How to get more dental patients when your ads already work

In short

To get more dental patients from ads that already run, count how many people make it through five stages. The stages are the ad click, the lead, the appointment, the reminder, and the consultation. You'll see where the number of people drops the most, and that's where to start making changes. Judge the ads by the number of consultations that took place, because a patient can't start treatment before the consultation. The table below gives you a check question for each stage.

Who this is for

This is for you if you run a practice that places implants and you have open chair time for implant consultations. It's useful for the practice owner, the dentist who places the implants, and the office manager. We assume an agency or your own team already runs the ads, and you want to see how many consultations they bring.

If your schedule is full for months, this article won't help you. A patient from an ad needs appointment times to choose from, so open time in the dentist's schedule comes first.

We wrote this at Helpify. Helpify brings patients to dental practices and follows up so they make it to the chair. The examples here are about implants. You can read more on the About Helpify page.

Five stages from the ad to the consultation

A person who saw your practice's ad goes through five stages before coming in for an implant consultation. Fewer people are left after each stage. Some who click the ad never leave a number, and some who leave a number never come in. For each stage, write down last month's number.

If you don't know one of the numbers, first find out who has it: the agency, the front desk, or no one. With all five, you can see the stage after which the count drops the most. We describe what a practice can do at each stage after the lead in implant leads not showing up.

Where your implant patients come from today

The table starts with an ad, but implant patients come from other places too. A referral from an existing patient is one. An ad on Google is another, and so is an ad on Facebook or Instagram.

For the next month, write down in the schedule where each new implant consultation came from. One question at booking is enough: "How did you hear about us?" After a month, count the consultations for each source separately. Without this, you can't tell an ad consultation from a referral consultation, and you can't check what the ad budget bought.

Referrals come in no matter what you spend on ads. Ads cost you money every month, which is why they're the part you check stage by stage.

How to check whether the ads bring patients to consultations

The question behind all of this is how many patients have to come in from ads for the spend to make sense, and how to check it. To answer it, you need four numbers from one month: leads, booked appointments, consultations that took place, and the cost of one kept consultation.

Here is how to calculate the cost of one kept consultation. Add up the month's ad budget and the agency's fee. Divide the total by the number of consultations from ads that took place that month. How many consultations are enough depends on how many patients start treatment with you after the consultation and how much your practice makes on that treatment. You're the one who knows those two numbers, from your schedule and your treatment plans. We walk through the whole calculation in how to calculate dental patient acquisition cost.

Questions for your agency or your own team

Ask for answers in numbers, for the last full month:

1. How many leads came from ads, and how many were about implants?
2. How many of those people have a consultation booked?
3. How many consultations took place, and how do you know?
4. What happens to a person who left a number and didn't pick a time? Who contacts them, and how soon?
5. Who reminds the patient about the consultation, and who offers a new time to someone who didn't show up?
6. What did one kept consultation cost, counting the ad budget and your fee?

If your agency also handles booking and reminders, it will answer all six in numbers. If there are no answers to questions 3 through 5, those stages sit with your practice, and that's where you look for the numbers.

Numbers you already have

The number of kept consultations is in your schedule, as long as someone noted where the patient came from. Two things you can check yourself:

• Fill out the form on the page your ad leads to, with a number the practice doesn't know. Write down how long it took for someone to get in touch and whether they offered a time.
• Call the practice from that number during your busiest hours. Time how long it takes for someone to pick up.

You'll see and hear what a person contacting the practice for the first time does. Write the result next to stages 2 and 3 in the table.

How to judge a campaign before it ends

You can judge a campaign before the final summary if you agree on four rules with your agency or your team before it starts:

1. Agree on the numbers you look at: leads, booked appointments, kept consultations, and the cost of one kept consultation.
2. Agree on how often you look. If you look once a week, you'll see a change before you've spent the whole month's budget.
3. Agree on how many leads you wait for before deciding to change an ad. Write that number down before the start, so the decision doesn't come down to how one week felt.
4. Change one thing at a time. If you change the ad and the page in the same week, you won't know which change helped.

A consultation happens later than the lead. So in the first weeks of a campaign, watch leads and booked appointments, and count kept consultations once the dates of those appointments have passed.

Rules for advertising dental services depend on your state. Go over what a new ad says with your attorney before it runs.

Agency, your own team, or both

Maybe an agency, a marketing firm, or your own staff already runs your ads. You don't have to change anything to check the numbers in this article. Take the five-stage table and write next to each stage who owns it.

If you pay your agency a monthly fee, ask which stages in the table the fee covers, and write the answer next to those stages.

If your own team runs the ads, write one name next to each stage. Also check whether your front desk knows who owns the person from the ad from the lead to the consultation.

If an agency handles some stages and your practice handles others, settle who hands the lead to whom and how: by email, in a spreadsheet, or in your practice software. Start with the stage that has no name next to it.

How we do it

Helpify brings patients to dental practices and follows up so they make it to the chair. We run Facebook and Instagram ads with videos filmed at the practice, and we build a service page with a form. After every lead, the patient gets a confirmation and the front desk gets reminders to call and book. We remind patients about appointments, and after a no-show we help the front desk reschedule. The dashboard shows leads, booked appointments, patients who showed up, and ad spend.

You pay once for the campaign build: the service page, the ad videos, and front desk training. After that, you pay a flat monthly fee for campaign management, and it doesn't start until the day your ads go live. You pay your ad budget separately, straight to Meta. I'll show you the numbers along with a plan for your practice.

Helpify's fee doesn't depend on the size of the practice's ad budget.

You don't have to drop your current agency. Read more on the Helpify System page and on the page about the implant campaign.

Helpify is based in Poland. We work remotely and take on dental practices in Poland and the United States.

Book a free 30-minute call. It's online, with Maciej Odrobina, the founder of Helpify. On the call, I'll show you where your practice may be losing patients between the ad and the chair. Book a call.

Questions and answers

How does dental marketing work?

A practice tells people what it does: on its website, in ads on Google, on Facebook and Instagram, or on review sites. Someone interested leaves a number or calls, books a time, and comes in for a consultation. Your practice makes money when the patient starts treatment, which is why you check the numbers at all five stages.

Which kind of ad works best?

We won't name one, because we don't have data that fairly compares Google ads with Facebook and Instagram ads for dental practices. You can compare them in your own practice: calculate the cost of one kept consultation for each source separately. An ad that brings many leads and few kept consultations can come out worse than an ad with fewer leads.

Is a lead from an ad already a patient?

No. A lead means someone left a number or called. A booked appointment means that person has a time on the schedule. A patient from an ad is a person who came in for the consultation. Keep these numbers separate in your reports.

How many leads should end in a consultation?

We won't give a number, because we don't know of a solid study that measures it for dental practices. Count in your own practice how many consultations took place for every ten leads, and compare that result month to month. If it goes up after a change at one of the stages, the change helped.

Can I stay with my current agency?

Yes. You can ask the agency you work with today every question in this article and decide what to do from the answers. The same goes for working with Helpify: you don't have to drop your current agency.