retargeting strategies for refractive surgery practices

Supercharge your pipeline with fine-tuned retargeting strategies that allow you to capture, engage, and convert leads as efficiently and quickly as possible.

One of the most important best practices of running online ads is retargeting. It’s an amazing capability available when running online ads, and no ad campaign should be without it.

The premise is relatively simple.

Through the amazing data-collecting attributes of online platforms – primarily Google and Facebook – you can choose to show ads only to people who have interacted with your website and content.

You’ve surely seen this in practice. Say, for example, you Google “best drones” and read a few articles. In no time at all, you’re going to see ads popping up on other sites that you visit for the days and weeks to come trying to sell you drones.

Same with Facebook. You click on an ad for a drone and similar offers start popping up all over the place in your newsfeed.

How does this happen? When you went to one of those drone sites, it placed a cookie on your browser that flagged you as someone interested in purchasing a drone. Then, through their Google Ads or Facebook Ads platform, they tell the algorithm to only show a certain type of ad to people who have already visited their site, clicked their ad, or performed some other specific action.

Ultimately, this is an extremely important feature which allows you to integrate your ad campaigns into a more sophisticated pipeline that can function as a powerful lead generation tool.

Being that it works a bit differently for Facebook and Google, let’s take a closer look at each.

When someone searches for a product or service on Google, it tells us a lot about their intent to buy.

Unlike Facebook Ads, you know right out of the gate that someone who searched for your service  – LASIK or Refractive Surgery – on Google is probably already considering buying. They’re just looking for the right practice to have it done.

However, refractive surgery or LASIK is not a small decision. It’s not like buying a new TV or package of premium coffee. It relates closely to one’s health and well-being and is not terribly cheap.

Because of that, there’s a good chance that someone will Google “Refractive Surgery (or LASIK) in [City, State],” click on some results, and then decide that they’ll make the decision later on.

The beauty of Google Ads retargeting is that you can begin to show these individuals ads in the Google Display Network, a network made up of a couple million sites that have opted in to allow Google to show their ads on their sites. It includes a number of big, popular sites, meaning your ads are definitely going to be seen.

This causes people who have already visited your site to be reminded frequently that they ought to make a decision, and it reminds them of your LASIK and refractive surgery practice.

One of the great things about this is that your targeting is extremely specific, meaning you’re only going to pay for the ads that are shown to people who have already been on your site. It also means that you can treat them as ready to buy, meaning ads about common pain points – like the safety of the procedure and financing options – are highly effective.

Facebook Ads is a bit of a different animal. Unfortunately, too many people treat it too much like Google Ads, which is why you often hear that Facebook Ads just doesn’t work.

It 100% does – you just need to know how to use it.

Think about it. When someone’s on Facebook, they aren’t there primarily to buy something. This is in stark contrast to when they actually search for a product or service on Google.

On Facebook, they’re looking to be entertained. They’re browsing interesting content, watching videos, posting their own content, interacting with their friends, etc. There’s not a high-intent to purchase anything.

So, it’s important to think of Facebook Ads in terms of a funnel.

You first start by getting attention via some piece of engaging content. We call this an awareness ad. That might be a blog post about how LASIK or refractive surgery works or even something related to a recent news story.

And then, once you capture an initial audience, you set up engagement ads that retarget this custom audience, treating them as someone more likely to convert. So, as with Google Ads, you might then show them something more related to your actual service – a special offer, a downloadable guide, a quiz, etc.

Once you develop that audience, you can then create an ad that serves as your final call to action, a conversion ad: get in touch, book a consultation, or something similar.

There really is no limit to the amount of customization you can have with your retargeting, which allows you to test and develop a pipeline that will bring you a consistent stream of patients on a regular basis.

After all, you never need to turn any of these off. You will always be creating a new audience from your awareness ad, showing that audience your engagement ad, and then showing that audience your conversion ad.

It’s an amazing, automated way to generate new leads on a regular basis.

While retargeting might be the most important thing for an effective ad campaign, it is more sophisticated – and complicated to set up – than simple one-off ads.

But, trust us, it’s worth it.

If you’d like some help developing your ad retargeting campaigns for your refractive surgery and LASIK practice, we’d love to help! Get in touch today by filling out our contact form.

reach out below:

7109 Hickman Road

Urbandale, Iowa 50322

515.707.6593

caitlin@thepatientpipeline.com