Facebook ads for plastic surgeons: big opportunities, big regulations

It may seem unexpected – but Facebook ads for plastic surgeons can drive huge returns. But to succeed, you need to plot your path through the maze of red tape.

When you work in private healthcare or aesthetics, you need a steady stream of new leads to keep your business afloat. 

Yes, some people have more than one plastic surgery procedure across the course of their lifetime. But generally speaking you need to make sure your healthcare lead generation activities are working as hard as possible to generate a steady stream of fresh demand to keep your appointment book full.

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

That coupled with the vast amount of users on Facebook and powerful audience targeting tools makes Facebook an environment in which ads for plastic surgeons can thrive.

But first, you have to navigate strict rules and regulations.

Before we start…

We help health and beauty businesses achieve big – really big – results with paid media. And by big results we mean a 157% increase in lead volume for UK Vein Clinic. And 15x ROI for Snatch & Glow. What could we do for your revenue? Read this and find out. We could even cover your ad spend.

“The digital strategy the Adbetter team created for us immediately started paying for itself several times over in just the first month, by delivering significant new customer revenue. It also has allowed us to open up our customer base to new audiences that I never thought would be our target audience.”

Kiana Djazeb, Director & Founder, Snatch & Glow

Facebook ads for plastic surgeons: the regulations

Facebook ads for plastic surgeons: one of the best ways to get them right is to avoid getting them wrong. This type of advertising is tightly regulated. And you don’t want to spend time and money getting your ad campaigns ready just to run into approval issues. So before we look at some of the opportunities with Facebook ads for plastic surgeons, let’s have a quick run through the regulatory landscape:

Be mindful of your marketing angle

Your ad mustn’t generate or contribute to negative self-perception. That means avoiding the suggestion that there’s a certain body type that your audience should aspire to. You cannot be perceived to be exploiting people’s insecurities or reinforcing negative stereotypes about the way someone looks.

Be careful with your photography too

Before and after shots: for so long they have been the treasured, trusty go-to of cosmetics and aesthetics marketers. But you can forget about them for your Facebook ad campaign. They’re banned. And that ban covers not just your ads, but any landing pages they drive traffic to as well.

Another potentially tricky one is the use of images showing intimate parts of the body. Now, plastic surgery procedures often focus on breasts, bums and all the rest of it. But showing those areas in your ads is likely to have Facebook’s regulatory people wrapping on your door faster than you can say breast augmentation procedure. Read more about Clinical photography for aesthetics professionals here.

Clarity of language

For both Facebook and the Advertising Standards Authority, clarity of language is a big deal. For starters you must use language that’s appropriate of a clinician – accurately describing the treatments you are promoting, rather than using colloquialisms. For instance, using the words “boob job” downplays the treatment. Also avoid making unrealistic claims or false promises – such as “it will knock 20 years off!”.

Show that you are properly qualified

You wouldn’t want just anyone taking a scalpel to your derriere – and the authorities agree. That’s why you need to show that you are appropriately qualified to carry out the procedures you advertise. But be mindful that there are rules on the use of certain words. 

For example, to use the word “qualified” your surgeons must be on the Specialist Register of the General Medical Council (GMC) in respect of a relevant surgical speciality, or have been practising cosmetic surgery independently before 1 April 2002, and should hold a Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST) in plastic surgery or an equivalent qualification. 

Meanwhile, in order to be “experienced”, a surgeon must have practised their surgical speciality for at least six years.

You can read more about the rules from the ASA on the usage of specific words here.

Don’t rush your audience into a decision

Creating a sense of urgency is a time-tested marketing tactic.  “While stocks last!,” “Everything must go!, ”“Available until Friday only!”

But when it comes to your Facebook ads for plastic surgeons, it’s best to avoid anything that could be perceived as pressuring your audience into a decision. 

Any promotions must be given a timeframe that’s long enough for your audience to weigh up the risks and make a balanced decision.

Don’t mention payment plans

Facebook is really hot on anything relating to finance or the provision of credit – so it’s best to avoid mentioning payment plans. Otherwise your ad may be flagged as financial services and banned.

Fetch your reading glasses…

The Advertising Standards Authority maintains an extensive guide on the rules relating to the promotion of cosmetic interventions. You can read it here. There’s more on Facebook’s health and appearance advertising policy here.

Facebook ads for plastic surgeons: audience targeting

With some three billion users, Facebook is a fantastic place for finding your next customers. But when it comes to advertising on the social media behemoth, it’s not so much the number of people you can reach – but the type of people you can reach that makes it so effective.

In short: Facebook’s sophisticated audience targeting tools give you the power to reach the people who are most likely to be interested in your services. Just a few of the audience variables you can work into your targeting include:

• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Occupation
• Connections
• Relationship status
• Education
• Online behaviour

As well as manually adjusting your audience targeting, you can create lookalike audiences based on previous customer data. Essentially when you feed the right data into Facebook, it will find people on the platform who share similar interests or demographic criteria with people who have already used your services. 

Targeting your audience by location is also incredibly valuable as you can set your ads to display only within a set radius of your surgical practices.

Facebook ad pricing

It’s cost effective. While it helps to have a decent budget, you can get started with Facebook ads for plastic surgeons with just a few pounds per day. And you only pay when people see your ad – making it an incredibly accountable and cost-effective form of marketing.

Better still, the more you spend, the more Facebook learns about how your audience is engaging with your ad. By giving Facebook variants for things like your ad headline, visual and description, it will determine which variants get the best results and then serve them preferentially to your audience.

Retargeting and nurturing

Once people start engaging with your ads, Facebook allows you to run retargeting campaigns. Basically you can create a new ad audience formed of people who have clicked your ad or visited a certain landing page on your website. Then you can serve them new ads that explain more about particular procedures or feature testimonials from previous customers. 

This nurturing process is particularly useful for marketing cosmetic treatments, where people typically need a long time to consider their decisions before committing.

Let us take care of everything for you

Rather skip to the bit where your ads are driving steady, scalable revenue for your business? Let us show you what results you can expect within three months of working with us. Ask us for a no obligation proposal. There’s no risk, no obligation and nothing to lose – and potentially an awful lot of revenue to gain.

Take a deep dive and learn how to get results:

Learn the strategy behind successful PPC campaigns:

>> Marketing your aesthetic clinic
>> How to grow your medical aesthetics business with marketing
>> How to transform your revenue with plastic surgery ads

Zero in on individual PPC platforms:

>> Using Google ads to grow your aesthetics clinic
>> Cosmetic surgery PPC: skyrocketing leads through Google
>> Using Facebook Ads to grow your aesthetics clinic
>> Using Instagram ads to grow your aesthetics clinic
>> Using TikTok ads to grow your aesthetics clinic