Dentists · Meta Ads
Meta Ads for dentists
Cosmetic treatment takes some thinking about. Facebook and Instagram can introduce your practice long before the patient starts searching. Arête plans the campaigns, writes the copy, directs the creative and optimises towards booked consultations. The aim is simple: by the time they're ready, your clinicians are familiar faces.
From £399 per month, fixed fee
The situation
Why your customers are searching.
Plenty of people thinking about aligners, whitening or composite bonding aren't searching yet. But they're watching. They respond to seeing the clinicians and hearing how treatment works. The catch is doing it within ASA rules on before-and-after images and Meta's rules on appearance-related advertising, which don't allow ads that try to create negative self-perception. What holds up best: campaigns that promote a consultation, feature your own clinicians and show consented cases from your own patients.
What sends them looking
- A missing tooth, a loose denture or a failed bridge that starts the research into implants.
- Wanting to change how their teeth look before a big event, or after years of putting it off.
- No local NHS dentist taking on new patients.
- Dental pain or a broken tooth that needs an emergency appointment in the next day or two.
- Years of avoiding the dentist through anxiety, finally outweighed by a problem that needs attention.
The problem
What costs dentists work.
Where the work slips away
- Turning implant, aligner and composite bonding searches into booked consultations, instead of quick price checks that go nowhere.
- Showing before-and-after cases that meet ASA rules and GDC guidance and still help patients decide.
- Being upfront about NHS availability without putting off private enquiries or implying NHS places that don't exist.
- Presenting finance accurately. Promoting consumer credit brings its own FCA rules.
- Keeping each practice's clinicians, services and booking routes separate across a multi-site group.
What makes customers hesitate
- What the whole treatment will cost, and whether they can spread the payments.
- Will it hurt? And will the dentist be patient with someone who's nervous?
- Whether this dentist has proper experience in the treatment they need.
- Whether the consultation is free, and whether they'll be pressed to go ahead on the day.
How it helps
What Meta Ads changes.
- Campaigns centre on a consultation, such as an aligner assessment or smile consultation, instead of a discounted treatment.
- Creative uses clinician introductions, treatment journey explainers and consented cases from your own patients, not stock smiles.
- Copy avoids personal-attribute phrasing and outcome promises. That helps keep ads approved and in line with GDC expectations.
- Audiences are adults within a realistic distance of each practice, with separate campaigns for each location in a group.
What you get
Treatment campaign plan
A plan for which cosmetic treatments to promote, the consultation offer for each, and how prospecting and retargeting are balanced against your diary capacity.
Clinician-led creative direction
Briefs and shot lists for short videos of clinicians explaining treatments, consultation walk-throughs and practice tours.
Before-and-after creative within the rules
Selection and presentation of your own consented cases without editing that exaggerates the result, each labelled with the treatment involved.
Consultation lead forms and booking tracking
Lead forms that capture treatment interest, preferred practice and finance questions, plus pixel and Conversions API tracking for website bookings.
Lead follow-up process
A follow-up routine agreed with reception, so aligner and whitening leads hear back while they're still interested.
Monthly testing and reporting
Creative testing, audience adjustments and a report on consultations booked and cost per consultation by treatment.
Measurement
The enquiries that count, tracked properly.
What counts as an enquiry
- An implant, aligner or other treatment consultation booked online.
- A new patient examination booked or requested.
- A call from your website or an ad, emergency calls included.
- A callback request from someone who wants to talk through options or finance before committing to a consultation.
What gets tracked
- Booked consultations for each treatment and practice.
- How many lead form enquiries become consultations.
- Cost per booked consultation, side by side with Google Ads for the same treatment.
- Which formats earn their keep, such as clinician video against case imagery.
Worth knowing
What customers check, and the rules to follow.
What customers look for before they call
- Clinician profiles with names, qualifications and GDC registration numbers.
- Genuine, consented case photographs that represent typical results for the treatment.
- Fees or starting prices for consultations and the main treatments, stated upfront.
- Independent patient reviews, on Google and on your own site.
- A plain walk-through of each treatment journey, from first consultation to aftercare and retainers.
Rules worth knowing
- The GDC expects advertising to be accurate and not misleading, and its guidance sets out details practice websites should show, including clinicians' GDC registration numbers.
- Only dentists on a GDC specialist list can describe themselves as specialists.
- The ASA expects before-and-after images to be genuine and not altered to exaggerate results, and a 'free' consultation must cost the patient nothing at all.
- Promoting treatment finance is a consumer credit financial promotion, so the wording must follow FCA rules and is usually agreed with the finance provider.
Straight answer
Is it right for you?
Cosmetic and elective dentistry, with clinicians happy to appear on camera? Yes. Urgent or routine treatment? Look to Google instead.
Made for
- Practices offering aligners, whitening or composite bonding with capacity for consultations.
- Practices with clinicians comfortable appearing in short videos.
- Groups wanting to build awareness for a newly opened or expanded location.
Not for
- Practices focused on emergency or routine care, which people search for when they need it.
- Practices that can't get back to lead form enquiries within a working day.
- Practices wanting discount-led or transformation-only creative that Meta or the ASA are likely to object to.
Starting price
From £399
per month, fixed management fee
What moves the price
- Volume of creative and testing
- How much creative you can supply versus what needs briefing
- Number of campaigns and audiences
- Reporting frequency
Your ad budget is separate. It goes straight to the platform and is never marked up.
Questions
Meta Ads for dentists: your questions answered
Can dental before-and-after photos be used in Facebook and Instagram ads?
With care, yes. The images must be genuine, consented and not edited to exaggerate the result, and they should reflect what a typical patient could expect. Meta may also reject images it sees as promoting negative self-perception. Cases shown alongside the clinician and the treatment process tend to fare better than cases on their own.
How quickly should dental leads from Meta be contacted?
Same day, ideally. Someone who fills in a lead form mid-scroll may be comparing options and can lose interest fast. Arête agrees a follow-up process with reception before launch, so no lead sits waiting.
Start a conversation
Tell Arête about the business and what currently feels missing.
You will receive a direct reply with the most sensible next step, even if that means recommending that nothing needs changing yet.
A direct reply
A personal reply, usually within one working day. No sales script, no chasing.
A short conversation
A look at the business, your current website and what a good result would look like for you.
A clear recommendation
The leanest sensible next step, with fixed scope and a fixed price. Sometimes that's nothing yet, and you'll be told so.
Prefer email? Write to info@aretemarketing.co.uk.