Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising helps scale your hospital’s digital marketing strategies fast. The ads often appear a few hours after launching the campaign. The results are usually immediate.
But you need a detailed PPC hospital plan to make this technique cost-effective. Read this concise guide to craft the best one.
A 5-Step Guide to Hospital PPC
Medical PPC is challenging because the industry is subject to several marketing limitations. These include HIPAA and state rules, advertiser policies, and patient privacy.
That is why we strongly suggest working with a healthcare advertising agency. Its experience in your niche means it can develop copies that convert leads without breaking any guidelines.
But you can learn to collaborate by knowing what goes into creating a results-centric PPC plan. Begin with this guide.
1. Audit or Learn More about PPC
Do not get into PPC without knowing what it means, how it works, and where you stand if you are already running campaigns.
PPC is an example of paid advertising: you pay the publisher, such as Google or Bing, every time someone clicks on your ads. It may sound simple, but it is not:
- It works with your chosen keywords. Your ads will not appear unless your prospects use these phrases or terms when seeking information.
- Google publishes your ads across its vast network, including third-party partners. You should consider the format, text, and placements to maximize your ROIs (return on investments).
According to Digital Authority Partners (DAP), you can overcome the learning curve with these ideas:
- Start with a basic audit if you have existing PPC campaigns. Analyze the bid strategies, keywords, position in the search results, budget allocation, and tracking performance to determine your starting point.
- Update yourself on industry changes. For example, Google has recently announced that it is phasing out third-party cookies. It means you must use APIs to generate first-party data.
- Know your competitors. Sometimes checking out what your rivals are doing speeds up the learning process. You can quickly learn what works in your niche and improve these strategies.
2. Identify Your Target Audience and Break It into Segments
Now that you know about PPC, it is time to put theories and curated data to work. Let us start with identifying your target audience.
- What kind of hospital are you running?
- Are you a specialist in certain areas?
- How about the locations you serve?
- Do you run a B2B or B2C hospital?
- What medical cases do you treat?
- Who are the people you want to reach? Is it patients, insurance companies, or businesses?
If you need a guide, create a buyer’s persona. Research the demographics, geographic location, lifestyle choices, and behavior of your ideal customer. Get as deep as you can with the profile.
Let us say you work with a private hospital that focuses on cardiology. Your target audience may be couples aged 40 to 55, living in urban areas, being financially stable, and paying attention to their health.
Are you done with defining your target leads? Not yet.
With your niche, you are more likely to end up with such a wide market segment. It makes PPC ads less effective because they will not resonate with a portion of your prospects.
Instead, break this segment into smaller, more precise chunks:
- Hyper-personalize the segment. For instance, sort senior prospects based on age, medical conditions, or location.
- Review your data. Study the information you have to uncover other segments, such as those responding quickly to campaigns or users with higher values based on cost per action (CPA).
3. Pick Keywords According to the Customer Journey
Many marketers make the mistake of picking keywords they think their market uses. They can be more successful by determining their sales funnel and matching key phrases and terms according to it.
Let us have an illustration. Suppose you are a hospital that wants to promote a state-of-the-art body scanner. Your PPC keywords for every stage of the customer journey may look like this:
- Awareness stage: CT scan, MRI scan, full-body scanner
- Interest stage: Best body scanner, advanced full-body scanner
- Consideration stage: Advanced body scanner cost, MRI vs. advanced body scanner
- Purchase stage: Schedule a body scanner appointment, body scanner near me
Each keyword group uses different landing pages, but all work together to help your prospects move on to the next buying stage and achieve your objective.
This approach also suggests that using long-tail keywords is not the be-all and end-all of PPC. At the end of the day, the best terms are those that fit your goals and customer journey.
Needless to say, publishers such as Google provide various tools to help you. For instance, the Keyword Planner feature in Google Ads shares insights about keywords and competition in your niche.
4. Design and Test PPC Ads
You have identified your target audience and compiled a keyword list. The next step is designing an attention-grabbing ad that resonates with your prospects.
- Maximize various ad formats and technologies. Do not limit yourself to text. Add videos and other media assets to increase engagement and make them more visually appealing. Use dynamic ads to quickly retarget prospects with the most relevant copy.
- Keep it short and sweet. Less is more with PPC ads. It is best to have a brief headline and compelling copy that drives clicks.
- Include a call to action (CTA) at the end of your ad. What do you want them to do with your copy? Subscribe to your mailing list, book an appointment, see a doctor, call your number, or visit your website.
Take your time when creating ads. While you can always modify them, you cannot get back the money you spent. To further avoid a costly mistake, test and monitor ad performance.
- Do an A/B test. Change little details about your ads, such as the CTA, image or video, and format. Then run them simultaneously for two weeks. This way, you can learn which ad performs better and optimize its cost-effectiveness.
- Review search query reports (SQRs). The information helps you know the exact search terms that triggered your ads. Are they relevant? If not, add them to your negative keyword list to avoid paying for traffic with no potential of converting.
5. Repeat the Process and Adjust the Budget and Metrics
Like most online marketing tactics, hospital PPC does not end after you launch your campaign. It needs monitoring, adjusting, and testing for improvement.
- Monitor your campaign performance and metrics. These include PPC ROI, click-through rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC), bounce rate, time on page, and conversions. If the numbers are good, congratulations. Otherwise, find out what does not work and change it as soon as possible.
- Evaluate your budget based on changes in the market or competition level. For instance, you might have to spend more if your rival is getting more aggressive in PPC.
- Continuously test. It is the only way to ensure that your ads remain effective and up-to-date. Do not be afraid to modify them anytime they need improvement.
- Reallocate resources accordingly. If one PPC ad performs better than the rest, allocate more budget to it. If some of them underperform, pull back on your spending and adjust their copy.
- Know your quality score. A quality score assesses your ad’s relevance to the user and given keywords. The higher the score, the more likely you will get cheaper clicks and better ad positions. You can get this data from the Adwords Quality Score Report.
Summing Up
This five-step guide provides you with the framework to begin any hospital PPC campaign today. And with patience and dedication, you can create ads that produce results.
But you can further cement your success when you work with a healthcare digital marketing team. They can help you craft the most effective PPC campaigns and get more out of every dollar you spend. And this is crucial in an industry with tight margins.
