This is a cheap market to buy patients in. That is not where chiropractic accounts go wrong.
What your clicks actually cost, which searches are wasting money, and what your cost per new patient looks like. Fifteen minutes, and you keep it either way.
"*" indicates required fields
40,500 searches a month, and every one of them is looking for a practitioner rather than an explanation.
Chiropractor near me gets 40,500 searches a month at $5.73 a click. Compared with most of the industries on this hub that is a cheap way to reach somebody who wants an appointment. Back pain is $2.02 and gets 5,400, and almost everybody typing it wants to understand what is wrong, not book anything. Chiropractic accounts rarely fail because clicks are expensive.
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.
Everything on this chart is under seven dollars, which makes chiropractic one of the more affordable health markets to advertise in. The whole chart is also within a few dollars of itself, so bidding cleverness is not where the wins are.
The cheapest row is the one to be careful with. Back pain is a symptom search, and somebody describing a symptom is usually reading rather than booking. The bulk billing searches at the bottom are a different matter: cheaper than the generic and full of people ready to make an appointment today.
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 condition and per service instead of a Services list, a Google Business Profile built properly with your booking link, and a review process after appointments. Slow to arrive, and the thing that eventually takes the paid clicks off your bill entirely.
THE FAST LEVER
Campaigns split by intent so symptom searches never compete with practitioner searches for the same budget. Negative keywords so you stop paying for chiropractic courses, chiropractor salaries, university entry, and the enormous volume of people researching a symptom. Booking tracking, because appointments are made online as often as by phone.
THE ONE MOST PRACTICES SKIP
The cheapest reach available, and the channel that does the most for retention. A practice people see regularly is a practice people go back to, and the care plan is where chiropractic actually earns.
We start from what a patient is worth across a course of care, not what a click costs. A practice that keeps patients for a plan and one that sees them once cannot afford the same cost per click, even with identical clinics. Google Ads does the fast work, SEO eventually takes the paid clicks off your bill, and Meta Ads keeps you visible between visits. 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 “chiropractor near me”
40,500 searches a month at $5.73 a click, and everybody typing it wants a chiropractor rather than an explanation. The map pack sits above the ads here, so the ad has to offer what a listing cannot: your next available appointment, your initial consultation fee, and whether you can see somebody today.
Built around “bulk billing chiropractor near me”
$4.41 a click, cheaper than the generic search, and a patient who is ready to book but wants to know the cost before they call. Small volume and very high intent. Worth running only if you have an answer to the price question, because that is the entire reason they searched it.
Built around the searches we exclude
Chiropractic courses, chiropractor salaries, university entry requirements, stretches and exercises to do at home, and the very large volume of people researching a symptom with no intention of seeing anyone. 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.
Under six dollars for the click and a person who has already decided they want a chiropractor. The only question left is which one, which means the ad and the page are competing on availability, price and proximity rather than on persuading anybody of anything.
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.
Two dollars for the click and somebody who wants to know why their back hurts. It is cheap, there is a lot of it, and it is the most common way a chiropractic account quietly fills up with traffic that never books. Some of those people become patients eventually. Most of them are reading.
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.
Almost every account is judged on new patient bookings, so it is tuned to produce as many first appointments as cheaply as possible. Chiropractic does not earn on the first appointment, which means the account is being optimised against the business.
We look at which searches produce patients who come back, not just patients who arrive. A slightly dearer click that produces somebody who completes a plan is worth several cheap ones who attend once and are never seen again.
Back pain and the searches around it are cheap and plentiful, so accounts fill up with them. They generate traffic, a poor booking rate and an expensive lesson six months later about why the cost per click looked so good.
They are worth something, just not as a booking campaign. A symptom search wants an answer, so it gets a page that answers it and then offers an appointment, and it gets measured on a different timeframe to the practitioner searches.
Chiropractic is a regulated health profession and the advertising rules are enforced more actively here than in most. Testimonials about clinical outcomes and claims about treating conditions are restricted under the National Law, and agencies write them anyway.
We keep clinical claims and patient testimonials inside what the National Law allows, and hand the copy to your principal practitioner to review before anything goes live rather than publishing straight to the site.
We start with what a patient is worth across a course of care and work backwards to what a click can cost.
A single visit and a completed care plan cannot carry the same cost per click. We work out what your patients are worth across the course of care and how many complete it, because a practice with good retention can afford clicks that a practice without it cannot.
Practitioner searches, price and bulk billing searches, specific services and symptom research each get their own campaign, budget, page and success measure, so the cheap reading traffic never absorbs the budget meant for people who want to book.
Search terms reviewed weekly and negatives added, because this profession attracts an enormous volume of symptom research and student traffic. Then monthly reporting on cost per new patient, and how many of them came back.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
If your retention is poor, fix that before you spend anything here. Buying more first appointments into a practice that does not keep patients is the most expensive way we know to stay the same size. And if the diary is full, this buys you a waiting list rather than revenue.
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.
Usually yes, and the click price is rarely the reason it works or does not. Chiropractor near me gets 40,500 searches a month at $5.73, which is cheap next to most industries on this hub. What decides the outcome is whether those patients come back, which is a practice question rather than an advertising one.
Because most of those people are reading, not booking. Symptom searches are cheap and plentiful, which is exactly why accounts fill up with them and why the cost per click looks so good for the first few months. They have a use, but not as a booking campaign and not on the same success measure.
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.
It is the problem that decides whether the advertising works. Two practices with identical accounts and identical click costs will get completely different results if one keeps patients through a plan and the other does not. We would rather say that before you spend money than explain it afterwards.
Only if you have a clear answer to the price question, because that is the entire reason somebody typed it. They are cheaper than the generic search and the intent is very high. Sending that click to a page that does not mention cost wastes it completely.
Within fairly tight limits. Chiropractic is regulated under the National Law and the advertising rules are enforced more actively here than in most professions. Testimonials about clinical outcomes and claims about treating specific conditions are restricted. We write to that line and hand the copy to your principal practitioner before anything goes live.
It varies by practice, and on its own it is a misleading number. A practice with a $60 cost per new patient and poor retention is doing worse than one at $90 with a completed care plan. We report cost per new patient and then how many returned, because only the pair means anything.
It sits above the ads on the practitioner searches, which is why a generic ad there is money wasted. The ad has to say what a listing cannot: your next available appointment, your initial consultation fee, and whether you can see somebody today.
Three places, in this order. Symptom research traffic, which is cheap and enormous. Optimising the account for first appointments in a business that does not earn on first appointments. And students and job seekers, which this profession attracts a lot of.
We look at what it is wasting, how much of the budget is going to symptom searches, what the account is being optimised for, whether anything published sits outside the advertising rules, and what your cost per new patient looks like once retention is counted. You get it in writing and you keep it either way.
