Running profitable Google Ads for dentists and beauticians is not just about turning ads on and hoping clients will book. Without proper audits, campaigns that once worked can quietly drain budgets while delivering little in return.

In fact, a LocaliQ study shows that 46% of healthcare ad spend is wasted due to poor targeting and low-performing keywords. For clinics, this isn’t just a number; it means lost bookings, higher costs, and missed chances to attract the right local clients.

This is where quarterly audits make the difference. By reviewing your campaigns every three months, you can spot wasted spend, refine keyword targeting, test stronger ad copy, and improve landing pages. The goal is simple. Stop money leaks, ensure ads connect with real clients, and keep your campaigns aligned with your clinic’s growth plan.

What is a Google Ads Audit?

A Google Ads audit is a detailed review of your advertising account carried out by a specialist. It involves carefully checking how your campaigns are set up, how your budget is being allocated, and whether the ads are generating real patient leads. The process includes evaluating keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and conversion tracking to see what is working well and what needs improvement.

The aim of the audit is to identify wasted spend, uncover opportunities, and fine-tune your campaigns for better results. For dental and beauty clinics, this means ensuring your ads are designed to reach the right local patients who are most likely to book appointments.

Why is Google Ads Audit Important in Every Quarter of Year? 

Recent benchmarks show healthcare Google Ads convert only 3–8%, while optimized campaigns see up to 80% higher conversion rates. A quarterly audit ensures your clinic avoids wasted spend and secures steady patient bookings.

Here’s why auditing every quarter matters:

• Fix wasted spend: Identify keywords and ads that drain your budget without delivering results.
• Stay ahead of competitors: Adjust bidding and targeting based on changing trends in your local market.
• Improve ad relevance: Refresh ad copy, extensions, and landing pages to match current client needs.
• Refine conversion tracking: Ensure your campaign is measuring real leads, not just clicks.
• Boost ROI: Shift your budget toward what works best and reduce unnecessary costs.

A quarterly check keeps your strategy sharp and your results consistent. With smart auditing, Google Ads for dentists becomes a high-return channel, not just another expense.

Steps We Take to Audit a Google Ads Account for Beauty & Dental Clinic

With our Google Ads account auditing, we ensure your campaigns are operating effectively, at the lowest cost possible, and to the goals you have for the clinic. This is the detailed process for how to evaluate and optimize your approach in steps.

Step 1: Set Clear Campaign Goals

Every successful audit starts with knowing what you want to achieve. Define specific objectives before reviewing your account. Set clear targets for both visitors and conversions so you can measure progress and identify areas that need improvement. For example:

• Do you want more implant consultations?
• Are you aiming to fill whitening slots in the next 30 days?
• Do you want to increase your call volume for emergency dental services?

One dental clinic we worked with shifted its focus from “general clients” to “Invisalign leads.” Within a quarter, conversion rates improved by 40%.

Tip: Link your advertising goals with your clinic growth plan. If your clinic aims to add 50 new clients within the next six months, your ad campaigns should reflect this goal. Setting this clarity ensures your PPC for Dental Clinic spend is aligned with real outcomes.

Step 2. Audit Account Structure

A clean account structure is the backbone of Google Ads for dentists or beauticians. Poor setup leads to campaigns competing with each other, wasted clicks, and higher costs.

Check these steps:

• Separate campaigns by service: e.g., “Invisalign”, “Dental Implants,” “Teeth Whitening,” “Emergency Care.”
• Keep ad groups tightly themed. An Invisalign ad group should not include “toothache” keywords.
• Avoid keyword overlap that makes your own ads compete.

For Example: One New York dentist was running both “whitening” and “veneers” ads in the same ad group. They were competing in the same auctions, driving CPC up by 25%. Splitting them into separate campaigns reduced cost and improved CTR.

So, you can pause overlapping ad groups, create new ones for highly specific services, and use consistent naming (e.g., “Implant_Search_2025Q1”).

Step 3. Review Keyword Strategy

Your keywords connect patient searches to your clinic. The wrong strategy can quickly waste money with Google Ads for dentists. For example, one clinic spent $900 on broad terms like “teeth problems” and got no bookings. After switching to exact terms such as “Invisalign dentist near me,” they doubled bookings with half the budget. Reviewing keyword performance, relevance, and costs ensures you target the right intent. Every keyword should serve a clear purpose and help your clinic achieve real patient growth. 

Analyze Keyword Performance Metrics

Begin by exporting your keyword data and evaluating these key metrics:

• Which keywords drive conversions? Identify keywords with high conversion rates. These are your most valuable terms. A high click-through rate (CTR) with few conversions may indicate a disconnect between your ad and your landing page.
• What is the Quality Score? A high Quality Score (7 or above) indicates strong relevance between your keyword, ad copy, and landing page, which Google rewards with lower costs and better ad positions. Low scores need immediate attention.
• Are your costs per click (CPC) sustainable? Pinpoint keywords that are draining your budget with high CPCs but are not delivering a return.

Optimize Your Keyword Targeting

After you’ve explored the data, narrow down your keyword lists: 

• Go through the search terms report. This is important. This reveals the search terms that are actually causing your ad to appear. Include irrelevant search terms as negative keywords to your keyword list to avoid future wasted spend.
• Refine keyword match types. Avoid relying solely on broad matches. Use a mix of phrases and exact match keywords to gain better control over who sees your ads and improve lead quality..
• Pause or remove keywords that are consistently low-performing (low Quality Score, no conversions) after giving them enough time to generate data.

Step 4. Evaluate Ad Creatives

Your ad is often the first impression a potential patient has of your clinic. In the competitive space of dental and beauty services, weak or generic ad copy will fail to capture attention and drive bookings. You need a thorough analysis of your ad creatives for effective Google Ads for a clinic. Your message should be strong and trustworthy. It must clearly explain why patients should choose your practice over others. This process includes checking for relevance, a strong call-to-action, and a plan for ongoing testing to boost performance.

Check your ads:

• Does the headline use your main keyword?
• Does the ad highlight your clinic’s strength (e.g., sedation options, new tech, free consults)?
• Does the CTA tell patients what to do next? (“Book Today,” “Call Now”).

For Example: A clinic added “Same-Day Emergency Dental Appointments” to their ad headline. Their CTR jumped by 32% in one week.

Action: Always run 2–3 ad variations per ad group, test CTAs, and use extensions like Call, Sitelink, and Location. These often lift CTR by 10–15%. For PPC advertising in a Dental Clinic, ad extensions (such as “Book Now” or “Find Us”) make it easier for patients to take immediate action.

Step 5. Optimize Landing Pages

Google research shows a 1-second delay in page load can drop conversions by 20%. The landing page is where a visitor converts into a patient. You can have a perfectly optimized Google Ads for a clinic campaign, but if the landing page experience is poor, your marketing investment will be wasted. The landing page should deliver on your ad’s promise. It needs to offer a smooth, reliable, and easy-to-use experience. This audit step focuses on ensuring your pages are engineered to maximize patient conversions.

Ensure Strong Message Match

The transition from ad to landing page should feel seamless to the user.

• Does the landing page headline match the ad headline? This reassures visitors they are in the right place and reduces bounce rates.
• Is the offer or service mentioned in the ad prominently featured? The user should not have to search for the information they were promised.
• Is the overall branding and tone consistent? The look and feel of the landing page should align with your clinic’s brand.

Focus on User Experience (UX) and Conversion

• Does the page load quickly? A slow-loading page is a primary reason visitors leave. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check your performance.
• Is the page mobile-friendly? Most local searches happen on mobile devices. Your page must be easy to read and navigate on a smartphone.
• Is the call-to-action (CTA) clear and easy to find? Your phone number should be clickable, and your contact or booking form should be simple and positioned above the fold.

Step 6. Check Conversion Tracking

Accurate conversion tracking is the central nervous system of your advertising efforts. Without it, you are managing your clinic’s Google Ads by guesswork. You won’t know which campaigns, keywords, or ads bring in new patient bookings, phone calls, or form submissions. This audit step is crucial for making smart, data-driven decisions that impact your return on investment. Yet, 42% of small businesses don’t even track conversions properly (Wordstream). If your tracking is broken or inaccurate, every other optimization you make is based on flawed data.

Verify Your Conversion Actions

First, ensure you’re measuring the activities most critical to your clinic’s success.

• Calls, forms, and appointment bookings are being tracked.
• Google Ads tag fires correctly on thank-you pages.
• GA4 goals are linked to Ads for deeper insights.

Use Conversion Data to Drive Strategy

• Do you know which keywords drive the most valuable conversions? Use the conversion data to allocate more budget to your top-performing keywords.
• Are you tracking offline conversions? For clinics, tracking which leads become actual patients provides the ultimate measure of ROI. This can be done through manual uploads or CRM integrations.

Step 7. Adjust Bidding Strategy

Your bidding strategy determines how your budget is used to pursue your campaign goals. An unmonitored Google Ads strategy for your clinic can lead to overspending. On the flip side, you might miss out on valuable patient leads if you bid too low. This audit step makes sure your bidding strategy is well-managed. It matches your clinic’s main goal. This could be getting more new patient inquiries, increasing phone calls, or reaching a certain cost-per-acquisition.

Review Bidding Strategy and Campaign Goals

Your chosen bid strategy must match your desired outcome for each campaign.

• Is your strategy aligned with your goal? For lead generation, automated strategies like Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) or Maximize Conversions are often effective. For brand awareness, you might use a strategy focused on impression share.
• Are you using manual bidding where necessary? While automated strategies are powerful, manual CPC can offer more granular control in highly competitive or low-volume campaigns.
• Have you set realistic targets? When using Target CPA or Target ROAS, base your targets on past performance data. This helps keep your campaign’s reach wide.

Optimize Bids and Budget Allocation

• Are you using bid adjustments? Boost bids for top-performing areas, like certain wealthy zip codes. Also, target devices, such as mobile users who tend to call more. Finally, focus on specific times, like during office hours.
• Is your budget allocated effectively? Analyze which campaigns deliver the best return and reallocate your budget to fund what works. Don’t let a low-performing campaign drain resources from a successful one.

Step 8. Analyze Competitor Activity

You are not marketing alone. Your local dental and beauty clinics are themselves competing for the same patients, and hence, a competitor analysis becomes a necessary intelligence gathering phase of Google Ads management for a clinic. You must know your competitors’ strategies. Observe the keywords that they are targeting, their promotions, and how pushy they are. This helps you spot market gaps and beat local rivals. In fact, the top 3 Google Ads capture over 41% of clicks in local searches. Thus, you gain a competitive edge. 

Use Google’s Auction Insights report:

• See who your top competitors are.
• Compare your impression shared with theirs.
• Check how often they outrank you.

Identify Strategic Opportunities

• Check competitor ads: Look for offers like free consults, new client specials, or advanced tech promotions.
• Find keyword gaps: Target long-tail terms your competitors miss to attract qualified clients affordably.

Streamline your Google Ads Audits with Marketing A Clinic 

Growing a clinic today is not just about offering great services. It is about being visible where your patients are searching. Smart marketing strategies help dental and beauty clinics get more bookings, build trust, and stand out locally. Taking the right steps ensures your clinic attracts the right audience and continues to grow with confidence. 

At Marketing A Clinic, we specialize in helping dental & beauty clinics like yours to grow with strategies that fit your budget. From advanced data analytics to qualified lead generation, we focus on results that matter. Ready to boost your clinic’s visibility? We can help you attract more clients without overspending. Let’s grow smarter with each campaign! Book your strategy call today!

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should clinics audit their Google Ads quarterly?

Regular audits help identify underperforming keywords, wasted spend, and misaligned targeting, ensuring that ad budgets are spent effectively to attract qualified leads.

What are the top reasons clinics overspend on Google Ads?

– Using broad match keywords like “rehab” or “detox” that attract irrelevant clicks.
– Lack of negative keyword strategies.
– Sending traffic to poorly optimized landing pages.
– Not excluding irrelevant locations or demographics.

How can I optimize keyword targeting for a clinic?

– Use long-tail, intent-rich keywords such as “alcohol rehab covered by insurance near me.”
– Implement phrase and exact match types to limit wasted clicks.
– Regularly review search term reports and pause irrelevant queries.

What metrics should clinics focus on during an audit?

– Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
– Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
– Conversion Rate (CR)
– Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
– Lifetime Value (LTV)

How can I improve ad relevance for a clinic?

– Ensure ad copy aligns with user intent and landing page content.
– Use ad extensions to provide additional information and increase CTR.
– Regularly test and update ad creatives to maintain engagement.

What role does automation play in Google Ads audits?

While automation can optimize bids and targeting, it’s crucial to monitor AI recommendations and adjust them to align with clinic-specific goals to prevent overspending.

How often should clinics perform Google Ads audits?

– Conduct monthly quick checks to spot issues and adjust bids.
– Perform quarterly deep audits to review account structure, targeting, and performance metrics.

What common mistakes should clinics avoid during audits?

– Blindly implementing Google Ads recommendations without alignment to business goals.
– Neglecting geo-targeting, leading to irrelevant clicks.
– Skipping bid strategy testing, such as switching from “Maximize Clicks” to “Maximize Conversions.”

How can clinics ensure accurate tracking during audits?

– Verify that Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is properly linked to the account.
– Ensure conversion imports into Google Ads are correctly set up.
– Check that the Google Ads tag is implemented and functioning.

What steps should clinics take after an audit?

– Prioritize issues based on impact and effort.
– Create a roadmap for implementing changes.
– Measure the impact of changes on key performance indicators (KPIs).