Private healthcare · Google Ads

Google Ads for private healthcare

Someone searching for a private physio, a same-week GP appointment or a specialist consultation is already halfway to booking. Arête runs fixed-fee Google Ads campaigns that put your clinic in front of those searches and report on booked consultations. Clicks come second.

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From £199 per month, fixed fee

The situation

Why your customers are searching.

Healthcare is tightly restricted on Google Ads. There are rules on prescription medicine terms, speculative treatments and how health information can be used for targeting. You're also up against hospital groups and national chains for the same local searches. To earn its budget, a campaign needs treatment-level structure, compliant copy and booking tracking you can trust.

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

What costs private healthcare work.

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.

How it helps

What Google Ads changes.

Campaigns split by treatment line and location. A physio search lands on your physio page, a private GP search on your GP page.
Ad copy leaves out prescription medicine terms and unsupported claims, which means fewer disapprovals and helps keep the account in good standing.
Negative keywords screen out NHS-only, job-seeker and training searches that cost money and bring in no patients.
Budget moves between clinics and services as diaries fill up or open up.

What you get

Treatment-level campaign structure

Separate campaigns or ad groups for each service line, such as musculoskeletal physiotherapy, private GP, specialist consultations or aesthetics consultations.

Policy-checked ad copy

Headlines and descriptions written against Google's healthcare and medicines policy, with no prescription-only medicine names and no guaranteed outcomes.

Location targeting per clinic

A realistic travel radius for each clinic, with location assets pulled from the right Google Business Profile.

Consultation booking tracked per location

Conversions recorded when a consultation is booked or a qualifying call is made, set up so that patient health details are not passed to Google.

Search term review and exclusions

Regular checks of the searches triggering your ads, excluding NHS-only queries, free-advice searches, jobs and courses.

Monthly report by service line

Spend, booked consultations and cost per consultation for each treatment and clinic, in plain English.

Measurement

The enquiries that count, tracked properly.

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 and qualifying calls per campaign and clinic.
Cost per booked consultation by service line.
The searches triggering your ads, checked for NHS-only and non-patient intent.
Disapprovals and policy warnings, dealt with fast so campaigns keep running.

Worth knowing

What customers check, and the rules to follow.

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.

Rules worth knowing

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.

Straight answer

Is it right for you?

For self-pay treatments that people nearby search for, yes. For services Google's healthcare rules restrict, no. Arête will tell you so before you spend a penny.

Made for

Physiotherapy, private GP and specialist clinics with capacity for new self-pay patients.
Clinics offering something people nearby already search for, such as sports injury assessment or private blood tests.
Practices that pick up the phone and respond to online bookings promptly in opening hours.

Not for

Clinics whose main service is a prescription-only medicine they want to name in ads, which Google does not permit in the UK.
Treatments that Google classes as speculative or experimental, which it does not allow to be advertised.
Practices with no capacity for new patients over the next few months.

Starting price

From £199

per month, fixed management fee

What moves the price

Number of campaigns, services and locations
How much conversion tracking is already in place
Landing page needs
Reporting frequency and depth

Your ad budget is separate. It goes straight to the platform and is never marked up.

See all starting prices

Questions

Google Ads for private healthcare: your questions answered

Does Google need to certify a private clinic before its ads can run?

Most clinics offering consultations and treatments don't need certification, though some categories do, online pharmacies among them. Google also restricts ads for prescription medicines and speculative treatments whatever the advertiser's status. Arête checks your services against current policy before building the account. Problems surface before you've spent anything.

Can clinic ads be targeted at people with a particular condition?

Not through audiences. Google's personalised advertising policy doesn't allow audiences built on health conditions, so remarketing lists and custom segments can't be based on one. Instead, your campaigns respond to what people search for, such as a treatment or a symptom. That's compliant, and it's usually closer to the point of booking.