lasik marketing with google ads

Over 3.5 billion searches happen on Google every single day, making it the most popular website on the Internet. If you’re not leveraging their ad platform for your LASIK marketing or Refractive Surgery practice, you’re missing out.

When it comes to running ads on the internet, you want to focus your efforts on where users’ attention is. Clearly, there is nothing as dominant as Google, which makes Google Ads (previously Google Adwords) the most powerful ad market on the web.

As with Facebook Ads, Google uses their enormous amount of data to allow you to target exactly the types of leads you’re looking for.

Being that LASIK and refractive surgery practices are local brick and mortar services, the most important thing to keep in mind is that your ads will be location-based. In other words, you can tell Google only to show your ads to people searching and browsing within your service area, which means you’ll only pay for those searches.

The trick is knowing which types of ads to use (more on that below), along with determining the right location and demographic targeting options. Frankly, that can take a lot of time and ad spend before you start seeing a return.

But you’re in luck – at Patient Pipeline, we’ve run many, many Google ads for refractive surgery and LASIK practices, which means you get the best bang for your buck without the learning curve and wasted ad spend.

Let’s take a closer look at the different types of Google Ads that are available and how they can work for your LASIK or refractive surgery business.

As with search engine optimization (SEO), running PPC ads through the Google Ads platform is a form of inbound marketing, meaning you’re showing your ad to people already looking for something related to your service.

It’s a great way of capturing both information gathering and purchase intent searches, meaning people who are searching either with the intent to find out more information about refractive surgery and LASIK or those who have already decided to have the surgery and are simply looking for the best LASIK or refractive surgery practice in their area.

Once you tell Google exactly the types of searches and geographical location(s) in which you want to run your ads, you then pay Google each time someone clicks on that ad (hence, pay per click).

An important part of any PPC campaign is that you combine it with a targeted LASIK or refractive surgery landing page. Many businesses and marketers make the mistake of sending users directly to their website, which often results in them becoming distracted. They read your pages, check out your blog, and before you know it, lose track of actually signing up for a consultation.

With a landing page, you hide the navigation to the rest of your site and encourage users to convert directly from that page. Depending on your specific strategy, that could be signing up immediately for a consultation, or you might promote a free offer that gets them in your pipeline where they can be further nurtured.

While PPC ads are the most popular type of ads run through Google’s Ads platform, they’re not the only type, and they work best when combined with display and remarketing ads.

Both of these ad types show up in the Google Display Network. This network is made up of more than 2 million sites across the web which have opted in to allow Google to serve ads to their users (these sites, in exchange, get a piece of the ad revenue).

With regular display ads, you can target audiences that are likely to become patients of yours. Google, like Facebook, is really smart with their targeting automation. They use their data to find the best sites and audiences for you, helping you get the most out of your ad spend (after all, if businesses didn’t make money from their ads, no one would buy them).

Have you ever been on a website, navigated away, and seen an ad on another site for the site you just left? It can seem like a strange coincidence, but it’s far from it. These are called remarketing ads, and they’re very common in the internet marketing space. Remarketing ads are particularly powerful because they’re based on marketing only to people who have visited your site.

Here are the basics of how it works: When someone visits your site, a cookie is placed on their browser. Then, when that same person visits another site, Google sees this cookie and knows to show your ad to those same users. It’s a great way of reminding them to make a decision and get in touch with you as they’re browsing the web.

As you can see, coupling these types of ads with PPC ads, along with your other internet marketing efforts, is a great way of staying top of mind with potential leads, driving more users back to your site with very minimal effort.

Google Ads are a necessary staple in your LASIK marketing arsenal.  One of the best things about running ads in Google is that you can start today. Unlike many other types of internet marketing, there is little wait or turnaround. With Google ads, all you really need is a landing page (which we can build for you) and a plan for who to target and how (which we can develop for you). Then, once it’s set up properly in the Google platform (which we can handle for you), you can start seeing results within days if not hours.

If you’re ready to use Google Ads to help fuel your business growth efforts, get in touch with us today.

reach out below:

7109 Hickman Road

Urbandale, Iowa 50322

515.707.6593

caitlin@thepatientpipeline.com