Google Ads for dentists is one of the cleanest lead generation channels there is. Someone searching "emergency dentist near me" at 9pm is not researching — they are choosing. The practices that struggle with dental PPC almost always struggle for the same three reasons: the keyword set is too broad, calls are not tracked as conversions, and every ad points at the homepage.
This is how I structure a dentist Google Ads account when the goal is appointment bookings rather than clicks.
Pick the treatments before you pick the keywords
A dental practice does not have one audience, it has four or five. Emergency treatment, routine checkups, implants, Invisalign and cosmetic work all have different search behaviour, different competition and wildly different values. Bundling them into one campaign means your implant budget gets spent on hygiene appointments.
Separate campaigns per treatment give you separate budgets, separate ads and separate cost per lead numbers. That is what lets you say "implants cost us $180 a lead and are worth $4,000" instead of "dental PPC costs us $60 a lead", which tells you nothing.
Local targeting beats broad targeting every time
Patients travel a predictable distance. Set radius targeting around the practice, then look at the location report after a month and cut the suburbs that generate clicks but no bookings. Use presence targeting, not presence-or-interest, unless you deliberately want people planning a move.
Pair search with your Google Business Profile. Location extensions, call extensions and up-to-date opening hours lift click-through rate on local queries more than any ad copy rewrite.
Track calls, not just form fills
Most dental leads are phone calls. If you only count form submissions, you are hiding the majority of your results from Google's bidding algorithm and from yourself. Use call tracking with a minimum duration threshold so a 12-second wrong number does not count as a new patient.
This is the single most common gap I find in dental accounts. Getting conversion tracking and GA4 setup right usually changes the reported cost per lead by 30–50% overnight, and it changes which campaigns Smart Bidding decides to feed.
Negative keywords for dental accounts
Add these early: free, jobs, salary, school, training, courses, NHS (if private), insurance only, DIY, near me cheap, and the names of dental supply brands. Review the search terms report weekly for the first two months — dental queries drift toward information fast.
Broad match without a strong negative list is where most dental budgets quietly disappear.
Landing pages that convert patients
One page per treatment, matching the ad exactly. Include the price or a price range, the treatment timeline, real photos of the practice, and a booking widget above the fold. "Contact us" is not an offer; "book a free implant consultation, no obligation" is.
Doubling a dental landing page from 4% to 8% conversion halves cost per patient without touching a single bid.
What a dentist should expect to pay
Clicks in dental typically run $5 to $18 in the US and £2 to £9 in the UK, higher for implants and cosmetic. Cost per lead usually lands between $45 and $150 depending on treatment, and cost per booked patient runs roughly double the cost per lead.
A practice needs about $2,000 to $5,000 a month in media to make high-value treatment campaigns learn quickly. Below that, narrow to one treatment and one radius.