Digital display ads for dentists: get the attention you deserve

Even if you’re a bit on the introverted side, attracting attention to yourself is something you need to do if you want to grow your dental practice.

Placing dental PPC ads on Google, Facebook, or Instagram can be a great way to make yourself stand out and provide a real boost to your inflow of new dental patients.

Dental digital advertising isn’t terribly difficult, but there are a few things you do need to do right to get the results you’re looking for.

Targeting

One of the great things about digital ads is that you can target them to a very specific audience. The way you single out who you want to deliver your ad to varies somewhat across the major digital ad platforms, but they all essentially take a combination of three approaches to helping you reach the right audience. If you have personas defined for your ideal patients, you can use it to specifically target them based on the following options:

Demographic targeting: who are they?

Take the demographic data you have about your personas, such as age, gender, education level, income, marital status, and occupation, and filter out the people who aren’t a good match for your practice.

Psychographic targeting: what are they interested in?

What are your patients’ favorite activities, interests, opinions, values, personality traits, and lifestyle choices? The websites they’ve visited or Facebook pages they have interacted with can allow you to find them based on these psychographic traits.

Behavioral targeting: what have they done?

We all know the internet spies on everything we do, and behavioral targeting looks at what actions people have taken online, including website visits, ads clicked, and purchases made. Retargeting audiences, which are people who have previously visited your website or landing pages, are especially useful if you want to reach people who already have shown interest in your dental practice.

Topic

Next, you need to connect with your audience by focusing your ad on the topic that will appeal to them most. Based on where they are in their journey toward becoming a new patient, you’ll know what their needs, challenges, and goals are. That will help you decide the benefits and offers you can provide that will convince them to interact with your ad.

Creative considerations

A lot of thought should go into how your ad looks and what it says. Display ads need to grab attention to be effective, since you are essentially “interrupting” your audience while they are online for something else. They also need to give your reader a reason to click through.

Design

An ad with bad design won’t look professional, and can reflect negatively on your dental practice. A good design, on the other hand, will stop your audience in its tracks and draw them in. If you’re not a designer, get the help of a dental marketing agency or graphic designer to select the best typography, color, and visual elements. They are trained to know what design decisions will lead to a better conversion rate for your ad.

Copy

Just like with dental ppc search ads, your headline and description are important and will determine whether or not you get your audience to click through. Headlines need to make people want to read more, and descriptions and call-to-action (CTAS) need to drive people to take the next step. Again, if creative writing isn’t one of your strengths, skilled copywriters know how to trigger those responses.

Want to learn more about digital advertising for your dental practice?

This article only scratches the surface digital advertising! Get a more in-depth understanding of what it takes to get the most out of your digital advertising strategy and budget with The Ultimate Guide to Digital Advertising for Dentists.