Meta and Google as one system
Not two specialists reporting separately. Google captures the patient already searching, Meta creates demand among those who were not, and budget moves between them based on blended cost per booked appointment.
DIGITAL ADVERTISINGPaid media
Digital advertising: optimized to the unit that pays you.
Meta and Google operated as one system, on creative that survives medical ad review and tracking that does not put patient data where it should not be.
5–10x
Typical ROAS range, high-ticket verticals
2–3 wks
From kickoff to campaigns live
40+
Compliant creatives produced monthly
Figures are agency averages, not guarantees.
What it actually is
Digital advertising for a medical practice differs from general paid media in three ways. First, targeting is constrained: platforms prohibit ads that imply knowledge of a person's health condition, which rules out the audience approach most advertisers reach for first. Second, creative faces category-specific review, and before-and-after imagery, prescription treatment claims, and body-focused messaging are restricted to different degrees depending on the specialty. Third, conversion tracking cannot pass protected health information to an ad platform, so measurement runs server-side with hashed identifiers and PHI stripped from URLs. Campaigns are then optimized against the unit the practice actually sells, which is a booked procedure or an accepted case rather than a form fill.
INCLUDED
What you get.
Creative production
Static, provider-led video, and patient-story content produced in enough volume to test into a winner, rather than one shoot a quarter and hoping.
Policy review before launch
Every asset checked against current platform health policy for your category before it reaches an ad account. Approved variants stay queued so a flag costs hours rather than a week of paused spend.
Server-side conversion tracking
Conversions API, hashed identifiers, PHI stripped from confirmation URLs. Meta and Google will not sign a BAA, so the tracking layer has to sit between them and your patient data.
Optimization to the real unit
Bidding tuned to booked consults, accepted cases, or paying patients depending on your vertical. Optimizing to form fills is how an account produces a great cost per lead and an empty schedule.
PROCESS
How it runs.
- 01
Unit economics
What a patient is worth, what you can afford to pay for one, and what the close rate has to be for the math to work. One page, before any spend.
- 02
Measurement build
Server-side tracking with an attribution window matched to your real decision timeline, not the platform default.
- 03
Creative production
A first batch sized to test, with policy review built into production rather than bolted on after a rejection.
- 04
Launch
Campaigns live in week two or three depending on vertical. Specialty takes an extra week for claims review.
- 05
Daily management
Bid and budget management daily, creative refresh weekly, and a monthly read tied to your unit rather than to impressions.
BY PRACTICE TYPE
Same service. Different execution per vertical.
Plastic surgery
Surgeon-led creative. Before-and-after faces real Meta restrictions, so persuasion has to come from the surgeon rather than the gallery.
Med spas
Optimized to treatments that produce a second visit, not to whatever converts cheapest. A discounted one-off can hit a great cost per booking and lose money over a year.
Dental
Creative pre-frames the investment. Policy is looser than aesthetics, so visual proof is more available here.
Telehealth
Compliant creative for prescription categories, optimized to paying patients rather than signups.
Specialty clinics
Claims substantiation review before production, and no personal-attribute targeting on health status.
More on why the strategy changes: One playbook does not fit five clinics.
When this is the wrong purchase
If your consult close rate is broken or nobody answers inbound inquiries for six hours, ads will amplify the leak. We would rather fix the follow-up first and turn spend on afterward.
QUESTIONS
Digital Advertising: common questions.
How much should a medical practice spend on ads per month?
It depends on the value of a case rather than on a percentage of revenue. Med spas typically start around $1,500 a month, plastic surgery and dental practices in the $3,000 to $10,000 range, and growth-stage telehealth brands $10,000 to $50,000. The floor is set by how much data a campaign needs to exit the learning phase, and spending below it produces noise rather than a cheap test.Can you use before-and-after photos in medical ads?
It depends on the category. Meta restricts before-and-after imagery in cosmetic and weight-loss contexts, and body-focused framing is enforced more tightly than most advertisers expect. Dental sits under health-related advertising and generally has more latitude. Because enforcement shifts, every asset gets a policy check before launch rather than being assumed safe based on what ran last year.Why can't I just use the Meta pixel like every other business?
Because a standard pixel on a medical booking flow can transmit information indicating a person sought a specific treatment, which is protected health information. The FTC actions against Cerebral and BetterHelp both originated in exactly that. Server-side tracking with hashed identifiers and PHI stripped from URLs keeps the measurement while keeping the patient data out of an ad platform that will not sign a BAA.How fast will I see results?
First booked appointments typically land in week two of launch. A trustworthy read on cost per booked case takes 60 to 90 days in most verticals and 90 to 120 in specialty, because the consideration window is genuinely that long and a shorter report is reading noise.Meta or Google, which works better for a medical practice?
They do different jobs and the answer is usually both. Google captures the patient already searching for the procedure, which is lower volume and higher intent. Meta creates demand among people who were not searching yet, which is where most aesthetic volume comes from. Running only one caps you at that channel's ceiling.Why did Meta reject my ad?
Most commonly before-and-after imagery, body-focused framing, or copy implying knowledge of a person's condition, all of which are restricted in health and cosmetic categories. Rejections are often automated and inconsistent, which is why we keep approved variants queued so a flag costs hours of spend rather than a week.Why did my ad account get restricted?
Usually accumulated policy flags rather than one incident, and sometimes a tracking setup that transmitted data it should not have. Restrictions are far easier to prevent than to appeal, which is why creative gets a policy review before launch rather than after. Appeals succeed more often when the underlying cause is fixed first.What is a good cost per lead for plastic surgery?
The wrong question, and asking it is how practices end up with cheap leads and an empty surgical calendar. A free consultation offer produces a low cost per lead and fills the schedule with price shoppers. The number that matters is cost per booked, qualified consult, which usually sits far higher and pays far better.How much should I spend to test a new procedure offer?
Enough for the campaign to exit the learning phase, which in practice means a few weeks of consistent spend rather than a small budget spread thin. Spending under that floor produces noise rather than a cheap test, and the most common cause of a failed test is a budget too small to produce a readable result.Do I need new ad creative every month?
Yes, and more often than most practices expect. Creative fatigue is the single most reliable cause of a campaign that worked for two months and then stopped, and it shows up as rising cost per result with no change in targeting. We produce in batches so there is always a tested variant ready.What is a realistic return on ad spend for a med spa?
Around 5x on roughly $1,500 a month in spend is a reasonable target, measured across the member relationship rather than the first appointment. Judging a med spa campaign on first-visit revenue understates it badly, because the economics depend on the second, third, and fourth visits.Should I send ads to my website or a dedicated landing page?
A landing page, nearly always. Your homepage is built for a visitor who arrived on their own terms with several possible destinations. Ad traffic arrives with one specific expectation set by the ad, and a page that matches that expectation and offers one action converts substantially better.Can I target people interested in plastic surgery on Meta?
Not directly. Platforms prohibit targeting based on health status or implying knowledge of a medical condition, and cosmetic and health categories are among the more strictly enforced. Reach gets built through interest, life-stage, and lookalike modelling instead, so the patient finds you rather than feeling identified by you.What is the special ad category and does it apply to me?
It is a restricted classification with reduced targeting options, applied to housing, employment, credit, social issues, and in some markets health-related advertising. Whether your campaigns fall under it depends on category and geography. Where it applies, targeting is limited enough that creative and offer carry more of the work.How long before I can judge whether a campaign is working?
First booked appointments typically land in week two. A trustworthy read on cost per booked case takes 60 to 90 days in most verticals and 90 to 120 in specialty, because the consideration window is genuinely that long. A 30-day verdict on a high-ticket procedure is reading noise.Should I boost posts or run real campaigns?
Boosting is fine for reach on content that is already performing organically. It is not an acquisition strategy, because it optimises toward engagement rather than toward a booked consultation, and it gives you almost no control over structure or measurement. The two are not substitutes.Do Google Ads work for cosmetic procedures?
Yes, and they capture the highest-intent traffic available, because the patient is actively searching. Cost per click is high in competitive aesthetic markets, so the economics only work when the landing page and the follow-up are strong. Google traffic punishes a weak intake process faster than Meta does.What is Performance Max and should I use it?
It is Google's automated campaign type that spends across every inventory at once with limited visibility into where. It can work well with strong conversion data feeding it. For a practice without reliable booked-consult tracking it tends to optimise toward whatever is cheapest to produce, which is rarely a patient.Why is my cost per lead going up?
In order of likelihood: creative fatigue, a competitor entering the auction, seasonality, or an audience too small to sustain the spend. A rising cost per lead alongside a stable cost per booked consult is not actually a problem. The two numbers moving in opposite directions is the case worth investigating.Can I run ads without a big creative production budget?
Yes. Provider-led video shot properly on a phone routinely outperforms polished studio work in this category, because it reads as authentic and the surgeon is the actual purchase criterion. What matters more than production value is volume: enough variants to test into a winner rather than one asset you hope works.What should I look for in an ad agency for a medical practice?
Ask what number they optimise toward and why that one for your specialty. Ask what happens when an ad account gets restricted, since in healthcare it is a question of when. Ask whether they will sign a Business Associate Agreement and how conversion data reaches the ad platform. An agency without a clear answer to the last one is creating liability for you.Who runs Meta ads for medical practices without getting the account banned?
The determining factor is not the agency's cleverness, it is whether creative gets a policy review before launch rather than after a rejection. Restrictions follow accumulated flags, so the practices that stay live are the ones where nothing untested ever reaches the account and approved variants sit in reserve.Is it worth running ads if my SEO is already strong?
Usually yes, because they capture different patients at different moments. Organic captures the patient already researching; paid reaches the patient who was not looking yet, which is where most elective volume originates. Practices running only organic tend to have stable but flat volume they cannot increase on demand.How do I know if my ad agency is actually managing the account?
Ask for the change history. Meta and Google both log every edit with a date, so an account that has not been touched in three weeks is not being managed regardless of what the report says. Also ask how many creative variants launched last month, since creative fatigue is the most common cause of quiet decline.What is a realistic ad budget for a practice just starting out?
Enough for one campaign to exit the learning phase, which usually means concentrating a modest budget on a single procedure rather than spreading it across your whole menu. The most common failure in a first campaign is not a small budget, it is a small budget divided into six pieces so none of them produces readable data.Should I advertise consultations or specific procedures?
Specific procedures for cold traffic, consultations for retargeting. A procedure ad gives a stranger something concrete to evaluate, while a consultation offer asks for commitment before the value is clear. Once someone has engaged with the procedure content, the consultation becomes the natural next step.Why do my ads work for a month and then stop?
Creative fatigue, nearly always. The same audience seeing the same assets responds progressively worse, which shows up as rising cost per result with no change to targeting or bidding. It is diagnosable by checking frequency, and it is preventable by producing creative in batches rather than one at a time.Can I advertise financing or payment plans for procedures?
Generally yes, and it usually improves qualified volume, but financing advertising carries its own disclosure requirements separate from health policy. What you can state about rates and terms is regulated, so the copy needs review against both the platform's rules and consumer lending rules before it runs.What happens to my campaigns if I pause them for a month?
You lose the optimisation the algorithm accumulated and re-enter the learning phase on restart, which typically costs two to three weeks of inefficient spend. Pausing is sometimes correct, but treating campaigns as a tap that can be switched on and off without cost is how practices end up permanently in the learning phase.How much of my ad budget should go to retargeting?
Usually a small share, and most practices overspend here because retargeting reports the best numbers. Those numbers are flattering because retargeting takes credit for patients earlier campaigns produced. It should be a closing mechanism, not the largest line item.
CLOSE
Ready to grow? Let’s align.
30 minutes. No deck. An honest look at whether this is the service that moves your number, or whether something else should come first.
Booked instantly, confirmed within 24 hours