A paid ad can increase your brand awareness by 80%. Not only that, but 65% of people who search online end up clicking on a paid ad.
This is great news for rehab centers and their marketing managers who are looking to increase their marketing efforts but aren’t quite sure how to do so.
Paid ads, or pay-per-click ads, are a great form of marketing if your business falls into an industry with a very specific target audience.
While this is a great general benefit of pay-per-click campaigns for a business in any industry, a solid PPC strategy is particularly helpful in the marketing efforts of a rehab center.
Why? Keep reading to find out.
Understanding the Benefits of PPC
Before crafting a PPC campaign, it’s important to understand the benefits of this kind of marketing for addiction recovery centers.
Let’s start with answering the question of what is a PPC campaign?
PPC stands for pay-per-click, and what you’re doing is using highly-targeted keywords to
In this sense, PPC can help a rehab center reach a specific target audience who is already searching for keywords related to their business.
It also offers centers the chance to access results that are easy to measure and track. This makes marketing a whole lot easier to modify and improve.
Because it provides you with a wealth of useful data, you’re able to easily and quickly make changes to your PPC campaign in a way that optimizes your ad spend while allowing you to see better results.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of PPC campaigns, however, is the fact that you’re not paying unless somebody clicks on your ad!
This makes PPC marketing one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing out there, especially for those in the health and wellness industry.
In fact, according to Google’s Economic Impact Report, the average business makes about $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on Google Ads.
Create a PPC-Friendly Website
Now that you understand the benefits of PPC for your rehab center, you’re ready to begin the first step towards creating a successful campaign.
First, you’ll need to create a high-quality, PPC-friendly website. What does PPC-friendly mean in this sense?
It means that the website needs to tick all of the boxes that Google is going to look for when ranking your site.
Basically, when you’re learning how to do PPC, you’ll find that Google ranks all ads in order to figure out which ones to place at the top of the page.
This means that, if you’ve created an ad about a specific rehab center treatment in Los Angeles, then you’re going to be competing with other businesses who’ve created the same kind of ad in that area.
Google, therefore, has to give your ad a score to figure out which one’s going to show at the top of the search results page.
It’s also important to note that Google takes into account your maximum cost-per-click bid, but for now we’ll focus on ad quality.
So, what goes into this “Quality Score?” The quality of your ads, keywords, and landing page.
Landing page is crucial if you want to see results with your paid ad campaigns, because it’s going to ensure that when people click on your ad, they’re directed to exactly the kind of information they’re looking for.
In general, having a PPC-friendly website means that you’re including the rights kinds of keywords on your pages, that it features high-quality information, and that your site loads fast.
Perform Great Keyword Research
So, your site loads fast and it looks great, but what are the keywords that you should be using on-page and in your ads?
Figuring this out will require you to perform great keyword research.
After all, keywords are what drive paid ads. They’re the search phrases and terms that people are typing into Google to find you and your ads.
To begin keyword research for your rehab or addiction center, you’ll want to start by heading over to Google’s Keyword Planner.
There, you’ll be able to use their “discover new keywords” tool to get some ideas. There are two parts to keyword research.
First, the research for your own company, and then the research of your competition.
Keyword Research for Your Company
In the planner, enter two to three keywords that you think are most relevant to your company.
Eventually, you’re going to structure these into different, smaller campaigns. But, for now, you can do general keyword research to get as many ideas as possible.
Once you enter these initial keywords, Google’s Keyword Planner will pull up relevant searches.
It’s best, for now, to take a look at the search volume column rather than the cost-per-click column.
Most companies get bogged down in the price per click, but when you’re just getting started, you’re going to want to try and use keywords that have a high search volume but low or medium competition.
Make a list of these keywords, and then move on to researching the keywords of your competitors.
Keyword Research of Your Competition
In the Keyword Planner, you can enter a URL to a website. Enter the URL of a competitor’s website to see what keywords they’re ranking for.
While you don’t want to copy their keywords or try to rank for the exact same phrases, this research gives you a good idea of some different phrases you might be able to use.
Once you have these keywords, go over to Google and use the Autocomplete function to try and see what other searches come up.
If you’re trying to rank for “detox treatment” then type that into Google Search and see what Autocomplete brings up.
These are other kinds of phrases that are helpful to have on your keyword list, as they’re actual phrases that real people are searching for.
Develop a Solid PPC Strategy for Campaign Structure
When it comes to PPC campaign management, you’re probably going to need a little help. This is where things get a bit dense and complicated.
However, if you’re able to develop a campaign structure from the beginning, you’ll notice that the organization helps a lot in terms of keeping track of different keywords, ads, and budgets.
To begin, you’ll want to create your actual AdWords account. Within that account, you’ll have various campaigns.
Each AdWords campaign should be for a different product or service. This is where many rehab facilities go wrong.
Never create a general ad or campaign for your entire business. Instead, create different campaigns for each specific service that you offer. This will help you target each one with different audiences and keywords.
For example, if your rehab center offers detox treatments, one-on-one counseling, and alcohol addiction recovery, then you’re going to want to create an ad campaign for each.
Why? Each service obviously comes with its own specific keywords.
So, structure your PPC account with different campaigns. Within each campaign, you’re also going to want to create different ad groups.
In general, we recommend having at least two ad groups per campaign, but Google recommends two to three.
This is just to help you try out different keywords and ad copy to see which ones convert better.
Write Appealing Ad Copy
Now that you’ve got your landing page, keywords, and AdWords account structure all sorted, it’s time to write the actual ads that people are going to see!
Google makes this pretty easy for users by giving them a pre-made outline to follow.
You’ll have space to write:
Headline 1
Headline 2
Description
In Headline 1, it’s smart to include one of your top keywords.
The idea is that when someone searches for “where can I find addiction treatments near me,” you’re providing them with an ad that answers that exact question.
In this case, Headline 1 would look something like “Looking for addiction treatments? 24/7 rehab services.”
The description is your chance to include other relevant keywords while also providing a call-to-action of sorts.
Always prompt the searcher to take action after seeing your ad. Or, offer them something special.
This could be anything from “book a free consultation today” to “five free counseling sessions included with treatment.”
Whatever it is, your goal is to entice the person to click through to your ad.
Once they’re there, it will all depend on the quality of your landing page. This will determine whether they actually convert into a solid lead or stay a simple visitor.
Create two to three copy variations per ad and try these out. Over the course of a few weeks, you’ll be able to view your campaign statistics to see which ones convert better.
Then, you’ll be able to continue to tweak your ad copy and your keywords. This is where you’ll begin to see more and more success with your overall PPC strategy.
Set Up Retargeting
You’ve definitely been the “victim” of retargeting before. It’s what happens when you visit a website but don’t buy anything. Then, hours or days later you see an ad online for that same company.
This is retargeting, or remarketing, at it’s finest. As a rehab center engaging in PPC strategies, you’ll definitely want to set this up for your account.
It’s a way for you to reconnect with people who have previously interacted with your ads or your website in general.
WordStream performed a study and found that, with the help of remarketing, they were able to increase repeat visitors by 50% and boost conversions by 51%. It truly does work!
And, if you’re already investing time and money into paid ads, then it doesn’t take that much extra work to set up retargeting campaigns.
There is, however, one small catch with this. You’ll need to have some previous traction to your website for Google to allow you to engage in remarketing.
If you’ve got the minimum number of visitors, then you can go ahead and set up an audience source.
The remarketing tag snippets are blocks of code that you’ll get when you tag your website for remarketing. You simply add these codes to your website by going to Tools > Shared Library > Audience Manager.
Add the audience you want to “track” to your campaign and Google will show ads to these people after they interact with your content.
This is an effortless way for you to essentially “follow up” on people who’ve clicked on your rehab center PPC ads but didn’t complete an action.
Over time, it’s also a great way to build brand awareness. If your center is new, then this helps to ensure that people will begin to know your name and remember your company.
Getting Help with PPC Campaign Creation
Creating a successful PPC strategy might seem a bit overwhelming. While it’s not necessarily hard work, it requires that you dedicate a lot of time and energy into your website, keywords, and marketing efforts.
If you have created a solid target audience and understand the demographic you’re trying to target, then this won’t be that hard to accomplish.
You’ll know who they are, what they’re searching for, and how to target them.
If you are starting from scratch, however, then it might seem like a big mountain to climb alone. We understand that!
That’s why we specialize in addiction marketing services specifically for rehab centers like yours.
We know exactly what your company needs to succeed in terms of marketing, and we’re here to help you every step of the way.
Ready to take the first step? Give us a call to chat about your needs. Or, fill out our online form so we can get in touch with you and learn more about your experience with Adwords and how we can possibly help.
Once we have a good idea of what you do and what you need, we’ll be able to create a quality PPC campaign that increases your conversions and revenue.
