Search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns are one of the key ways healthcare businesses acquire patients. Thanks to SEM’s targeting capabilities, this marketing channel can help businesses efficiently drive bookings.
When it comes to primary care providers (PCP), search engine marketing presents some nuances that can be optimized to maximize return. Here are eight quick tips that can help primary care providers succeed in SEM — and one major consideration that will help your practice get ahead.
1. Check if You Prequalify
Bid on terms that prequalify a user (e.g., “primary care physician new york city,” “primary care physician that takes aetna,” “primary care physician near me”).
Cut out unwanted traffic by incorporating prequalifiers in your keywords. For example, a PCP practice in New York City that takes Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Cigna can bid on keywords like “pcp new york city,” “aetna pcps,” “united healthcare pcps” and “cigna pcps.” This ensures that you’re showing your ad to users who can actually convert.
2. Stay Relevant
Make your ad copy as relevant as possible.
If your keywords are “pcps in new york city,” make sure your ad copy mirrors that content. Not only does relevant copy improve your ad strength, it also leads to a higher clickthrough rate (CTR): Users will naturally click on ads they find hyperrelevant, which they’re already signaling through their queries in the search bar.
3. Keep Up a Negative Attitude
Stay on top of your negatives.
Even if you’re not using broad match, Google’s match types can bring in some funky queries, especially considering the multitude of reasons why patients visit a PCP. Check your search query report regularly to ensure you’re filtering out any queries that don’t pertain to your practice.
For example, queries like “what is an annual physical” or “how do you become a primary care physician” are likely too high-funnel or irrelevant for your practice. You can better put your ad dollars to work by negating “what is” and “how do you” on phrase match.
4. Know Yourself
Use your visit reasons as sitelinks (e.g., annual physical, sick visit, etc.).
Sitelinks and other extensions improve your ad rank. They also take up more space on the search engine results page (SERP) if you’re in position 1. This gives your ad more visibility and pushes your competitors down on the page. Given a good match with the end user, it could also improve your CTR.
(Bonus tip: Don’t make the mistake of conflating cost per click with cost per booking. Learn more about how to properly track patient acquisition costs in Google.)
5. Find Yourself
Add location extensions.
If you have a Google Business Profile Manager account, you can set up location extensions that are affiliated with your practice locations. This enables your ad to show up in places like Google Maps, which unlocks another ad spot directed at local users.
6. Stay Humble
Don’t overestimate how many patients can be captured through SEM.
There are a finite number of reachable patients on Google and many companies are competing for the same finite pool of searches.
At some point, the only way to get more is to bid more. However, the conversion rate typically remains the same or decreases as the cost per click increases. This drives up your CPA. Google also aims to get ads in front of as many searchers as possible. But as it runs out of available matches, it populates ads under increasingly irrelevant searches that don’t typically translate into patient bookings, further driving up the cost of acquiring a new patient.
At a certain point, spending more comes with higher marginal costs and decaying efficiency, and that to achieve significant growth, you need to explore additional sources of patients. At Zocdoc, this is where we usually meet our clients: a complement to existing marketing efforts.
(Learn how a large primary care practice uses Zocdoc, in addition to search engine marketing, to keep up with its rapid growth.)
7. Don’t Forget to Call
Use call extensions.
Even if a prospective patient finds your business through Google, they may still want to set up an appointment “the old-fashioned way,” over the phone. Luckily, you can enable call extensions within your campaigns, which puts a call to your practice just a click away. Be sure you’ve installed the proper call-tracking, so you can tie these bookings back to your ad.
8. Accept a Moving Target
Play with different targeting levels.
Depending on your practice coverage, you may want to test targeting users at different demographic levels. However, the most granular targeting doesn’t always mean the most efficient. Google’s smart bidding can learn relatively quickly where your user base is or isn’t. Consider targeting by zip code, city and even designated market area (DMA); you might be surprised which level of targeting is most efficient for you.
One More Urgent Matter
Both before and since the pandemic, search volume for urgent care is significantly higher than for primary care.
In a May 2023 report, we shared the top 10 reasons Zocdoc users visited urgent care:
- Illness
- Urgent care consultation
- Urinary tract infection (UTI)
- Sexually transmitted disease (STD) testing
- Sore throat
- Vaginal discharge or infection
- Prescription/Refill
- Annual physical
- Sinus problems/Sinusitis
- Ear infection
These overlap significantly with reasons for patients to visit a primary care provider, which could drive up SEM competition (and cost). This means it’s more important than ever that primary care ads are relevant and optimized, or potential patients could all too easily go to urgent care instead.
Primary care is a competitive space. Sharpening your in-house SEM skills while adding Zocdoc to the mix is a great way to stay ahead of the competition. These are both high-intent areas, especially if optimized effectively.