Industries
Marketing for private healthcare clinics
Websites, Google Ads, SEO and Meta Ads for private clinics, physiotherapists, aesthetic practitioners, private GPs and specialist consultants. Your patients research carefully before they book. Arête builds marketing that turns that research into booked consultations, inside the rules that govern health advertising.
The situation
How the work is won.
Few patients book on their first visit. They've lived with a problem for a while, or they're holding a referral or an insurance policy they want to use, and they're comparing you with two or three other clinics on credentials, cost, waiting time and how easy you are to book. Your marketing needs to answer all four honestly. And it has to do it inside the rules on health claims and medicines advertising.
What sends them looking
- An NHS waiting time longer than they're prepared to wait.
- A GP or consultant referral, or an insurer authorising treatment, that sends them looking for a recognised clinic.
- A sports injury, bad back or recurring pain that hasn't settled on its own.
- A milestone birthday, a wedding or a change in confidence that starts the research into aesthetic treatment.
- A house move, and the need for a private GP or physio near home or work.
The problem
Why it's harder than it looks.
Where the work slips away
- Explaining a treatment well enough to reassure, without drifting into outcome claims the ASA would treat as unsubstantiated.
- Promoting aesthetic services when the injectable itself is a prescription-only medicine you can't promote to the public.
- Putting each practitioner's registration and experience where patients look for it. The footer doesn't count.
- Handling self-pay, insured and referred patients separately, because each arrives with different questions and a different route to booking.
- Keeping every clinic location accurate on your website and on Google, each with its own practitioners, hours and services.
What makes customers hesitate
- What the treatment will cost in total, beyond the first appointment.
- Is this practitioner properly qualified and registered for the treatment?
- Whether their insurer covers it, and whether they need a GP referral first.
- What happens if the treatment doesn't help, or something goes wrong afterwards.
The approach
Where Arête would start with private healthcare.
Every service works on its own. Which one comes first depends on how your customers search and decide.
- Website design
A website that answers patients' clinical and practical questions
Your treatment pages, practitioner profiles and prices let a patient check credentials, cost and next steps without picking up the phone. Registration details and CQC information sit where they apply. Fewer hurdles before they book.
Websites for private healthcare - Google Ads
Google Ads for treatment and condition searches
Fixed-fee campaigns aimed at people already searching for private physiotherapy, a knee pain assessment or a private GP appointment. Every ad is checked against healthcare policy. Conversions are tracked to booked consultations, so you see what the spend brings in.
Google Ads for private healthcare - SEO
SEO built on the questions patients ask
Patients ask Google first. Arête writes condition and treatment pages from those searches, and your own practitioners check them before they go live. Add sound technical foundations and a Google Business Profile for each clinic, and every location is set up to be found in its own area.
SEO for private healthcare - Meta Ads
Meta Ads for elective and self-pay services
Facebook and Instagram campaigns for the services people plan ahead for: aesthetics consultations, sports physiotherapy and the like. Not urgent care. Creative stays within ASA and Meta rules from the first draft.
Meta Ads for private healthcare
Proof and measurement
What customers check, and what counts.
What customers look for before they call
- Practitioner profiles with registration details (GMC, HCPC, NMC or similar) and relevant experience.
- Your CQC registration and current rating, where the service is registered and has been rated.
- Prices or price ranges, including exactly what the first consultation covers.
- Authentic patient reviews on Google and independent review platforms.
- Plain-English explanations of what a treatment involves, how long recovery takes and the realistic alternatives.
What counts as an enquiry
- A first consultation or assessment booked online, logged against the clinic and practitioner.
- A call from your website or an ad that lasts long enough to be a proper enquiry.
- An enquiry form that sends self-pay, insured and referred patients straight to the right person.
- A callback request for a higher-value treatment, where the patient wants to talk before booking.
What gets tracked
- Booked consultations by treatment line and clinic, which matter far more than website visits.
- What each booked consultation costs on each channel, split by self-pay and insured patients where possible.
- How many consultations go on to treatment, fed back from your booking system where practical.
- Call volume and answer rate in clinic hours. An unanswered call can mean a lost booking.
Worth knowing
The rules and the practicalities.
Constraints for private healthcare
- In England, if your service is registered with the CQC and has been rated, the rating must be displayed on your website as well as at the premises.
- The CAP Code expects health and efficacy claims to be backed by evidence, and prescription-only medicines, including botulinum toxin, cannot be advertised to the public.
- Google Ads and Meta both restrict healthcare advertising, including prescription medicine terms, audiences based on health conditions and ads that imply knowledge of a person's health.
- Ads for cosmetic interventions must not be directed at under-18s, so Arête sets audiences and placements to match.
Questions
Marketing for private healthcare: your questions answered
Can an aesthetics clinic advertise anti-wrinkle treatment?
Not directly. Botulinum toxin is a prescription-only medicine, so it can't be promoted to the public by name or by clear implication, and the ASA has ruled against ads that do it indirectly. The workable route is to promote the consultation, where a prescriber assesses the patient and discusses the options. Arête builds your campaigns and pages around that consultation and keeps product names out of promotional copy.
Does a clinic website need to show its CQC rating?
If your service is registered with the CQC in England and has been rated, the regulations require the rating to be displayed on your website as well as at the premises. The simplest way is the CQC's own rating widget on the homepage and on each relevant location page. Not registered, or not yet rated? Then describe your position accurately and avoid implying a rating you don't hold.
How should self-pay and insured patients be handled in the marketing?
Separately, because they want different things. Self-pay patients want prices and availability. Insured patients want to know which insurers recognise you and whether they need a referral or pre-authorisation. Give each group its own page section, form or ad group, and your enquiries arrive cleaner and your reporting shows which kind of patient each channel brings in.
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.