What Is Google Ads?

Google offers paid advertisements which appear in search results with the use of Google Ads or advertisements that appear on other websites through the Display Network and on Search.There are two sections of Google paid search ads, one above the "natural" or organic links and one at the bottom of the results page. These are the most effective form of ads for reaching high-intent searchers. These are people that want treatment right now and look for things like "therapist near me," "drug rehab in Indianapolis," or "addiction treatment for heroin."

Google also offers Display Ads, which appear on the Google Display Network. The Display Network is an extensive collection of outside, third-party websites that have partnered with Google and agreed to serve Google ads. Google ads on the Display Network can be in text, image, video, or rich media format, and can be targeted differently. This includes remarketing and banner ads. We generally do not use Display ads since the ROI is low and Google doesn't allow retargeting for healthcare providers. Retargeting is the most effective use of Google Display Ads.

For our purposes, Google Ads act as ways to get our clients names out there and more. We take care of all sorts of different campaign styles and set ups for our clients.

Why Use Google Ads and Account Basics

Read More on The Economics of Google & How It Impacts Addiction Treatment

Understanding the Economics of Google Ads

Google Ads can get expensive fast, especially if used only for attracting commercially insured patients. 9 out of 10 callers from Google Ads campaigns are Medicaid or no resources, so they are much more cost-effective for providers who can accept Medicaid. There is no way to screen ads to target only commercially-insured, private pay, certain types of insurance, etc. You can do zip code targeting inside Google to focus on higher income zipcodes, but we've found this data to be largely unreliable in terms of changing ratios of Medicaid to commercially insured calls.

To get an in-depth breakdown of how to think about budgeting for them, read this article on The Expensive Econcomics of Google Ads for Addiction Treatment.

So They've Stolen Your Name?

As we've discussed in previous lessons, the treatment space unfortunately has a number of unscrupulous providers engaging in duplicitous marketing practices. These organizations will create fake urls that look similar to your organization's and even sometimes copy the landing page on the website to match style and color. Below is an example from Serenity Lane in Oregon. You'll notice how the url looks like the admission's department to anyone not familiar with such practices, which most patients aren't.

Ad (Notice the fake url)

Serenity Lane - Screenshot_20220408-094929_Google

Landing Page (Notice brand color match)

Serenity Lane - Screenshot_20220408-095133_Chrome

There is little you can do to stop such practices, unfortunately. These shady marketers hide behind various VPNs and rotating IP addresses, so are hard to track down. Both Google and the FCC are aware of such practices and work to shut them down. You can report them to Google as you see them, just know that they will likely pop up again in a month. It's much like a game of whack-a-mole.

Related to this, note that it is perfectly OK for people to bid on your name for keywords. For example, if my program is called Serenity Lane, but I want to bid on keywords for American Addiction Centers, there is no legal issue with his. If you do an online search for Cabela's Outdoor Sporting Goods, you'll very often see Google Ads for Dick's Sporting Goods and vice versa. This is a marketing practice referred to as Conquest Marketing.

For this reason, we recommend taking 5% of your Googe Ad spend and use it for "brand protection campaigns," which we'll discuss in a later lesson.

Most people are smart. If they search for your program's name and see an ad for another program, they will skip the ads and go to the organic results. Data shows that 95% of people will skip the ads if not related to their specific search. If they do call the ad by accident, they'll often realize they called the wrong place, hang up, and call you. So defending against conquest advertising is not a large concern. It's worth dedicating 5% of your budget too, but we do not recommend more than that.

Intro to Google Ads