Lately, we’ve had an increase in requests for google ad services for therapists. In the wake of the pandemic, it’s not surprising that their practices are growing in light of the mental health struggles that we’re all experiencing. And we’ve been seeing that counselling has been normalized in today’s culture.
When we have been getting these inquiries we’ve noticed that it’s common for the practice owners to be self-managing their ad accounts. Although I applaud their entrepreneurial spirit, I have been witnessing a lot of wasted ad spending when I audited three different therapy practice ad accounts in one week. And this is in light of these practice owners working with representatives at Google to help them on their accounts.
The rookie mistakes that I’m seeing aren’t even being corrected during their calls with supposed ad experts provided by Google either. One can only deduce that their role leans more towards increasing ad spending as opposed to optimizing ad accounts for these business owners. That’s the sad reality of dealing with their team and my heart breaks for all of the ad spend that has gone out the window as a result of this.
Here are 13 mistakes that I come across in my ad account audits:
- Conversion tracking isn’t in place
- The campaign type is mismatched for their objectives
- The bid strategy isn’t refined
- The keyword match type needs refinement
- The networks selected aren’t a good fit
- The ad copy is weak and not compelling enough
- There are no ad groups to cluster the keywords together (no hierarchy)
- The congruency between the ads and the landing pages is weak
- Ad extensions are missing
- Ad scheduling hasn’t been considered
- Keywords are missing on the landing page(s)
- Quality scores are low
- The keywords that have been selected don’t have any buying intent
In one of my conversations with a therapist, they mentioned that they’ve noticed an increase in clicks to their website in their ad performance but no changes to website traffic or phone calls. We’re going to be implementing a click fraud prevention strategy for them. This will exclude competitor searches, bots and click farms from clicking on their ads.
Last month we were able to prevent 416 invalid clicks on their ads to their website which saved $148 in ad spending for one of our clients. We see that 10% or more each month is pretty typical in terms of invalid clicks.
If you are a therapist and are thinking about hiring someone for google ads services, it’s important to find the right fit for your practice. Here are some questions to ask when you’re interviewing candidates to run your ads:
- Are you a Google Partner?
- Do you run Google Ads full-time? {No Bueno for side hustlers or midnight oilers because they won’t have the chops, the time or the dedication}
- Have you worked with a therapist before? If so, what were the results?
- Do you have anything in place for click fraud prevention?
- What do you think of my landing page? If they don’t and won’t have any suggestions down the line, your ad quality scores will suffer
- What conversion tracking will you be setting up for us? They should be creating new conversions for phone calls, calendar bookings and online form inquiries
- Can you show me what your reporting looks like? How often will you be showing me your results? How do check-ins work?
One of the most common complaints we hear from prospective clients is that their Google Ads expert doesn’t give them reports. All that they see are invoices and they never hear from the person. It’s understandable because the people who run Google Ads are typically more introverted, but it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be accountable for the work that they provide. Be sure to set up a reporting/check-in routine that works for you.
Over the past ten years as an agency, one of the biggest indicators of campaign success, outside of strong marketing skills, is the client and agency relationship. The fit between the two is paramount. So when you are shopping around for a Google Ad agency, don’t over-focus on the agency fee. Focus on the agency fit because that is what will deliver the best long-term outcomes for your business. Would you enjoy going for dinner with this person? If it’s a YES, then you’ve found someone to partner with for your Google Ads.
If you’re interested in connecting with us for a Google Ads audit or ads management, contact us today to discuss your goals and let’s see if there is a fit for us.
