Attract New Patients With Google Ads
Congratulations! If you read and implemented the knowledge from “Leveraging Google Ads for Practice Growth,” a previous Ask Fuel First article, your Google Ads campaign is live. Now, it’s time to measure the success of your campaign. Beyond the obvious clicks and impressions, there are nuanced metrics that reveal the impact of your ad campaign. This Ask Fuel First article answers a follow-up question about Google ads: How do I know if my Google ads are working?
For the most part, the goal of a Google Ads campaign is to drive new patient leads. While most companies will track conversion actions, such as the number of form submissions or times the click-to-call button was used, at Fuel Medical, we take this a step further and monitor your campaign for lead quality.
Defining Success: Cost Per Lead
Existing patients will often click on ads when looking for a practice’s phone number since the ad is the first listing on the search results page. These patients might be calling with a follow-up question, to reschedule an appointment or for other non-revenue generating requests. These types of searches can eat the campaign budget and, without monitoring for lead quality, are difficult to catch.
To monitor lead quality, we track the following:
- Form fills: This is the number of form submissions from the landing page and from your website that came from the campaign.
- Phone calls: At Fuel Medical, we always use call tracking numbers on your SEM campaigns. These numbers can be coded so they only display on the landing page and website when someone clicks from the Google Ads campaign. The software we use will record the calls so that we can determine which were from potential new patients and which were from existing patients.
- Other types of appointment requests (when applicable): If you use an online scheduler, online screener or another tool that patients can use to contact your practice, you can often set up reporting by traffic source (e.g., organic search, paid campaigns, etc.). Usually, this is done through URL parameters, but each platform is a little different.
Once we know the number of new patient leads, dividing the total cost by the number of leads will give us the cost per lead. This helps us understand how efficient the campaign was compared to your other marketing activities.
With cost per lead, you can make data-driven decisions about the percentage of your marketing budget you should invest in Google Ads and whether to update or refine your campaign(s). If your campaign(s) can benefit from further refinement, that is where a detailed monthly report comes in.
Understanding Your Google Ad Campaign Reports
While the number of new patient leads and cost per lead tell you whether or not your campaign is successful, your monthly campaign report provides a more detailed story about how people found and interacted with your ads, landing page and website.
Your account manager and Fuel Medical’s SEM team will leverage the information from your monthly reports to make recommendations and further optimize your campaign. However, you’ll need to learn some key terms to better understand the report.
Key Terms
Impressions: This is the number of times the ad appeared on a search engine results page for the targetedkeywords.
Clicks: Indicates how many times the ad was clicked.
Average Cost-Per-Click (Avg. CPC): CPC is calculated by dividing the total cost by the total number ofclicks.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR): CTR is the percentage of impressions that result in a click.
Conversions: The number of times that someone who clicked on the ad completed a ‘conversion action,’ such as filling out a form, using the click-to-call feature or clicking out to an online screener.
Click Conversion Rate: This number is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the number of total adclicks.
Cost Per Conversion: This number is calculated by taking the total cost and dividing it by the number of conversions.
Viewing the Metrics
These metrics can be viewed for the campaign as a whole and by a few different breakdowns, such as the following:
- By device: This chart compares how users interact with your ads on tablets, phones and computers.
- By click type: Google ads have multiple sections (called ad assets) where a user can click. This chart compares performance across the different parts of the ad.
- By search term: Often, when you bid on keywords, you indicate to Google that you would also like your ad to display when similar keywords are searched. For example, if you bid on “hearing aids” and someone searches for “hearing devices,” your ad can still show. This chart shows you what was typed into the search bar when your ad was displayed.
We use this report to answer a few questions about your campaign and identify opportunities to improve your cost per lead. For example:
- Was my ad seen, and was it seen in the right searches?
(Impressions and search term breakdown)
If the impressions are high and the search terms are relevant to your ad and landing page, we can leave the targeting as is. If not, we can adjust targeting, using the search term breakdown to identify searches we may want to exclude and expanding targeting to show the ad in more searches. - Did the people who saw my ad click on it?
(Clicks, CTR)
If the CTR is high and the ads are getting a good number of clicks, the ads are likely well-optimized. If not, we may consider A/B testing ad copy or changing some of the ad features. - Were people motivated to contact my practice after they clicked on my ad? (Conversions, click conversion rate and cost per conversion)
If the conversion rate is high and users click the phone number and submit the contact form, etc., the landing page is functioning as it should. If not, we’ll propose changes intended to improve conversion rates.
Effective measurement isn’t just about finding needles in haystacks; it’s about understanding the entire landscape. By recognizing your cost per lead and learning how to read your Google Ads campaign report, you gain invaluable insights into what resonates with potential patients and when adjustments are necessary. This proactive approach helps your practice get the most from your Google Ads campaigns.
Fuel Medical’s SEM team and your regional team can help you monitor for lead quality, conduct a thorough analysis and recommend actions to further optimize your Google Ads campaigns.