Social media ads can be very successful when set up and used properly but the user does need to understand the speculative nature of an enquiry from social media platforms. Here we are placing ads in front of a user who is interacting socially, rather than searching with pre-determined intent, for example on Google. However, we can introduce targeting on all sorts of levels to increase the likelihood that those people who see your ads are more likely to interact with them.<\/p>\n When an advertiser deliberately dilutes targeting simply to get leads, then you can see the effect. In this scenario, your practice manager or TCO will likely be left chasing up people who actually had no interest in the first place. If you\u2019re tied into a long-term contract, then unfortunately you\u2019re stuck!<\/p>\n You may wonder how these types of agencies actually survive if they continue to disappointment their dental clients? Well the simple answer is that many of them don\u2019t. As word gets round, those businesses demise but unfortunately it\u2019s way too easy for them to rise again under a different name and using the same dodgy techniques.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy enough to fabricate a track record and reach lots of dentists with targeted ads \u2013 and unfortunately a lot easier for them to hook-in unsuspecting dentists than you might imagine.<\/p>\nBumping your ad spend<\/h3>\n
Diluting your ad targeting<\/h3>\n
The speculative nature of Facebook and Instagram leads<\/h3>\n
How do these agencies continue in business?<\/h3>\n