The generic search costs more than whitening and brings you a single checkup. Whitening costs less per click and starts a cosmetic conversation.
What your clicks actually cost, which searches are wasting money, and what your cost per booked patient looks like. Fifteen minutes, and you keep it either way.
"*" indicates required fields
Cheaper per click, and a treatment rather than a single visit.
Dental clicks are wasted more often than most. Dentist near me is $7.27 with 135,000 searches a month and brings somebody who wants one appointment. Teeth whitening is $4.42 on 22,200 searches a month, cheaper per click and the usual doorway into cosmetic work. The opposite is true of implants at $12.31 and aligners at $9.75, which cost more than the generic term and justify it on case value instead.
Average cost per click across Australia, from Google Keyword Planner. What your account pays will differ with location, competition and quality score. The gap between these rows is the argument, not the exact figures.
The generic terms are expensive because every practice in the postcode bids on them, and the map pack sits above the ads anyway. You are paying a premium to compete for somebody who has not decided on any treatment yet.
The treatment terms cost less because fewer practices target them, and the person searching has already decided they want the thing. That is the whole argument on this vertical: cheaper click, warmer patient, larger case value.
Three numbers, and only the last one decides anything. It is the same chain our Brisbane digital marketing agency works through in every industry, only the dollar figures change.
We work it right to left. What a job is worth sets what a lead can cost, which sets what a click is worth bidding.
Cost per click is the easiest number to improve and the least useful one. Bid on cheaper searches and it drops immediately, whether or not those searches ever turn into work. That is why we will sometimes tell you to pay more per click rather than less.
Google Ads is the fastest of the three and the only one you pay for by the click. Here is what the other two do, and where the expensive clicks eventually stop.
THE SLOW ASSET
A real page per treatment instead of a Services list, a Google Business Profile built properly, and a review process after appointments. Slow to arrive, and the only thing that eventually takes the expensive generic clicks off your bill.
THE FAST LEVER
Campaigns split by treatment, not one campaign called Dentist, so cosmetic work never competes with checkups for the same budget. Negative keywords so you stop paying for dental assistant jobs, dentistry courses and free dental. Booking tracking, because practices get booked online as often as by phone.
THE ONE MOST PRACTICES SKIP
The cheapest reach available, and the right channel for treatments people think about for months before searching. Cosmetic work in particular is decided socially long before anyone types anything into Google.
We start from what a case is worth, not what a click costs. A practice chasing checkups and one chasing implants cannot afford the same cost per click. Google Ads does the fast work, SEO eventually takes the expensive clicks off your bill, and Meta Ads covers the considered treatments. We will tell you if one is not worth running.
Not a strategy document. These are the three campaigns we would build first for a Brisbane practice, and what each one is actually for.
Built around “teeth whitening”
Cheaper per click than the generic term and the usual first step into cosmetic work. These people have decided they want the treatment and are choosing who provides it, so the page has to answer cost, timeframe and alternatives.
Built around “emergency dentist”
The most expensive click in the vertical, and worth running if you keep emergency slots. Somebody in pain books the first practice that can see them today. Put your same-day availability and your phone number above everything else on that page.
Built around the searches we exclude
Dental assistant jobs, dentistry courses, dental nurse wages, free dental, public waiting lists, and the large number of people researching a procedure with no intention of booking. On broad match you pay full price for all of it.
Send us access to your Google Ads account and we will come back with what it is wasting, which searches are costing you the most for the least, and what we would change first. Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you keep it either way.
Two clicks can cost the same and be worth completely different amounts. That gap, not the click price, is what decides whether an account works.
Four dollars and change for the click, and a cosmetic patient at the end of it. Cheaper than the generic search and far more likely to lead somewhere. This is the best value search in the vertical and most practices do not bid on it.
Your Google Business Profile, suburb pages, and local listings optimised so customers in your area find you first.
Technical fixes and service-focused SEO that make your site easy for Google to understand and trust.
Build your reputation through reviews, with monthly reports tracking rankings and leads from organic search.
Seven dollars for the click, a single appointment, and a patient who may never come back. Perfectly good work and a poor thing to build an account around, especially when it costs more per click than whitening does.
Site speed, crawlability, schema markup, and Core Web Vitals sorted so Google can index and trust your site.
Service pages and suburb landing pages written to rank and convert, not just fill space.
Backlink building and on-page optimisation that compounds month over month.
Three things come up in nearly every Google Ads account we audit for a practice.
Dentist near me is the obvious buy so it takes the whole budget, at a higher price than the treatments, against a map pack that sits above the ads anyway. It brings a checkup and calls it a win.
Whitening costs $4.42 a click against $7.27 for the generic term, on 22,200 searches a month, and it opens a cosmetic conversation rather than booking a checkup. Implants and aligners cost more per click than the generic and earn it on case value.
A booking count treats a whitening enquiry and an implant consult as the same event. They are not, and averaging them hides which campaigns are actually paying for themselves.
Cost per click, then cost per enquiry, then cost per booked case by treatment. That last number is the only one that tells you whether to spend more next month, and almost nobody reports it.
Dentistry is a regulated health profession. Testimonials about clinical outcomes and before and after imagery are restricted under the National Law, and plenty of agencies write them anyway because they do not know the rules apply.
We keep clinical claims and patient testimonials inside what the National Law allows, and hand the copy to your practice principal to review before anything goes live rather than publishing straight to the site.
We start with what a case is worth and work backwards to what a click can cost.
A checkup and a full arch of implants cannot carry the same cost per click. We work out your average case value by treatment first, because that is what decides which searches are affordable. Most accounts have never had this conversation.
Cosmetic, orthodontic, implants, emergency and general each get their own campaign, budget and landing page, so the high value work never competes with checkups for the same dollar.
Search terms reviewed weekly and negatives added, because at these click prices the waste compounds fast. Then monthly reporting on cost per booked case by treatment, not clicks and impressions.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
If your chairs are already full, more marketing buys you a longer wait rather than more revenue. And if nobody can answer the phone during surgery hours, expect to pay for clicks that go nowhere, because dental enquiries do not leave voicemails, they ring the next practice.
Fast answers, clear decisions.
Spend, leads and trends at a glance.
Your data, your accounts.
Budget goes to what converts.
4+ years average client retention.
Specialists across each platform.
Teeth whitening at $4.42 a click against $7.27 for dentist near me. That is the one that is genuinely cheaper and it opens a cosmetic conversation rather than booking a single checkup. Implants at $12.31 and aligners at $9.75 cost more than the generic term, and they earn it on case value rather than on click price.
Agency fees usually work one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold. Percentage models get expensive as you scale and quietly reward the agency for spending more of your money. Ask which model an agency uses and why before you ask for a number.
Modestly. The map pack sits above the ads on that search, so you are paying a premium to compete for attention that mostly goes to the local listings anyway. Keep a presence, put the budget on treatments.
Within limits. Dentistry is regulated under the National Law, which restricts testimonials about clinical outcomes and before and after imagery. Pages explaining what a treatment involves, what it costs and what the alternatives are, are fine. We write to that line and hand the copy to your practice principal before anything goes live.
It varies far too much by treatment for a single honest number. A whitening enquiry and an implant consult are not comparable, which is why we report cost per booked case by treatment rather than one blended figure.
Dental assistant jobs, dentistry courses, dental nurse wages, free dental, public waiting lists, and the very large number of people researching a procedure out of curiosity. On broad match an account buys all of it.
Only if you keep same-day slots. Somebody in pain books whoever can see them today, so if you cannot, the click is wasted. Google does not publish a reliable cost per click for emergency dentist in Australia, so we would set a conservative bid and read the real number from your own account after a month.
Yes. Somebody in pain and somebody researching aligners need completely different pages. The emergency page needs same-day availability and a phone number. The invisalign page needs cost, timeframe and alternatives.
Days. Cosmetic and orthodontic enquiries then take longer to convert, because they are considered decisions with real money attached.
We look at what it is wasting, how much of the budget is going to the generic term, whether anything published sits outside the advertising rules, and what your cost per booked case looks like by treatment. You get it in writing and you keep it either way.
