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Hey again — it's Steve with Healthcare Marketing Vitals!

One of the most frustrating experiences in healthcare digital marketing is watching a once-profitable Google Ads campaign slowly bleed money.

Your cost-per-click climbs. Conversion rates plummet. And that steady stream of new patient appointments dries up.

Even worse?

Figuring out exactly what's actually going wrong can be tricky unless you know what you’re looking for.

That's why every high-performing healthcare practice needs an emergency response protocol for campaign performance issues — before they drain your marketing budget dry.

This week, we're diving into emergency fixes that address Healthcare Marketing Roadblock #1 (No Visibility) and Roadblock #4 (Poor ROI).

In This Week’s Email:

• [1 min] Thoughts for the Week: An Ounce of Prevention

• [4 min] Google Ads 911: What to do when your campaigns aren’t working

• [30 sec] By the Numbers: PPC performance statistics

• [30 sec] In the Know: Latest marketing regulations and strategies

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

An Ounce of Prevention

For a brief period of my life (years ago—when I very first got into digital marketing) I was a volunteer firefighter.

As with many things, graduating from the fire academy was just the start of our training.

Almost every week we had optional trainings with mandatory ones every month, plus specialized classes we could take (Swiftwater Rescue, Smoke Reading, Strategies & Tactics for Fast Food Firefighting, etc.).

Plus, most of us hung out together at the firehouse when we weren’t working or at home, and we’d watch videos of firefighting with more experienced firefighters learning how to read the fire, detailing what the crews did right or wrong, etc.

So when our pagers went off we were all excited to utilize our knowledge, skill, and training—but hopeful that the incident wouldn’t be a tragedy. The ideal, best case scenario was that we’d get to put out a fire that harmed no one and did no substantial damage.

Luckily, the few fires I was in never caused any human or animal casualties.

However, in several cases the damage to the home or business was both massive and preventable.

In particular, one incident (a housefire) that had all the ingredients for firefighter injury or death was caused by a family who left a fire blazing in their fireplace and headed out to eat.

Embers from crackling logs jumped to a rug and the house ended up being a near total loss.

The family thought the fire would die down, and that the firescreen would prevent any embers from getting out.

They thought they had taken the right precautions.

But they were wrong.

If they’d asked any of us advice, we would’ve all told them what to do in a heartbeat.

Sometimes, you know enough to prevent a tragedy.

And sometimes you learn the hard way.

BY THE WAY

🔔 Last call if you’re interested in getting help for marketing strategy, messaging, SEO, or Pay-per-Click Google Ads from my agency. If you’d like a partner who can help you bring in more patients, let’s talk.

I’ve been fortunate enough to speak with a few practices and we’ve had great conversations:

• We’ve found their pain points

• They’ve gotten some immediate strategic & tactical advice

• They’ve either already received or are soon receiving some options for working together that fit their practice needs

Book an appointment by 4/30 and we’ll figure out how to get your practice more patients.

SPOTLIGHT

Google Ads 911: Emergency Fixes for Tanking Campaign Performance

4 min. read

Before we dive into fixes, let's address the elephant in the room: budget requirements.

To see results with Google Ads in healthcare you need to invest a minimum of $500 per month. Without enough budget, Google lacks the data needed to learn and optimize effectively.

With healthcare's average CPC ranging from $3.86 to almost $7 depending on practice area, spending less means Google gets insufficient clicks to understand which patients convert.

Google’s system needs 2-4 weeks of data collection before it can begin optimizing, and you’ll want your marketing team to constantly test (very actively for at least another 2 months) to hit peak performance.

Now let's diagnose and fix 3 of the most common campaign killers. You’re likely to see some combination of the below.

Emergency #1: Skyrocketing Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

Symptoms:

• CPCs suddenly jump 20-50% above normal

• Ad spend depletes faster without more conversions

• Cost per acquisition (CPA) becomes unsustainable

Emergency Treatment:

Frequently, if you’re running broad match or phrase match campaigns, this means you need to add more negative keywords (or switch to exact match)

1. Search Terms Check

   • Check your search terms report

   • Add keywords that you don’t want to show for as “negative keywords”

   • Turn off any high-cost, low-performing keywords

2. Quality Score Triage

   • Ensure mobile load time under 3 seconds (WP Engine for WordPress is phenomenal for handling this for you)

   • Have a specific landing page for each condition + ideal patient persona in Google Ads

   • Add trust signals above the fold

   • Implement SKAGs (single keyword ad groups) for highest-cost keywords with targeted ads + landing pages

3. Bidding Strategy Reset

   • Switch from automated to manual CPC temporarily

   • Set bid adjustments by device (-20% for underperformers)

   • Implement dayparting to reduce waste when ads are costly but not converting

   • Remove geographic targeting from areas that are costly/not profitable

4. Competitor Analysis

   • Run an auction insights report

   • Identify new competitors driving up costs

   • Adjust targeting to avoid direct bidding wars

Emergency #2: Plummeting Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Symptoms:

• CTR drops suddenly drops for search campaigns

• Quality Score decreases

• Ad position drops despite same bids

• Impressions & impression share tank

Emergency Treatment:

Generally this means either you’ve made changes that tanked your ads’ effectiveness, your Quality Score has taken a hit, or competition has increased

1. Ad Copy Revival

   • A/B test new headlines immediately

   • Add emotional triggers ("Pain-Free," "Same-Day")

   • Include current offers and promotions (if applicable)

   • Use countdown timers for urgency (if applicable)

2. Relevance Restoration

   • Create hyper-specific ad groups

   • Match search intent precisely

   • Use dynamic keyword insertion carefully

   • Add location-specific customizers

3. Extension Overhaul

   • Refresh ad extensions

   • Add structured snippets for services

   • Use price extensions (if applicable) for transparency

   • Implement call extensions with HIPAA-compliant tracking

Emergency #3: Budget Hemorrhaging

If the above aren’t concerns (or you’ve tried the fixes) but you’re still seeing budget waste, you need to dive in deeper.

Symptoms:

• Daily budget consumed by noon

• Low conversion volume despite high spend

• Wasted spend on irrelevant clicks

Emergency Treatment:

1. Search Term Surgery

   • Review search terms report weekly

   • Add negative keywords aggressively

   • Block "free" and "cheap" if cash-only, block any “jobs” or “careers” keywords

   • Exclude student/research queries

2. Geographic Precision

   • Tighten radius to 5-mile increments

   • Exclude low-performing zip codes

   • Set location bid adjustments

   • Create location-specific campaigns

3. Match Type Refinement

   • Move broad match to phrase match*

   • Use exact match for branded terms

   • Implement modified broad selectively

   • Monitor close variants closely

*We recommend this regardless. Broad match is not your friend.

The 48-Hour Recovery Plan

When multiple issues hit simultaneously, triage and treat.

Day 1:

• Pause all underperforming keywords

• Implement emergency negative keywords

• Reset automated bidding to manual

• Fix critical landing page issues

Day 2:

• Launch new ad copy tests

• Adjust geographic targeting

• Implement call tracking

• Set up conversion monitoring

And if you’re not suffering from any of these campaign problems yet—go ahead and use this checklist to do an audit.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Remember: The key to Google Ads recovery isn't panic—it's systematic diagnosis and targeted treatment of specific problems.

BY THE NUMBERS

Pay-Per-Click Ads for Healthcare

1. Quality Score Impact: 400% higher costs hit campaigns with Quality Score 1 compared to average, while Quality Score 10 campaigns save 50%, highlighting the financial rewards of proper campaign optimization.

   ROI Potential: $8 return per $1 spent represents the upper range of Google Ads performance, with the average business seeing $2 return per dollar invested, demonstrating the platform's profit potential.

   Cost Trends: $30.99 median CPM for healthcare in April 2025 marks a 7.21% increase from March, reflecting the competitive landscape and premium value of healthcare advertising.

IN THE KNOW

Key Articles this Week

1. Seventh Circuit Ruling Opens New Marketing Possibilities: For better or worse healthcare organizations can now explore more flexible marketing arrangements following the Seventh Circuit ruling, potentially reshaping traditional marketing service agreements and creating new opportunities for growth strategies. Read more

2. Google Suspends 39.2 Million Ad Accounts: Google suspended a record 39.2 million advertiser accounts in 2024 - triple the previous year. The company removed 5.1 billion ads and intensified use of AI to detect policy violations. Google on Wednesday said it suspended 39.2 million advertiser accounts on its platform in 2024 — more than triple the number from the previous year Read more

3. 16 Ways to Maximize Marketing with Lean Teams: Forbes experts share actionable strategies for small marketing teams to achieve more with limited resources, including automation, strategic outsourcing, and data-driven prioritization - crucial for optimizing campaigns efficiently. Read more

When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help

1. Hit "reply” to any email and drop me a line. Tell your story, share your marketing struggles, or just say hi. I read every email.

2.  Get in front of our audience of healthcare leaders & professionals.

3. Through April 30th I’m taking meetings if you’d like to work with my agency. It’s first-come, first-served and there’s a good chance we’ll fill our client capacity before then.

   If you’d like help acquiring more patients and want to partner with someone knows what to do, book while we still have capacity:

*Some links in this email may be affiliate links.

That’s All for Now

Have a great week—and take a few minutes to do some preventive Google Ads care.

See You Next Week,

Steve