Insights › Paid media
Google Ads is the fastest way to put surgical consults on a calendar, and the fastest way to burn a budget. The difference is almost always account structure rather than bid strategy.
Aesthetic surgery is one of the more expensive categories in paid search. Commonly cited ranges put cost per lead somewhere between $100 and $300, though the spread within that is enormous — geography is usually a bigger variable than anything happening inside the account. A rhinoplasty click in Miami and a rhinoplasty click in a secondary market are not the same purchase.
Cost per booked consult is the number that matters, and it's meaningfully higher than cost per lead since not everyone who inquires schedules. If roughly half your leads book, your real acquisition cost is double whatever the platform reports.
The single most common structural error is running injectable and surgical campaigns in the same account with shared conversion actions. Injectable leads are cheaper and more frequent, so automated bidding learns to chase them. Six weeks later your surgical campaigns are starved and your cost per case has doubled while your dashboard looks fine.
Separate campaigns, separate conversion actions, ideally separate budgets with their own targets.
Someone searching "tummy tuck recovery time" and someone searching "tummy tuck surgeon [city]" are at completely different stages. Your account should treat them differently — the first belongs in a content and remarketing path, the second should hit a procedure-specific landing page with a booking form above the fold.
Group campaigns by procedure, not by match type. Rhinoplasty, breast augmentation, breast lift, tummy tuck, mommy makeover, facelift — each with its own ad group, its own copy, and its own landing page.
Left alone, PMax will find the cheapest conversions available, which in aesthetics means med spa and consultation-shopper traffic. Use it with negative keyword lists at the account level, exclude your existing patient audiences, and feed it conversion signals weighted toward booked cases rather than form fills.
Build these before launch, not after: "cheap," "free," "cost of" (unless you have a pricing page built to convert), "financing," "gone wrong," "botched," "before and after pictures," "schools," "jobs," "residency," and every competitor's surgeon name unless you're deliberately conquesting.
A large share of aesthetic inquiries arrive by phone, and untracked calls make your reporting fiction. Dynamic number insertion on the site plus call recording gives you both attribution and something more valuable — the ability to hear exactly where consults are being lost on the phone.
Availability varies, but where LSAs run for cosmetic categories they sit above traditional search results and charge per lead rather than per click. Worth testing as a supplement, not a replacement — volume is usually limited.
If you inherit an underperforming account: check conversion actions for double-counting, split surgical from non-surgical, audit search terms for a week and build negatives aggressively, then look at whether your landing pages match the procedure searched. Bid strategy is usually the last thing that needs attention, not the first.
We run growth marketing for plastic surgery practices nationwide, and rent licensed operating rooms across South Florida. Tell us which problem you have.