Attract More Patients with Paid Advertising: Effective Strategies and Seasonal Campaign Ideas for Hearing Practices

You’ve built a robust, patient-friendly website, gathered a collection of reviews from happy patients and established your online presence following SEO best practices. While these strategies have all helped your practice grow, you might be looking for more ways to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market.

This is where paid advertising comes in. Both Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer advanced targeting options to reach new patients and the freedom to create messages that engage and convert your audience. According to Google, businesses see an average return of $2 for every $1 spent on their search marketing campaigns. 

In this post, we’ll dive into the benefits of paid advertising and share strategies hearing professionals can use to make their campaigns more successful.

How to Reach Patients in Your Area with Paid Ads: Google and Facebook Targeting Strategies

Reaching the right local audience is essential to maximizing your ad spend. Both Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer geo-targeting features that focus your budget on people in your service area, ensuring your message appears in front of those most likely to become patients.

We prioritize Google Ads and Facebook Ads in our paid advertising services because they dominate the industry, accounting for nearly half (44.8%) of all ad spend in the US. Google Ads and Facebook Ads have many similarities and differences, but both are valuable components of a well-rounded marketing strategy.

Leverage Google Ads for High-Intent Local Patient Targeting

Google Ads are the best choice for capturing high-intent traffic since they target patients actively searching for hearing care. Google Ads are directly linked to Google Search, which means hearing practices can pay to have their ads appear on relevant search results pages for keywords like “hearing aid clinics” or “audiologist near me.”

Google’s advanced targeting options help define your audience and ensure your ads reach patients within your service area. Hearing practices can also utilize Local Search Ads (LSAs), which typically appear at the top of search results and on Google Maps. These ads pull key information from your Google Business Profile, including your name, address, phone number, hours, ratings and reviews. Whether you’re competing with larger chains or just looking to boost your local visibility, Google Ads can keep your practice ahead of the competition.

How Facebook Ads Drive Brand Awareness and Generate Demand

With over 2 billion daily users, Facebook is still the largest social media platform and one of the best places to engage your audience online. While Google Ads target high-intent users actively seeking care, Facebook Ads are best for building brand awareness and creating demand with local patients during the early stages of their hearing journey. These ads appear while users browse their feeds, helping to generate interest in a lower-intent environment. 

Hearing practices can leverage Facebook’s vast collection of user data to create detailed patient profiles based on factors like age, gender, location, interests and behaviors gleaned from users’ interactions on the platform. Facebook also offers engaging and interactive ad formats, allowing practices to use images, infographics, videos and carousels to educate patients about hearing loss, promote office events or highlight special promotions.

Seasonal Paid Ad Campaign Ideas to Boost Conversions for Hearing Practices

Running seasonal campaigns on Google Ads and Facebook Ads helps add variety to your ads and makes your content more compelling. Below are a few offer ideas and creative seasonal themes that have worked well for our paid advertising clients: 

Free Initial Consultation or Evaluation

• Why it works: Free consultations are a great way to attract new patients, especially those just starting on their hearing health journey. Offering a no-obligation service helps patients take the first step in what can often be an overwhelming decision-making process.
• How to implement: Utilize your ad space to provide education about hearing loss and early detection and include a clear and compelling call-to-action to schedule a free consultation. If you’d rather not advertise free services, you can direct them to your lead capture tools like an online hearing screening or a downloadable hearing aid guide instead.
• Seasonal twist: Since consultations often take place early in the hearing journey, consider aligning your promotions with seasons and holidays that represent a fresh start. For example, try messages like “Head back to school with better hearing” or “Ring in the New Year with healthy hearing!”

Hearing Aid Cleaning, Repairs and Product Demos

• Why it works: Ads offering free or discounted hearing aid cleanings and product demonstrations are excellent for attracting patients with high lifetime value and repeat business potential. These are people who already wear hearing aids but may be dissatisfied with their current provider or are looking for a change.
• How to implement: For Google Ads, focus on search terms related to “hearing aid repair” and promote offers like free cleanings or opportunities to try the latest hearing technology. Pairing this promotion with an in-office event can help entice patients to stop in and learn more about your products and services while getting their hearing aids cleaned.
• Seasonal twist: Try promoting maintenance services during times of the year when hearing aids tend to need extra attention, like when allergy season peaks in the spring. A message like “Spring Cleaning for Your Hearing Aids” is engaging and reminds patients to get a cleaning and check-up scheduled before their calendars fill up for the summer.

Discounts or “Buy One, Get One” Incentives

• Why it works: Discounts are strong incentives that help patients move from the consideration stage to conversion. This strategy can attract patients who have completed a hearing evaluation and are weighing their options, as well as those who already wear hearing aids and are seeking a replacement.
• How to implement: Try offering a limited-time discount or “Buy One, Get One” promotion that pairs a hearing aid purchase with a free charging case, battery replacement, caption call device or other relevant product or accessory. These strategies help create a sense of urgency and encourage patients to take advantage.
• Seasonal twist: Take advantage of a time of year when people are already primed to look out for promotions, like Labor Day, Black Friday and during the holiday season. Messages like “Don’t miss a moment this holiday season” or “Celebrate the season with hearing aid savings” can be highly effective in your ad copy.  

Promote an Office Event

• Why it works: Events are an opportunity to connect directly with patients in a more relaxed setting outside of an appointment. In-person interactions humanize your practice and help provide patients with the information they need to commit to a hearing aid purchase.
• How to implement: Facebook Ads are an excellent choice for office events because they extend your reach beyond your page followers, allowing people to like, comment and share your ad with their network. Since ads work similarly to regular Facebook posts, you can interact directly in the comments and respond to questions in real time. Office events can include product demos, free hearing aid cleanings, meet-and-greets with hearing care professionals and more. Be sure to include a sign-up form within the ad to make it easy for patients to RSVP without leaving Facebook.
• Seasonal twist: Office events that embody the spirit of the season are more engaging and help build community around your practice. Try fun themes like a “Fall Hearing Health Fair” or a Halloween-themed event that says, “Hearing health doesn’t have to be spooky!” 

Why Retargeting May Not Be Effective for Hearing Practices

Google Ads and Facebook Ads have retargeting tools designed to recapture leads who showed interest in your products or services but did not initially convert. Retargeted ads use pixel tags to identify users without their consent, which can compromise patient privacy by potentially exposing their health-related data to unintended viewers or third parties.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, “Regulated entities are not permitted to use tracking technologies in a manner that would result in impermissible disclosures of PHI to tracking technology vendors or any other violations of the HIPAA Rules. For example, disclosures of PHI to tracking technology vendors for marketing purposes, without individuals’ HIPAA-compliant authorizations, would constitute impermissible disclosures.”

Google doesn’t explicitly state that you can’t retarget for hearing aids and services, but the context suggests that those items would be included under its health in personalized advertising policies.

At AudiologyDesign, we find retargeting campaigns aren’t as effective for hearing practices as they are for other industries (like retail). We also don’t believe patients should be inundated with ads just because they clicked on an ad while researching their hearing health options. The risk of ads getting removed for privacy violations ultimately isn’t worth the reward.

Amplify Paid Ads with Online Reviews for Trust and Conversions

Hearing care is a personal service and many patients rely on the experiences of others when choosing a provider. Leveraging reviews in your paid ad campaigns helps build trust and offers patients social proof.

On Google, sponsored ads that appear in the Local Map Pack include the rating and number of reviews beneath the business name. Incorporating a positive review or testimonial in your ad copy is another way to ensure prospective patients see that you’re reliable and have an established rapport. You can also feature patient testimonials on landing pages to reinforce social proof and encourage conversions.

People often seek opinions from others in their social media networks, making online reviews a natural fit on Facebook. Try dedicating one slide of a Facebook carousel ad to a positive patient review, while the remaining slides showcase your services, products or current promotions.

How to Monitor and Improve Your Paid Ad Campaign Performance

Once your paid ads are live, it’s crucial to track the right metrics in order to see what’s working, what needs improvement and how to optimize your ad spend to ensure high-quality patient leads.

Key Metrics to Monitor on Google and Facebook

Here are some of the key performance metrics (KPIs) to keep an eye on for insight into campaign performance:

• Click-through rate (CTR) measures how often people who see your ad actually click through to the landing page. A high CTR indicates that your ad copy, visuals and targeting are working well and engaging the right audience.
• Cost-per-click (CPC) shows how much you’re paying each time someone clicks on your ad. Keeping your CPC low while maintaining a healthy CTR typically means you’re using your budget efficiently.
• Conversion rate measures how many people take action after clicking your ad, whether it’s scheduling an appointment, downloading a hearing aid guide or signing up for an office event or hearing screening.

Get Deeper Insights into Patient Leads With AudiologyDesign

At AudiologyDesgin, we offer our clients a proprietary reporting dashboard that goes beyond basic metrics by qualifying patient leads generated from marketing campaigns. We monitor phone calls, form leads and online bookings across websites, Google Ads, Google Business Profile and Facebook Ads using designated call tracking numbers and forms. We then categorize patient leads into two groups: qualified or bookable.

Qualified leads are any revenue-generating opportunities for a hearing practice, excluding non-business related calls like requests for directions or other general inquiries. This approach offers a clear view of the quality of leads a marketing campaign generates, rather than just focusing on total calls or website impressions.

Taking it a step further down the funnel, bookable leads are opportunities for new hearing aid sales. Like qualified leads, they come from phone calls, form submissions or online appointments. These leads include current patients who have had hearing aids that are three years old or older, as well as prospective patients actively seeking a new device.

Qualifying patient leads helps the hearing practices we serve prioritize opportunities for business and identify which marketing channels are performing well. Analyzing marketing metrics can be confusing; our goal is to simplify the process so hearing practices can capitalize on the results of their marketing efforts.

The Bottom Line

Success in paid advertising involves a lot of moving parts, but ultimately comes down to targeting the right local audience with a compelling message and keeping track of your results. 

If you’re looking to learn more tactics for effective ads or need guidance on where to begin, AudiologyDesign’s expert team is ready to help! Schedule a free consultation here to learn more about generating more patient leads and appointments for your hearing practice.