Healthcare is one of the categories where Google Ads works best for a local business and one of the easiest to get wrong. Demand is real and urgent, but platforms have health-specific rules, half the searches are informational rather than patients, and the value of a visit varies tenfold by treatment.

What is allowed and what is not

Advertising healthcare services is allowed. Broadly restricted:

  • Prescription drugs and certain substances, with rules that vary by country.
  • Unapproved treatments or guaranteed outcomes. “Cure your back pain in 3 sessions” gets rejected, and can cause trouble with professional bodies too.
  • Targeting based on health conditions. Google’s personalized advertising policy does not allow remarketing or customer lists based on health information; Meta removed health-related detailed targeting.

In practice you cannot target “people with diabetes”, but you can show “same-day diabetes check-ups” to someone searching for it. Search intent does the work targeting cannot. Policies change and apply differently by country, so read the exact disapproval reason before rewriting blindly.

Why Google Search first

The patient already knows they need something and is searching. With health interest targeting off the table, Meta has to find patients by area and creative, which is slower and costlier. Meta works later for elective treatments (clear aligners, aesthetics, preventive check-ups), in Latin America usually with click-to-WhatsApp ads.

Structure that works

  • One ad group per specialty or treatment. An implant patient is not worth what a cleaning is; mixed together, the platform optimizes toward the cheapest.
  • Keywords combining treatment with area, urgency or price: “dental implants palermo”, “emergency dentist 24 hours”, “physiotherapist near me”.
  • Negatives from day one: “symptoms”, “what is”, “home remedy”, “causes”, “degree”, “salary”.
  • Insurance coverage is often your strongest differentiator, in ads and keywords.

Everything else is standard local setup: “Presence” location option, Search only, call and location assets, schedule matching reception hours. See Google Ads for local businesses.

Track appointments, not clicks

  1. Calls from ads with a 60–90 second minimum.
  2. WhatsApp and phone clicks on the site, imported as conversions.
  3. Confirmed bookings in your scheduling tool, if it supports it.
  4. “How did you hear about us?” at reception, in a spreadsheet.

Monthly, divide spend by new patients from Google, per treatment. Budget math is in how much to spend on Google Ads.

Privacy: what not to do

  • Do not upload patient lists segmented by treatment or diagnosis to Google or Meta.
  • Do not put the treatment in URLs that fire a pixel, or in event parameters.
  • Keep the booking form minimal. Name and contact are enough; the reason for the visit is discussed later, privately.

Reputation matters more than anywhere else

People read reviews before booking, always. An ad that leads to a three-star Google profile converts poorly however well it is built. See small business digital marketing: where to start.

If campaigns are running and cost per patient does not add up, an account audit usually finds where the money goes in a week or two.