Google AdWords has variety of ways you can advertise your veterinary practice across the Web. Whether you’re looking to get more clicks or increase conversions, here is a list of tips that can help you cut down on unnecessary costs, while maximizing your returns.

Analyzing Search Data and Identifying Negative Keywords

The Search Terms Report displays the Google searches that people have conducted, which resulted in your ads appearing in their results. This is a great way to not only ferret out which terms you should be using, but to spot negative keywords for your campaign, too.

Negative keywords are employed to keep your ad from appearing in a search query in which they are used.

For example:

Let’s say you notice on your Search Terms Report that your ads are being clicked on for variations of the term “free veterinary care.” However, you don’t offer any free services. You are, however, paying for every one of those irrelevant clicks. So, you implement the word “free” as a negative keyword, so that Google searches with the word “free” in them won’t trigger any of your ads to appear.

Brand Targeting and Excluding

Creating an Ad group that only targets your brand, and then adding your brand name as a negative keyword in other Ad groups can significantly cut back on unnecessary costs, too.

For example, Perfect Paws Veterinary Hospital noticed that the competitive and expensive keyword “veterinary hospital” was triggering their ads to appear in Google searches for “Perfect Paws Veterinary Hospital.” Perfect Paws thought it was an expensive click to pay for when the person was already searching for their specific clinic.

To solve this problem, they created the Ad group “Perfect Paws Veterinary Hospital” that only targets keyword variations of their brand name, and they added the word “perfect” to their other Ad group, and “Veterinary Services” as a negative keyword. Now they pay significantly less for clicks on their ads from people who were searching for their particular veterinary hospital.

Household Income Targeting

It is also possible to target people based on the average household income tier they fall under. This is a great way to bid more competitively for, and show your ads to more to people with, higher income levels in your area.

Tracking Conversions

A conversion is when someone completes a desired action after clicking on your ad. For veterinary hospitals, common conversions are phone calls and form submissions. Being able to see how many phone calls and form submissions your AdWords campaigns are bringing your clinic is a great way to get a sense of your ROI.

Call Extensions

By utilizing the call extension feature, you can have your clinic’s phone number appear with your ads, and people will be able to place a call to your clinic by clicking on it. You can configure a phone call conversion to occur based on the length of the call. Depending on how long it typically takes someone to reach one of your employees after dialing your number should be taken into account when adjusting this setting.

Form Submissions

Veterinary websites should have the ability to accept appointment and new client form submissions. To track these in AdWords, you can install a conversion tracking code on the pages that people reach after submitting the forms, or you could create the goal in Google Analytics and import it into AdWords.

Increasing Keyword Relevancy

By default, AdWords suggests keywords that are a pure, broad match. This means they will trigger your ads to appear for related searches and variations of the keywords. This can cause your ads to appear in Google searches that are irrelevant to your ads.

Adding broad match modifiers to keywords corresponding to the themes of your Ad groups, and removing keywords that do not correspond to their themes, aims toward creating the best user experience possible and bolsters the Ad Rank of your Ad groups.

Pure broad match: veterinary hospital

Modified broad match: +veterinary +hospital

Modified broad match keywords will only trigger ads to appear for search terms closely related to them. This gives you more control, and typically increases clicks and conversions.

If you have questions, or would like to learn more about how Google AdWords can work for your veterinary practice, please contact us. Our sales team can either schedule a free consultation on which Beyond Indigo services are best for your practice, or put you in touch with an AdWords expert to help fill in the blanks.