Dental Paid Search
We run paid search for UK dental practices that need patients now, not in six months. Every campaign is built around one number: the cost to book a real patient - not clicks, not impressions. Healthcare-only, GDC and ASA-compliant from the first ad, so your spend turns into booked appointments, not wasted budget.
No pitch, no obligation.
Healthcare-only · London-based · UK-wide
What It Is
Dental PPC is paid advertising - across Google Ads, Meta, and the emerging AI ad platforms like ChatGPT - that puts your practice in front of patients the moment they search for a treatment or a dentist nearby. You pay per click, so it brings enquiries fast. But in dentistry the spend only works when it's tracked to booked patients and kept within GDC and ASA rules.
Results we've delivered
£50-£150
average cost per booked patient
4:1
return on ad spend
−39%
wasted spend cut
7-14 days
to first booked patient
Is This You?
A new practice, a new treatment, or a slow patch, and you can't wait for organic to build. You need enquiries coming in this week, from patients actively searching for what you offer - not a campaign that pays off next year.
What matters here
paid search that puts you in front of high-intent patients fast, tied to real bookings from day one.
You're spending every month - maybe on Google Ads you set up yourself, maybe with an agency - but you don't know which clicks turn into patients. No call tracking, no conversion data, just a bill and a vague sense it's 'doing something.'
What matters here
proper conversion and call tracking, so every pound is tied to a booked patient, and the waste gets cut.
Implants, Invisalign, cosmetic work - the cases worth the most. The patients searching for them are ready to act, but the clicks are expensive and the competition is fierce. Get the targeting or the landing wrong and the budget vanishes fast.
What matters here
tightly targeted campaigns for high-value treatments, with compliant ads and landing pages built to convert the expensive click.
Your campaigns bring patients, but you've no idea what happens if you double the budget - more bookings, or more waste? Without clear numbers per treatment, scaling feels like gambling rather than a decision.
What matters here
cost-per-booking data by treatment, so you scale what's profitable and cap what isn't, with confidence.
What It Involves
Dental PPC isn't just 'running ads' - it's six disciplines working together. Here's what each one does, in plain terms, and why it matters for a practice.
What it is
On Google, targeting the searches that bring patients - treatment terms and "near me" queries - with negative keywords that stop wasted clicks. On Meta, building the right audiences by location, age and interest, and retargeting people who've already visited.
Why it matters
Most wasted dental spend goes on the wrong people: job seekers, price-checkers, those outside your area. Whether it's keywords or audiences, getting this right is where the budget is saved or lost.
What it is
The ads themselves - search headlines on Google, images and video on Meta - written and designed to convert while staying within GDC and ASA rules, including how before/after content is handled.
Why it matters
Ad content is regulated like everything else in dentistry, and Meta's visual format makes before/after images especially risky. Generic agencies design for clicks and ignore the rules; the practice carries the complaint, not them.
What it is
Sending paid traffic, from either platform, to a focused page built for that campaign, with one clear next step - not an expensive click dropped on a generic homepage.
Why it matters
You've paid for the click; where it lands decides whether it books. This matters even more on Meta, where the patient wasn't actively searching and needs a stronger reason to act.
What it is
Measuring what happens after the click - form enquiries, phone calls, booked appointments - traced back to the exact campaign, keyword or audience that produced it, across both platforms.
Why it matters
Without it you optimise on clicks, not patients. It matters most on Meta, where lower intent means you can't judge a campaign on clicks alone - only booked patients tell you if it worked.
What it is
Managing bids and budget day to day, and deciding how spend is split between Google and Meta based on what's actually booking patients, not a fixed assumption.
Why it matters
A "set and forget" account leaks money on both platforms. Active management keeps budget moving toward what's profitable - and toward the platform delivering the lower cost per booking that month.
What it is
Choosing the right platform for the goal. The two work differently, and most practices need both, weighted to their situation. Plus the emerging AI ad platforms like ChatGPT, which we're tracking for UK rollout.
Why it matters
Google captures patients already looking; Meta creates demand and brings back the hesitant. Used together, and measured properly, they fill the diary in ways neither does alone.
Google vs Meta
Google Ads
Meta (Facebook & Instagram)
Patient mindset
Actively searching for a treatment or dentist
Scrolling, not looking for a dentist yet
Intent
High - ready to act
Lower - needs persuading
Best for
Capturing demand that already exists
Creating demand & retargeting
Format
Text ads on search results
Image & video in the feed
Strongest at
Implants, Invisalign, "emergency dentist"
Awareness, cosmetic interest, staying top-of-mind
Compliance watch-point
Claims in ad copy
Before/after images in creative
Typical role
The workhorse for booked patients now
The multiplier: demand + bringing people back
Most practices don't choose between them - they use both: Google to capture the patients searching today, Meta to create demand and bring back the ones who weren't ready yet. The right split depends on your treatments and your goals, which is exactly what we work out before spending a pound.
Why Dental Is Different
Plenty of agencies 'do PPC.' Far fewer understand what it takes to make it pay for a dental practice, where the clicks worth winning are the most expensive, every ad claim carries regulatory weight, and a patient is only worth the spend if you can prove they booked. Here's what generic PPC gets wrong in dentistry.
The treatments worth most - implants, Invisalign, cosmetic - are also the most competitive and costly to bid on. A generic agency lets that budget run on broad keywords and vague audiences, and it vanishes fast. Winning these takes tight targeting, negative keywords and constant management, not a campaign left on autopilot.
Dental advertising is governed by the GDC and ASA: what you can claim, how before/after images are used, what counts as misleading. This bites hardest on paid, where Meta's visual ads and Google's claims are public and scrutinised. Most agencies write for clicks and never check the rules - and the practice carries the complaint, not them.
In dentistry the gap between a click and a booked patient is everything, and most accounts never measure it. Without call and conversion tracking, you're optimising on clicks while the diary tells a different story. We tie every pound to a booked patient, because cost per click means nothing if you can't see the cost per patient.
The difference isn't that we bid harder. Dental paid search is what we do, so we already know where the budget leaks, which claims cross the line, and how to prove what actually booked a patient. We work within GDC and ASA guidance on every ad we run - and we won't promise you a number of patients; anyone who does isn't being straight with you.
The Patient Acquisition System
We don't just switch on ads and send you the bill. Every practice we run paid search for goes through the same five phases: we diagnose before we spend, build the tracking before we scale, and measure everything against booked patients.
We audit your account, or your market if you're starting fresh: what you're spending, what's converting, what's leaking, and what the high-value treatments actually cost to win in your area. No budget goes live until we know where it should, and shouldn't, go.
We pin down what makes your practice the obvious choice - the treatments, the offers, the reasons to pick you - so the ads lead with something worth clicking, not a generic "book your appointment." On paid, where every click costs, the message has to earn it.
We build the foundations before spending scales: conversion and call tracking, compliant ad copy and creative, negative keyword lists, and campaign landing pages built to convert. This is the unglamorous groundwork that decides whether the spend ever pays off.
We turn on the right channels for the goal - Google Ads for high-intent search, Meta for demand and retargeting - each weighted to your situation and tied to real patient intent, not vanity reach. This is where the diary starts filling.
We track what matters - cost per booking, which treatments and campaigns are profitable, where spend is wasted - then refine bids, budgets and negative keywords, week after week. Paid isn't 'set and forget'; this is where the cost per patient comes down and the profitable campaigns get scaled.
When we say we apply The Patient Acquisition System, we mean we're not just running ads - we're architecting how your practice turns spend into booked patients. The campaign is one tactic inside it, measured, managed, and accountable to the only number that matters: the cost to book a real patient.
Free PPC Audit
Drop in your website and we'll send back a free PPC audit: where your spend is being wasted, which searches and audiences are worth bidding on, whether you're tracking bookings properly, and what a realistic cost per patient looks like for your treatments and area.
Case Study
Small single-site practice, Greater Manchester · New location · 9-month partnership
The challenge
A small practice that had just opened a new location, with empty appointment books and no time to wait for word of mouth or organic to build. They needed paying patients coming through the door quickly to make the new site viable, but a small budget meant there was no room for wasted spend. Every pound had to bring a patient, or the location wouldn't work.
What we did
Started with the high-intent searches that book fastest - treatment and "near me" terms in the practice's catchment, with tight negative keywords to protect a small budget. Wrote GDC- and ASA-compliant ad copy, built a focused landing page for the new location, and set up call and conversion tracking from day one. As the data came in, we shifted budget toward the campaigns booking patients at the lowest cost, and added Meta retargeting to bring back the ones who didn't book first time.
The results
£90
cost per booked patient
2.2:1
return on ad spend
3 days
to first booked patient
0 months
to profitable at the new location
“We opened with empty books and needed patients fast, on a budget that left no room for waste. Within a few months the new practice was paying for itself, and we could see exactly which treatments the patients were coming for.”
How We Work
No long lock-ins, no spending before the tracking's in place. Some practices need a fast start on a small budget; others want to scale what's already working. We work out exactly which on the audit, before you commit a pound to ads.
The process
We review your account, or your market if you're starting fresh, and send back a written list of where spend is leaking and where the patients actually are.
If it's useful, we walk you through what we'd run, on which platforms, and what a realistic cost per patient looks like, before you commit to anything.
We set up tracking, compliant ads and landing pages before spending scales - senior people on your account, no juniors learning on your budget.
We manage the account day to day and report on what matters - cost per booked patient and which treatments are profitable, not clicks and impressions. Monthly reporting, regular reviews.
Pricing framing
Paid search has two costs: the ad spend, which goes to Google and Meta, and our fee for managing it. We keep that split transparent, so you always know what you're paying us versus what's buying clicks. What it costs depends on your situation - a small single-site practice needs far less than a group scaling across treatments and locations. Rather than a fixed package, we scope what you actually need on the audit, so you're spending where it books patients, not padding a retainer.
Common Questions
Faster than anything else. Once campaigns and tracking are live, enquiries can come within days - that's the main reason practices use paid search. The first weeks are about gathering data and cutting waste; the cost per patient comes down as we optimise from there.
Paid + The System
Get a free PPC audit and we'll show you exactly where your spend is going: what's being wasted, which searches and audiences are worth bidding on, and a realistic cost per patient for your treatments and area. No pitch, no obligation.
No pitch, no obligation.
Healthcare-only · London-based · UK-wide · Response within 24h