Summary
This video discusses the realities and expectations of advertising performance, particularly for dental practices, based on a case study of a dentist experiencing poor results with an advertising agency. The speaker outlines key concepts in advertising optimization, budget requirements, performance metrics, and timelines for improvement, offering practical advice on how to evaluate and troubleshoot advertising campaigns.
Key Concepts and Structure of Advertising Performance
- Three hierarchical levels to evaluate when results don’t improve:
- Goals: The ultimate objective, such as acquiring new patients.
- Strategy: The approach to achieve the goal (e.g., advertising).
- Tactics: The execution details, including platform choice, budget, bidding, targeting, and keywords.
- Troubleshooting order: Start by examining tactics, then strategy, and finally goals if necessary.
- Advertising is essential today for predictable patient acquisition because platforms prioritize paid promotion to gain visibility.
Budget and Data Requirements
- Minimum budget for statistically significant data: Approximately $$2,000$$ per month is recommended as a starting point for most dental advertising campaigns.
- Budget flexibility depends on service complexity:
- Higher-fee or niche services (e.g., full mouth rehabilitation) require larger budgets.
- Lower-cost, broad services (e.g., free dental exams) need less budget for meaningful data.
- Insufficient budget leads to poor data collection, limiting algorithm optimization and campaign improvement.
Timeline for Results and Optimization
| Time Period | Expected Outcomes |
|---|---|
| First 2-3 weeks | Possibly minimal results; some leads but not necessarily conversions |
| 1 month | Should begin seeing healthy lead volume and justification for spend based on patient conversions |
| 3-4 months | Expect higher optimization levels and closer alignment with target acquisition costs |
| 6 months or more | May be necessary for niche/high-fee procedures due to higher data costs and complexity |
- Increased advertising costs and regulatory tracking changes are causing longer optimization timelines and higher costs.
Case Study: Dentist’s Advertising Performance
| Metric | Value | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Budget | Approximately $$3,800$$ | Above the recommended minimum |
| Leads Generated | 10 leads | Includes calls or form submissions |
| Patient Visits from Leads | Around 2 patients | Conversion rate of approximately 20% (healthy) |
| Cost per Lead | Approx. $$380$$ | Higher than industry benchmarks |
| Cost per Acquisition (patient) | Approx. $$3,800$$ | Roughly 13 times higher than recommended $$300$$ target |
- The issue lies in insufficient lead volume given the budget, not in front desk or lead conversion.
- The agency’s tactics are ineffective, failing to generate enough high-intent leads.
Advertising Metrics and Considerations
- Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is the critical metric, defined as the total advertising spend divided by the number of patients who actually convert.
- Leads alone are insufficient; focus should be on quality leads that convert into actual patients.
- Lower cost per click (CPC) is often misunderstood; cheap clicks on irrelevant or low-intent keywords do not translate into valuable patient acquisitions.
- Targeting high-intent keywords and audiences is crucial, even if CPC is higher.
Recommended CPA Benchmarks
| Timeframe | Target Cost per Acquisition (CPA) |
|---|---|
| Historically (past) | Around $$200$$ |
| Current realistic target | Around $$300$$ |
| Niche/high-fee procedures | Likely higher due to complexity |
Common Tactical Issues Impacting Results
- Poor or unclear landing pages.
- Lack of compelling offers.
- Targeting irrelevant or overly broad geographic areas.
- Using low-intent keywords that attract cheap but uninterested clicks.
Final Insights
- Advertising requires patience and sufficient budget to gather meaningful data and optimize effectively.
- Expect to see significant improvements around 3-4 months, though timelines vary by service type.
- If results stagnate, start by evaluating tactical execution before changing strategy or goals.
- A healthy CPA benchmark today is approximately $$300$$, but this will likely increase with rising competition and regulatory constraints.
- Agencies delivering stagnant or poor results should be scrutinized for their tactical effectiveness.
Conclusion
Advertising dental services effectively requires a clear understanding of goals, strategy, and tactics, combined with adequate budget and realistic timelines. Monitoring cost per acquisition and lead quality are essential. The case study illustrates that poor results often stem from tactical failures rather than goals or strategy flaws. Advertisers should expect gradual performance improvements over months and adjust tactics accordingly to achieve sustainable patient acquisition.
00:00:00
So, I met a dentist who was advertising, who hired an agency to advertise for him, and he told me how his performance was doing. Um, and it was pretty darn bad. So, what I have to share with you this video is kind of what you should expect to see when you advertise with someone so that you can kind of understand what you should be getting as a result and so that you don’t end up with the results that this dentist have has. And um thankfully we’re getting on a call in about an hour and we’re going to see if
00:00:36
we can help him out. But all right, when you advertise um and when you hire an agency to advertise, there is some level of optimization that has to be done and a time period where the results you see will have to ramp up before you start seeing more um consistent and optimized results. That said, before that period, you should still be seeing results. You should see the results improve over time. And if it’s not improving, then you have a an issue. And when we whenever we see results don’t improve,
00:01:17
there’s two things we have to look at. Well, there’s three techn technically three things. And at the top, we have goals, right? And then underneath goals is strategy. What are we going to do to achieve that goal? And then at the bottom is tactics, which is the execution of that strategy. So in this case, the goal would be to get new patients. The strategy would be through advertising and the tactics would be the execution of that advertising. What platforms are we using? What’s our
00:01:46
budget? How are we bidding? Who are we targeting? What are our keywords? And all those other stuff. And when you don’t see results improve, you have to go back and look at the tactics first, right? We don’t really want to start and change the goal and say, “Okay, looks like new patients aren’t possible. Let’s go and change our goal.” Right? We should start at the bottom with the tactics. See are our execution is our execution wrong? Then go to strategy. Okay. Is maybe advertising not the bl
00:02:12
best best uh choice and then we go to the goal if we have to. So what I’m advocating for here is that it’s typically going to be the execution that you have to look at before you look at changing your strategy which is advertising. Uh and for long story short, if you want to get leverage to get patients at will in today’s age, um advertising is the go-to option. Simply put, the platforms have designed it that way so that you have to pay them to get an advantage. It’s unfortunate, but it’s
00:02:43
true. Um so, okay, so the tactical level, um if you’re not seeing the results improve, there is something wrong at the tactical level. And if you’re hiring an agency to do that, then either the agency doesn’t want to do the right tactics or they’re just don’t they don’t know how to do the right tactics. Um, and I’m not telling saying you have to quit and uh work with us or anything, but if you’re working with an agency where your results aren’t improving, figure out what’s going wrong at the
00:03:15
tactical level. All right? And so that’s what this video is sort of going to cover. Um, but more about let’s talk more about the results. All right. So, you do need enough of a budget to get results. And this is um not designed by the platforms, but this is just how data works. You need a minimum spend. If you don’t reach that minimum spend, what’s going to happen is your advertising is going to get data, but that data isn’t going to be enough. It’s like um it’s not going to be statistically significant
00:03:49
for the algorithm or for the advertiser to understand how to improve upon that. And how advertising works today is that because it’s getting more costly because of the number of people advertising is increasing. That means that the minimum amount budget gets higher and higher because now we’re trying to get a statistically significant sample size. And because the costs are rising, um the minimum budget is going to be higher. And so typically what I recommend as a starting budget is right around $2,000
00:04:24
per month. So if you aren’t spending $2,000 per month, I mean, and there is some flex, and I’m generalizing here. If you’re running a campaign that is um higher fee, more niche, then you’re going to want a higher budget. If it’s something that is um typically easier, there’s lower barriers of entry, it’s cheaper, then you’re it’s going to cost you less to get more results. So therefore, you can get data faster. So let’s say you’re doing full full mouth rehabilitation,
00:04:56
you will need a significant budget for that. But if you’re just running ads for like um free dental exams, let’s say with insurance, then chances are you’re going to get a lot of data pretty cheaply. So, there is some flex, but a golden rule that I found is right around $2,000. All right. So, let’s say you spend $2,000. You’re going to get the results. And what do the results look like? At first, it might not be much. You might spend $2,000 and get a couple of phone calls and lead to nothing. And this is
00:05:27
not to be expected, but this can happen within the first two to three weeks. All right? And I would say that at the one month mark is where you should start seeing I would say good results where you can justify the amount you’re spending for the number of patients that are actually coming in not the number of leads the actual people who convert from leads. All right. Um at the one month mark you should be getting healthy amounts of leads for sure. Another question that this doctor had was, “I
00:06:00
don’t know if it’s my front desk or I don’t know if it’s the advertising agency.” So, I said, “Okay, how many leads are you getting? How many people are actually like leaving um or filling out a form? How many of them are calling? How many of them are booking online?” And uh his budget was 3,600 or $3,800 or so. And that was generating 10 leads. So 10 people calling or 10 people filling out a form and from those 10 people he would end up with about two patients actually coming in visiting and
00:06:33
then of course from that you get even less who actually accept treatment or move forward with the doctor. So obviously it was the number of leads because 20% of patients showing up from leads is not a bad number. that that is pretty in it’s in the healthy range. And so it was actually not the fault of his front desk. It was the fault of the agency that for $3,600 you should be getting way more leads. So what should you be looking at? And I think the standard um should be somewhere right around $250 per acquisition. So not $250
00:07:15
per lead, but per acquisition. and he’s paying. So, it goes from advertising budget obviously, how many leads does that generate? And from those leads, how many of them become patients? Because you could spend your advertising budget to get a whole bunch of leads, but you can also do that by saying, “Hey, we’re giving out $300 bills. Just fill out this form.” You’ll get a lot of leads, but not many of those leads will actually convert into becoming patients. So yes, you have to focus on leads, but
00:07:45
the main the big picture that we’re looking for is going to be acquisition. And if you look even further, it’s going to be return on investment, but that’s a little bit more advanced. All right, so leads, right? He wasn’t getting enough leads. So that is in the hands of the agency. Um, we I don’t think we really need to go into how to improve that, but because there’s so many variables. It could be that his landing page is all messed up, that what they’re offering isn’t clear, that there is no offer at
00:08:16
all, or it could be that they’re targeting a really random area, or they’re targeting keywords or people who just aren’t interested, right? It’s they’re not targeting high intent stuff. And another common thing I’ve seen is that many people, many practitioners, we’ve been misguided to think that low cost per click is the answer, but it really isn’t. I can get you very low cost per click by having you bid by having you advertise on searches that are meaningless. No one wants to compete
00:08:52
with you to show up and advertise to those search terms. So, for example, um how much money can a dentist make after one year uh out of dental school, right? Let’s say we want to advertise your dental services for that search. No other dental office is going to be competing for that unless they’re doing a very bad job. So, you will Google will give you the ability to advertise for that search very cheaply because no one else wants to do it, right? So, why not make it cheap for you? And so that’s how
00:09:28
I can lower your CPC um your cost per click, but that’s not going to lead to anything, right? Again, the golden rule here is how how much acquisition can we get, right? It’s not going to lead to much. And all right, so that’s one idea. And another is that um I think I might have mentioned this before, but um All right, so cost per acquisition, what should that look like? And back in the day, I think 200 was a very reasonable and um number we could aspire to $200 per acquisition. And it it still is achievable. Some of
00:10:02
our clients are achieving that. But as the trends happen, as more people get onto advertising, as advertising gets more difficult to do because regulations around tracking increase, um what happens is that it gets more and more difficult to reach that cost per acquisition. So I think a realistic number today is right around $300 per acquisition. So that guy I’m about to talk to, he is spending about $3,800 getting about 10 leads. So that is about $380 per lead. And now from those leads, he gets two um
00:10:39
two patients coming in the door. Uh which isn’t even acquisition technically. And from there, how many of them become active patients? And let’s say that’s one, right? So, his cost per acquisition is right around $3,800, which is about, you know, 13x, like a little less than 13x um what he should be paying. Um I think that’s right. Yeah. So, it’s important to look at cost per acquisition as sort of the main metric because acquisition is what we care about. We care about the number
00:11:18
of patients who actually come in. Again, it’s more if you were more advanced, it would be your actual ROI. Um, but I think we can simplify it and look at acquisition costs. So, if your acquisition cost is higher than 300, um, I think there is work you can do to at the tactical level to improve that. Now, this number is going to change. Um, again, with all the trends that we’re seeing, the cost of advertising is going to go up. Um, and so the cost per acquisition target, the goal that we
00:11:50
should be aspiring for is also going to increase as well. All right, so that’s it for this video. Um, if you’re advertising, make sure you understand what you should be expecting. Um, oh, one last thing is that right around the 3 to four month mark is I think where you should expect higher levels of optimization and where you should be getting significantly better results. like that’s when you should be reaching or getting close to that target acquisition cost. And sometimes because of those trends that I
00:12:24
mentioned like increased regulation and stuff, it might take longer. It it it’s just it costs more to get more data and the data that we actually get is worse because of regulations. So it’s going to take more time. It’s going to be a bit more costly these days to get fully optimized. But I think right around a three to four month month period is where you should expect it to happen. It’s possible it could take six months or so. Um but that’s again that’s going to be for more um high niche or or niche
00:12:52
high fee uh procedures or services if you’re targeting that just because the costs for getting data is um significantly higher. And if it’s for something like dental exams, um, new patient specials, it’s going to be significantly shorter amount of time that it takes to get to optimization. All right, I think that’s it. Uh, let me know if you have any questions about advertising, what kind of results you should be expecting. Um, I’m about to talk to this guy again. He’s spending
00:13:20
around 800 um, $3,800. He’s getting around 10 leads and from that about two people coming into the office and fewer who are actually becoming patients. and um he’s been doing this for around seven months, so he’s a bit fed up. I really feel for him. So, I’m going to hop in and see um how we can help. And yeah, thanks for watching this video. I’ll see you guys in the next one. Bye.