A plastic surgery practice should structure its Google Ads account as one brand campaign plus 2 to 4 campaigns grouped by procedure family (face, breast, body), each with tightly themed ad groups, phrase and exact match keywords, a shared negative list, and a booked consultation as the only primary conversion. Most surgical accounts ClinicAds audits run 8 to 15 campaigns on a budget that can support 4.
This post is about the build, not the budget or the auction. The ClinicAds Google vs Meta budget-split post decides how much money Google Search should get, and the plastic surgery PPC benchmarks post carries cost per click and conversion rates by procedure. This one assumes the Search budget is already set and answers what happens inside the account: how many campaigns, where brand terms go, which match types to run, and what Google should be told a conversion is.
- A plastic surgery Google Ads account spending $4,000 to $7,000 a month on Search works best with 3 to 5 campaigns: one brand campaign and 2 to 4 campaigns grouped by procedure family, not one campaign per procedure.
- Brand keywords belong in their own campaign because they cost under $4 per click and convert several times higher than procedure terms, so blending them hides the true cost of non-brand demand.
- Smart bidding needs volume to stabilize. Google's guidance for target CPA has historically pointed to roughly 15 to 30 conversions per campaign in 30 days, which a practice booking consults at $120 to $190 on Search cannot reach across six or more campaigns.
- The primary conversion action should be a booked consultation imported from the CRM, with form fills and qualified calls kept as secondary actions that inform reporting but do not steer bids. Figures are agency averages, not guarantees.
What campaigns should a plastic surgery Google Ads account have?
A plastic surgery Google Ads account should have one brand campaign and 2 to 4 non-brand campaigns grouped by procedure family, with each procedure as its own ad group inside the family. Grouping by family keeps enough booked consultations in each campaign for automated bidding to learn, while separate ad groups keep the ad copy and landing page matched to the exact procedure searched. These are agency averages, not guarantees.
The table is the default build ClinicAds starts from for a single-location practice spending $4,000 to $7,000 a month on Google Search. A practice with one dominant procedure can split that procedure into its own campaign; a practice under $3,000 a month on Search usually runs brand plus a single combined procedure campaign.
- 1 brand campaign, always separate
- 2 to 4 procedure-family campaigns, depending on budget and procedure mix
- 1 ad group per procedure, each with its own landing page
- 5 to 20 keywords per ad group, all sharing one procedure intent
| Campaign | Ad groups inside it | Share of Search budget | Bid strategy at launch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Practice name, surgeon name, misspellings | 8-15% | Manual CPC or target impression share |
| Face | Facelift, deep plane, rhinoplasty, eyelid, brow | 30-40% | Maximize conversions, then target CPA |
| Breast | Augmentation, lift, reduction, explant, revision | 25-35% | Maximize conversions, then target CPA |
| Body | Tummy tuck, liposuction, mommy makeover, BBL | 20-30% | Maximize conversions, then target CPA |
Why should brand keywords have their own campaign?
Brand keywords should sit in their own campaign because they behave like a different product. A search for a surgeon's name or a practice name costs under $4 per click in most metros and converts at several times the rate of a procedure search, because the person already chose the practice. Mixed into a procedure campaign, brand conversions make non-brand cost per booked consult look 30 to 50 percent cheaper than it is. These are agency averages, not guarantees.
Separation also protects budget in both directions. Automated bidding in a blended campaign shifts spend toward the cheap brand conversions and starves the procedure terms that bring new patients. A capped brand campaign holds the practice's own name for a few hundred dollars a month, so a competitor bidding on it cannot take the top position, and every dollar in the procedure campaigns is measured on demand the practice did not already own.
How many campaigns can a plastic surgery budget support?
A plastic surgery budget can support roughly one non-brand campaign for every 15 to 30 booked consultations it produces in a month. Google's guidance for target CPA bidding has historically pointed to about 15 to 30 conversions per campaign in 30 days before results stabilize. At $120 to $190 per booked consult on Google Search, a $6,000 monthly Search budget produces about 30 to 50 consults, which is enough for 2 to 3 campaigns, not 8.
The failure pattern ClinicAds sees most is a separate campaign per procedure. Spread $4,000 across eight procedure campaigns and each one gets $500, books 3 or 4 consults a month, and sits in a permanent learning state where cost per consult swings 40 percent week to week. Combining the same keywords into three family campaigns changes nothing about what is bought; it only gives the bidding system enough outcomes to act on. Blended across Google and Meta, the program target stays at $80 to $150 per booked consult and 5 to 10x return on ad spend. Agency averages, not guarantees.
- Under $3,000 a month on Search: brand plus 1 combined procedure campaign
- $3,000 to $7,000: brand plus 2 to 3 family campaigns
- $7,000 to $12,000: brand plus 3 to 4 family campaigns, with the top procedure split out if it carries 40 percent or more of consults
- Over $12,000: consider splitting by location or by procedure, once each campaign clears 30 booked consults a month
Which match types and negative keywords should surgeons use?
Plastic surgeons should run phrase and exact match on core procedure keywords and hold broad match back until a campaign is clearing about 30 booked consults a month on a CRM-fed conversion. Broad match relies on the conversion signal to find good queries; with a weak signal it buys research, training, and medical tourism traffic. A shared negative list applied to every non-brand campaign removes most of that waste before it is paid for.
ClinicAds reviews the search terms report weekly for the first 90 days and monthly after that. A healthy surgical account keeps irrelevant query share under 15 percent of non-brand spend; accounts that launch on broad match without negatives commonly run 30 to 45 percent in the first month. Price terms such as cost and financing stay in, because they signal a patient planning a procedure, not a bargain hunter.
- Careers and training: jobs, salary, school, residency, course, certification
- Medical tourism: abroad, overseas, and specific destination countries the practice does not serve
- Research and media: pictures gone wrong, documentary, celebrity, reddit
- Non-surgical substitutes the practice does not offer: non-surgical, without surgery, at home
- Free and insurance-only intent on cosmetic procedures: free, covered by insurance, Medicaid
What should Google Ads count as a conversion for a surgeon?
Google Ads should count a booked consultation as the one primary conversion for a plastic surgery practice, imported from the practice CRM through offline conversion import or enhanced conversions for leads. Form fills and calls over 60 seconds should stay as secondary actions that appear in reports but do not steer bidding. An account optimizing to raw form fills learns to buy the cheapest forms, which in surgery are often the least qualified.
The import has to be built with HIPAA in mind. The safe pattern sends Google a click identifier, a conversion name that does not reveal a procedure, and a value, routed through server-side tagging rather than browser pixels on pages where a patient enters health information. The ClinicAds post on what plastic surgeons can run on Meta and Google under HIPAA covers the tracking rules in full. Practices that move from form-fill optimization to imported booked consults typically see cost per lead rise 10 to 25 percent and cost per booked consult fall. Agency averages, not guarantees.
How should location and schedule settings be set?
Location targeting for a plastic surgery practice should use the Presence setting, which shows ads only to people in or regularly in the target area, rather than the default that also includes people merely interested in it. Radius should scale with ticket size: 15 to 25 miles for breast and body procedures in a dense metro, and 40 to 75 miles for facelift and revision work that patients will travel for.
Ad schedule matters mainly for calls. Call assets should run only during hours the front desk answers live, because an unanswered call is a booked consult the budget paid for and lost. Form-driven ads can run around the clock, provided the practice follows up within minutes the next morning. Once these settings and the structure above are in place, the account needs a short quarterly review rather than a rebuild:
- 1. Confirm each non-brand campaign still clears 15 or more booked consults a month; merge any that do not
- 2. Check irrelevant query share is under 15 percent and add the new negatives the report reveals
- 3. Verify the booked-consult import matched at least 80 percent of CRM consults to a click
- 4. Compare brand campaign spend against brand search volume; rising spend on flat volume usually means a competitor is bidding on the name
- 5. Revisit radius by procedure using the ZIP codes of patients who actually booked surgery
Should a plastic surgeon use Performance Max?
A plastic surgeon should usually keep Performance Max out of the account until Search campaigns are clearing about 30 booked consultations a month on an imported conversion. Performance Max spends across Display, YouTube, and Maps with limited query control, and in surgery it tends to absorb brand searches and report them as new demand. Agency averages, not guarantees.
How many keywords should a plastic surgery ad group have?
A plastic surgery ad group should have about 5 to 20 keywords that all share one procedure intent, such as rhinoplasty cost, rhinoplasty surgeon, and nose job near me. If a keyword would need a different headline or landing page to match it, it belongs in a different ad group.
Should a practice bid on competitor surgeon names?
A practice can bid on competitor names, but it should run them in a separate small campaign and expect low conversion rates, often a third of procedure terms, along with higher costs and occasional trademark complaints. Most practices get more from fixing structure and conversion tracking first.