- Oct 31, 2017
Search engine marketing is a leading practice of marketers today wanting to make the presence of their brand felt in the digital world. With the introduction of AdWords in the year 2003, Google made it possible for businesses to increase their website traffic and sales through search advertisements based on the pay-per-click model.
Like other industries, even the businesses in the medical sector invested in search ads to beat the competitive rush by getting the right online exposure in the field of delivering quality care at an affordable price. When properly planned and executed, search engine marketing has helped healthcare organizations increase their visibility in the search results page, driving more website visits and better lead generation.
Are you planning your next healthcare PPC campaign?
If yes, then check out these common mistakes of healthcare advertisers that you need to avoid for preventing your business from going into the wrong direction.
Improper Use of Google AdWords’ Advanced Features
Google AdWords is just not an online advertising service with generic features. This advertising platform can boost the exposure and effectiveness of marketing campaigns significantly if marketers correctly utilize all its elements. There are many advanced functionalities that medical marketers often fail to use or are ignorant of which when leveraged can increase click-through rate (CTR) of their ads, boosting the overall ROI of every campaign.
One such feature is location extensions using which location information can be included in standard text ads an. With the use of sitelink, medical marketers can incorporate additional links in the ad. The dayparting tool helps advertisers to set up particular days or times when they would want their ads to be shown. Among all these unutilized features, click-to-call, as we all know is an essential part that lets users click on the number in the ad to contact the brand. But, in most of the cases, healthcare marketers are found not using Google AdWords and its efficient features like the way it should have been for deriving desirable results.
Not Using Google’s Demographic and Geographic Targeting Options
With the offering of AdWords, Google has made it easier for marketers to run targeted campaigns by segmenting their audience based on particular demographics and geographic locations.
Using demographic targeting feature, healthcare advertisers can identify and target customers based on their age, gender, parental status, income, and more. For instance, a physician specializing in an age-specific treatment can run ads targeting patients of that particular age group using this feature of AdWords.
Similarly with advanced location-based targeting also, healthcare advertisers can determine and target potential customers by their physical location, ensuring that their ads are relevant to the all the prospects living in that particular area.
Lack of Campaign Performance Monitoring Initiatives
Measuring the performance of your ads is very important. When you are using AdWords to initiate search advertising campaigns for your healthcare business, you should also know to track how it is performing and also be aware of the cost incurred in a particular ad campaign. Google’s AdWords has some performance monitoring tools using which advertisers can monitor the status and progress of their existing ads and targeted keywords. Later this insight can help them in planning future campaigns and make informed decisions regarding the same.
But, many healthcare marketers are not evaluating metrics such as cost-per-click, conversion rate, cost-per-lead, tracking URLs, etc. because of which they are unable to identify where they are going wrong with their campaigns and thus are unable to improve their marketing efforts.
Running Healthcare Ads without an Associated Landing Page
A campaign intended to update your existing customers as well as the potential ones about your new medical equipment offering should have a link to a landing page that will give them more insight into the product. Right?
But, wait, many of you fail to do so. In most of the campaigns we came across, we have seen that healthcare marketers link their ads to the home page and don’t create a separate landing page for it. Such a strategy is entirely wrong to implement.
Having a useful landing page relevant to that campaign can help in compelling the user to take action like ask for a quote, booking an appointment, etc. Separate pages also help in tracking the performance metrics.
Bidding Aggressively
For running search ad campaigns cost-effectively using Google’s AdWords, you need to be a smart bidder. You can’t overbid and at the same time underbid also. Maintaining balance in bidding will help you in getting the right exposure in the search rankings without having to overburden your budget.
An incorrect bidding can increase your pay-per-click. Hence, knowing your performance with the help of monitoring capabilities of AdWords and adjusting your bid according to that is what can save you from incurring heavy losses while running pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns on Google.
Final Alarm!
It’s not too late.
If you want your healthcare brand to top the search rankings, then keep yourself away from committing the mistakes mentioned above in your next search ad campaign.
Try to align your marketing strategy with the best practices available in the healthcare industry to ensure smooth functioning of your medical business.
