Hi, Dr. Nick with LVRG media here. And today I want to talk to you about a debate that rages on regarding marketing budgets all over this country and chiropractic offices. And that is: should you be doing Google ads or should you be doing Facebook ads? So I am an and person versus an other person.
I think that you should be doing all the above when it comes to your marketing: online, offline, in person (in office), doing it all. It’s really important to have a multi-layered strategy when it comes to your marketing.
Chiropractic Google Ads vs Facebook Ads
But Google and Facebook are kind of the two elephants in the room when it comes to what people are spending their money on. So I wanted to kind of talk to you about what are the benefits and maybe the drawbacks of each of those. And use that information to make the decision on where you should be spending your knowledge.
So we’ll start with Google ads. You know, I’m more of a Google ad guy than I am a Facebook ad guy. I find that the cause, the intention is so much higher with Google Ads versus people that opt in for Facebook, that you’re more likely to get people to actually show up in the office.
So with Google ads, again, somebody is going to Google, they’re typing in keywords that you are trying to target. They are in a geographic area that you are trying to target, and they’re looking for what they have a problem with that they think you can help with. And they do not have a chiropractor chosen already. So they are looking to call someone. They’re looking to make an appointment. So to me that is someone that I want to be in front of in every way possible, whether it’s organic or paid.
Google Ads gives you an opportunity to really control that. That top of the page, that map section, a lot more than you can organically. You can do it organically. It just takes a whole lot more work than with Google ads, and usually this takes dollars. So because that intention is so high, I find that those people, as long as you have the ability to get people in within let’s say 48 hours, those people are very likely to show up if they do make the appointment. If they do talk to the front desk and confirm that appointment.
They’re very likely to make it to the office. And when they show up, a lot of times because you’ve sent them through to your website, they’ve had some time to look around. They may have consumed some of your content. This is why I’m such a big believer in not only getting your content out on social media, but also having it on your website so that people can really get a sense of what you do to help, and why, and what your story is, and your aesthetic.
Chiropractic Lead Ads
And so it’s important to have that brand building. That’s why the website is really the hub of the wheel when it comes to your online presence. People are going to end up on the website, and then they’re going to make their decisions on what they should do.
The other thing that I think is really important about Google ads is it’s just less saturated than Facebook.
So with Facebook, even in towns that are small and medium size there may be several offices that are running Facebook ads. Now I think we’re actually kind of on the downhill side of this, where people have been so unsuccessful with Facebook ads lately, that less and less people are spending the money that they were some three years ago. Maybe not three years ago, but maybe like a year to two years ago, there was this saturation level that was just crazy. And there were a lot of people spending a lot of money even in pretty small markets.
Now a lot of those people that you know, their creative wasn’t that great or they just weren’t good at closing those leads into care plans, and they just couldn’t see the ROI. They’ve stopped spending that money. So it’s becoming less competitive actually on Facebook.
But it’s still more competitive than what Google ads is. And the reason why I say Google ads is probably less competitive is because it’s harder to track. So people don’t tend to stick with it as much as they do with Facebook. Because with Facebook, you get a name, phone number, and email address. With Google ads, you have to be a little bit better at tracking those conversions.
So those are kind of the pros of Google.
In terms of Facebook, you get a whole different kind of opportunity. With Facebook, you’re not waiting for people to go looking for it. So you’re able to maybe find somebody a little bit sooner in the process. When they’re going to Google a lot of times they are kind of at the end of the rope. They’re willing to do whatever, and so they’re going in there looking for the solution.
With Facebook, you could put that solution in front of them before they go looking for it. Then they’re not comparing you to other people. It’s usually like you put the ad in front of them, you found them when they were interested in taking advantage of the offer. And now they’re not choosing between you and seven other people. It’s just like you’re the ad that popped up so they’re going to take advantage of that.
Facebook is a little bit more transactional in that you’re making them an offer (and we’re assuming that you’re doing a new patient chiropractic offer), they are taking advantage of that and then theoretically they would come into the practice. With Google, even when they do a search for ‘chiropractors city, state,’ they may still be in the information gathering site (and that’s why I recommend sending them to a website where they can find that information that they’re looking for).
Second thing that Facebook is a big advantage over Google is that you have a creative element to it that Google ads don’t have. So with Google ads, you can get a little bit creative with the copy. But you know, you can use images you can use video, there’s so many opportunities you have to really allow people to see what the office is about in the ads themselves on Facebook that you don’t really get with Google unless they click through to the website. So that’s another opportunity with Facebook ads: you can get creative.
Chiropractic Digital Advertising Strategy
I find that the people that are not being successful right now, with Facebook, when I look at their ads, they are just so plain. They might use stock imagery, it might just be one picture of the front desk and the staff smiling, and there’s no real good, clear call to action. Usually the creative is part of the problem when people are not being successful. When people can get creative with the ads, they can do things that are visually interesting.
People love watching others get adjusted. People like seeing weird new things. So if you have weird stuff in the office that you can show off, you’re more likely to attract at least the eyeballs. And then if it solves a problem, those people with the problem are more likely to come in.
And then the last thing that I think is really important to Facebook’s success versus Google is that it’s so much easier to track where the leads that come from. So when you make an offer, you send them to a landing page that tries to capture their name, phone number, an email address. That should then go into a CRM that does follow up and all of that.
With Google, it’s less likely for that to happen. You’re not always able to track who exactly is coming through Google ads versus just like normal traffic or people that are directly looking for you.
With Facebook if they opt in to that form. You know, they came through a Facebook ad and then it’s a lot easier to track. Facebook ads are so similar in the way they’re structured to spinal screenings, that I think that’s really the thing that allowed chiropractors to really adopt it as the go to online marketing strategy. Just because they’ve been so trained on the idea, “I spend this much on a booth. I screen this many people. I sign up this many people for the appointment, this many show up, this many sign up, I can then look at the ROI and know that it was positive.”
Facebook ads are the same thing. It’s like you spend the money, they click on the ad, they sign up, they show up, they convert. And then you can reverse engineer and look at what that return on investment was.
The problem is the drop off from people that take the offer to actually showing up (to converting). But sometimes it can be a bigger waste of time, even if it’s ROI positive. It’s just such a frustration for the front desk to be chasing after people. And that’s why I like Google more.
But those are really the advantages of Facebook versus Google. So again, I’m an ad guy. I think you should be doing both. I think you should show up anytime somebody is looking for a service or condition or type of patient that you’re able to help. You should be showing up organically, paid, however you can.
And you’re also in the places where people’s eyeballs are: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok, wherever people are spending their time and their attention. How can you get your brand and your solution in front of those eyeballs? So hopefully you guys are doing more and more online marketing.
I know that when it was COVID, it’s been harder to get out with the face-to-face type of marketing. So online marketing is that leverageable way to get your message out and to get your offers in front of more people. Hopefully this helps
