Has your company become a victim of a latest PPC con?
Companies portraying themselves as PPC advertising experts and taking your money to do essentially nothing are becoming more and more common. We’re writing this to help you avoid becoming a victim, too.
Just this past month we’ve heard 9 more stories of medical practices getting ripped off for $4,000 or more a month by PPC firms that provided them with only a few (or in some cases zero) results.
PPC advertising done right can generate dozens or even hundreds of new patients for your medical practice. But that’s not what these PPC advertising con artists are doing.
Why are more and more con artists preying on medical practices like yours?
Recently, Google has shifted the way they display results on search pages putting 3-4 paid advertisers at the top and another 3 at the bottom. They’ve even experimented with more ads and ad types per page. Which means it’s much harder to attract patients online unless you pony up and pay for PPC. The challenge is avoiding the so-called PPC advertising firms that want to con you out of your money without providing results.
4 Ways to Avoid PPC Advertising Con Artists
1. Avoid So-Called PPC Generalists
If you wanted a hearing aid, or plastic surgery, or sinus surgery, you’d go to a specialist–someone with the knowledge and expertise to help you. Medical PPC advertising is the same.
Think about it. Attracting customers to your store to buy dog food isn’t the same as overcoming the stigma associated with buying hearing aids and getting patients calling. Any PPC firm without extensive experience in attracting patients that tells you they’re PPC experts and their strategies work for any market are liars.
At MedPB we’ve spent years studying patient behavior and coming up with PPC ad campaigns that get results. We specialize in audiology and medical PPC advertising. If you asked us to run a PPC campaign out of our area of expertise we’d refuse.
2. Avoid Contracts That Lock You In
Some things take time. Good wine takes time to age. Online marketing with SEO can take 3-6 months to show results. With medical or audiology PPC, however, if it’s working you’ll know within 30-45 days.
If the PPC salesperson wants to lock you in for more than three or more months beware! It’s a clear signal they are trying to con you.
Recently we’ve talked to 9 practices that have been hit by this scam. They’ve signed up for PPC to attract patients and gotten “sold” on signing up for three to six months, paying from $2,000 to over $4,000 per month. And then gotten either zero patient calls or only a very small handful from money spent on PPC.
At MedPB all our contracts are month to month. Which forces us to focus on results so our clients stay. Make sure when you sign up for marketing, you can leave at any time without penalty.
3. Avoid Firms That Won’t Tell You Where Your Money Is Going
With PPC advertising, there are two costs. The fee you pay a firm to manage your PPC account, to set it up and keep it performing – and the amount paid to Google or Bing or Facebook for the actual ads or clicks.
Some firms charge a flat fee based on the size or your spend. With other’s, it’s a percent of your spend. Both of which may make sense.
But one of the largest and least reputable PPC advertising firms does neither. They charge a set monthly fee and then they won’t tell you how much they are going to pay themselves or spend on Adwords. Which means, that in some cases we’ve heard about they are just pocketing most of the money instead of spending it on advertising.
Warning. If a PPC firm isn’t transparent about their advertising fees and your Adwords spend, they’re con artists and not legit online medical marketers.
At MedPB we have flat monthly management fees and then you get to tell us how much you want to spend on your PPC spend. That way you know what you are paying for.
4. Avoid Getting Stuck with Poor Results
There is only one reason to sign up for audiology or medical PPC advertising. It’s to attract more patients to your practice. This can be one of the most effective ways to schedule more appointments and grow your practice, if PPC is done right.
The big mistake medical practices make is letting themselves get scammed by PPC firms that aren’t specialists, use long-term contracts to lock them in, and don’t provide results at a reasonable cost. Now, we can’t share exact numbers because every market is different. The two numbers to pay attention to are, your CTR (Click Thru Rate) for your ads and your cost per lead.
CTR is the percent of people who view your ad versus the number that click on it. Most generalist PPC firms, when they sell medical PPC, get click-thru rates of around two-tenths of a percent, which is an indication the PPC advertising firm you are working with are con artists or totally incompetent.
At MedPB our targeted PPC ads get a click thru rate of between 2-5 percent or more than ten times the average.
How to Attract More Patients with PPC
If you sell dog food, key chains, or cell phones, and anything other than medical services – don’t contact us, that’s not our specialty. At MedPB we specialize in medical marketing. Like you, we’ve spent years understanding patients to develop our marketing expertise. Which, like you, is the reason we get the results we do.
If you’re looking for PPC that works to get more patients, talk to us. We’ll give you all the information you need without all the smoke and mirrors.
Achieve more. Talk to us.