Facebook ads for orthodontists: a complete guide to success

Facebook ads: for orthodontists they can be an extremely effective way to win new leads. In fact, used correctly, it’s no overstatement to say that Facebook ads for orthodontists can drive tens of thousands of pounds in revenue for your practice.

Orthodontists are in demand. There’s a much-publicised shortage of availability for new patients at dental clinics – particularly in the UK. Supply shortages create demand – and many people are willing to pay a premium for their slot in the dentist’s chair.

Your challenge is to make sure the right amount of this demand finds its way to your clinic. That’s where healthcare lead generation comes in. And Facebook ads for orthodontists are an excellent vehicle for getting results.

Get your campaigns working correctly and they will sit in the background, driving a predictable flow of leads to your business. Week after week, month after month.

Below we share everything you need to get started with Facebook ads for orthodontists.

But first…

Maybe we could cover your ad spend…

You run an orthodontics practice. Time is a precious commodity. You don’t necessarily want to spend it learning the nuances of Facebook advertising. But to reap the rewards from Facebook, you need to know the right tactics. So let us take care of it. We are a specialist in PPC for healthcare businesses. One that regularly generates transformative ROI for our clients. In fact we’re so confident in our expertise that we may even be able to cover your ad spend – completing derisking your financial outlay. Sounds interesting? Ask for a free proposal.

“Adbetter handled everything from creative strategy to a full funnel media buying plan across Facebook & Google Ads. They were able to design & build a full digital marketing campaign including all ads, copy & landing pages that has been delivering a consistent stream of new customers at a significantly cheaper cost than in previous testing.”

– Aqib Hassan, CCO, CPIC | Gwadar Click

The benefits of Facebook ads for orthodontists

According to Facebook’s data, 80% of people use social media to find health information. And one-in-four internet users turn to social to research healthcare decisions. The upshot: Facebook is a fantastic place to promote your dental services.

And those numbers aren’t the only thing in Facebook’s favour.

Facebook ads for orthodontists are accountable

Your ad spend shouldn’t ever feel like a wild shot in the dark. Pay per click advertising is one of the most accountable forms of advertising on the planet. As the name suggests, you only pay when someone clicks your ad. And why would they click unless they were at least partially interested in becoming your next patient?

Target your audience with precision  

With over three billion active monthly users, advertising on Facebook puts a vast audience at your fingertips. But what’s great about advertising on Facebook isn’t the size of the audience, but the tools it gives to find the right audience.

Facebook makes it easy to be incisor-sharp with your targeting – identifying potential leads based on their location, their online browsing activity, their age, their income and an awful lot more.

More on that shortly.   

How to create your ad – in 3 simple steps

Don’t let a fear of the unknown hold you back. The Facebook ads environment is easy to use. You don’t need any experience to begin experimenting and getting results for your practice. Follow a few simple steps and you can have your first campaign up and running in no time.

1. Choose a goal that works for your practice

When you create a new ad, you will be prompted to define a goal. This will help to guide the creation of your campaign and measure its efficacy.

Goals include:

• Building awareness of your orthodontics practice
• Reaching out to new patients interested in finding a specialist
• Driving new visitors to your website
• Generating enquiries from new potential patients
• …and more

For Facebook ads for orthodontists, we would almost always recommend lead generation as the chosen goal of your ads.

2. Finesse your targeting

Successful pay per click campaigns are contingent on well-considered audience targeting. With Facebook ads orthodontists there are two targeting capabilities that it makes sound sense to utilise.   

Location-based targeting

You might be keen to promote your business online, but your work takes place in person. That means it’s a good idea to make sure your ad is served only to people within a short journey of your clinic. Facebook allows you to make sure your ads are displayed only to people within a pre-defined geographic radius of your practice.

Utilise lookalike audiences

The lookalike audience feature is clever. Feed your existing customer data into Facebook and it will recommend a new audience to target that shares certain attributes with your existing customers.

3. Choose an ad type

There are several ad types to choose from on Facebook, including:

• Image ads. Consist of a single photo. They’re perhaps the most common type of Facebook ad and are often used successfully in Facebook campaigns for orthodontists.
• Carousels. Similar to image ads (above), but you can showcase up to ten images in one ad.
• Videos. Video ads appear in a user’s timeline and are a relatively non-intrusive way of including moving images in your ad.
• Stories. These are full-screen vertical video ads designed to enhance engagement. 
• Promoted posts. Also called boosted posts, this ad type allows you to promote one of your organic posts to non-followers.

Facebook ads for orthodontists: 13 tips for success

1. Think about what happens after the click

It’s easy to fixate on your Facebook ads. But it’s worth keeping something firmly in mind: they are just the start of the journey. Each of your ads should drive your audience to a campaign-specific landing page that expands on your ad and attempts to capture data on your audience.

Landing pages are a unique science all of their own. But here’s a lightning-quick guide to best practice.  

• Design and copywriting. Your landing page should feel like a continuation of your ad. That means using similar messaging, similar images and colours, making sure your logo is prominent and so on. Make sure it’s optimised for mobile and create a compelling proposition above the fold.
• Create a closed journey. Single-mindedness is a strength when it comes to landing pages. Limit navigation options and stay focused on one clear call to action.
• Utilise social proof and trust signals. Customer testimonials are a great way to build credibility and establish trust in your company. Ideally, take your customer reviews from a verifiable source such as Trustpilot or Google Reviews. If applicable, utilise trust signals such as industry accreditations, qualifications or awards.
• Gather data. The main aim of a landing page is to gather information on your lead. Create a form that allows you to start the marketing conversation – perhaps by gamifying diagnostic paths so you can funnel your leads towards different treatments.
• Remember your GDPR obligations. For your forms that means having a tick box that forces people to actively opt in to your comms, the name of the person or business that will be contacting them and the method that they will be contacted by. You must also include a link to your full privacy policy.

2. Specificity wins

When you are targeted with your focus, it’s easier to create ads that resonate with the right audience. And when you resonate with your audience, you’re more likely to get conversions. Specificity trumps generality.

So while you might think that promoting your full suite of treatments and services in one ad is a good way to hedge your bets, it’s almost always better to run separate campaigns for each of the dental treatments that you want to promote.

As for what to promote? Well, you often don’t know the potential value of a new patient until you’ve asked them to open wide. So prioritise the promotion of your most profitable services to keep you ad spend efficient.

Unless you…

3. Take your leads on a diagnostic journey

Most landing page forms are achingly basic: name, email address, phone number. Perhaps you could be a bit smarter. By asking the right questions you can take your lead on a diagnostic journey and allow them to self-triage. This has several benefits:

• You find out exactly what kind of treatment your lead is looking for – and why
• You signal to your lead that you can resolve their issue
• You save yourself marketing and sales work further down the line
• You know the potential value of a patient before they’ve even set foot in your practice

4. Remember Facebook isn’t your only option…

Google ads for dental clinics: a guide to getting started

5. Promote payment plans. Softly.

For many people, the cost of dental work is prohibitive. If you can offer payment plans, that’s something you should promote. But be careful. Facebook is incredibly wary of anything that resembles the promotion of financial services – and has an overzealous algorithm that is very good at blocking advertisers who it thinks fall foul of the rules. Yes, promote payment plans. But this is best saved for your landing page.

6. Speaking of red tape…

Facebook – quite rightly – has strict regulations on the promotion of medical products, services and procedures. For one, you should avoid any slight hint that you might be exploiting people’s insecurities – for instance, about their smile – for commercial gain. As for photography, before and after shots are banned on Facebook. Repeat: before and after shots are a strict no go. Not just in your ads themselves, but any landing pages they link to.

Facebook has more info on regulations for healthcare ads here and here.

7. Your branding must look the part

Consumers are increasingly brand aware. If people perceive your branding to look unprofessional, they will conflate that with the standard of your dentistry. The look and feel of your campaign must look professional, credible and trustworthy.

Of course, the need for a professional brand needn’t come at the cost of differentiation. Lots of healthcare branding is practically identical. You can be professional and different.

Shaking things up a little and injecting some personality can be a good way to stand out in a competitive market. That’s a key point if you are trying to attract patients from further afield and are competing directly with other practices.

8. Establish your credibility

When it comes to orthodontics, people want expertise. Reassure your audience that you have it by alluding to your industry accreditations, memberships, awards and certifications. Genuine testimonials from previous customers can also go a long way to enhancing your brand perception. (Just remember to get permission if you’re going to use patient testimonials in your marketing.)

9. Focus on your reader

Your work is essential. But people don’t generally enjoy receiving dental work. Empathy goes a long way in crafting marketing messages that resonate. Recognise that your reader is looking for reassurance. Recognise that they may be extremely sensitive or self-conscious about the thing they are hoping you will resolve. Recognise that they are looking for a specific outcome. Recognise.

10. Test, test, test

For each constituent part of your ad – image, headline, call to action and so on – Facebook will give you the option to upload multiple variants for the same ad. This is an opportunity you should take. Facebook will algorithmically test the ad variants on a small subsection of your audience before preferentially serving what it determines are the most likely variants to drive you towards your campaign objectives. 

However, for this to work you need to…

11. Be prepared to spend

To gather data on what works, you need to be running your campaign at a certain volume and with certain velocity. Basically if your campaign spend is a fiver per day, don’t expect the algorithm to sweep in and help you. Nor will you gather much usable data of your own for your own optimisation efforts. You should be looking to spend a minimum of £50 per day.

>> Orthodontist ads: finding your best route to revenue

12. Get the right tracking in place

The unsung hero of most successful Facebook ad campaigns is the tracking that’s in place. When you have the ability to monitor, measure and interpret customer behaviour, you can begin identifying trends in the ads that are driving results, and those that aren’t. This intel is gold dust – and the starting point from which you can continually optimise the efficiency and performance of your campaign over time.

To begin driving transformative revenue, you have to be willing to dive into your data. You have to be willing to ask questions. What were the good leads? How much did you spend on that lead? How much money did you make? Armed with that intel you can tweak and optimise your campaigns and make sure your ads are working as hard as possible for your business.

13. Work with an expert

Just like teeth need regular care and maintenance, so too do your pay per click ad campaigns. That’s how you get to the performance that can have a genuinely seismic impact on your business – and its growth.

But you’re an orthodontist. It’s almost impossible to find spare time.

So let us help. Day in, day out we drive transformative ROI for brands across many sectors – including private healthcare. Ask us for a free proposal and we will outline what you can expect from us within three months of working together.  

>> Adbetter: officially an award-winning PPC agency

You may also be interested in:

• The most effective lead generation strategies for dentists
• Healthcare PPC services for hungry brands
• How to find more healthcare leads and transform your business
• The no-fluff guide to Facebook ads for lead generation
• Why Facebook Conversions API is so crucial for advertisers
• Facebook ads for healthcare: 28 tips for nailing your campaign