How user intent, stage of their purchasing journey, and emotional charge affect lead quality
Should you focus your budget on Social Media ads (like Facebook/Meta), or on Google Ads?
The short answer
One simple way to look at this is to ask: “Would an average person make an impulsive decision to get this treatment on a whim, if the price was right?”
If the answer is yes, then promoting the treatment on both Google and Facebook/Instagram can work well, if you have a good offer.
But if the answer is no, then you’ll have a harder time promoting that treatment on Facebook/Instagram, because it’s more difficult to hyper-target these users, due to lack of keyword targeting on social media. So if a patient is going to make a well-researched, thought-out decision to get a treatment, then Google is typically the best avenue.
Here is another question: “How far would the average patient be willing to travel to get this treatment?”
If the answer is “pretty far”, then Google Ads is the best choice. Someone willing to travel very far is deeply invested in solving their problem, and would be willing to spend time and money to deal with it. You will have a harder time creating narrowly-targeted campaigns to find these users on Facebook/Instagram.
Keyword-based targeting on Google Search will be a much mor efficient way to target these types of users and convert them into appointments.
Of course, the above litmus tests are a very general way of evaluating this question. So in this article, I will dig deeper into why some medical aesthetics campaigns work better on Facebook and others on Google.
The long answer
Who is the Person Clicking Your Ad?
I believe that few things are as important in medical aestehtic marketing as making sure that your ads are being shown to the right person, at the right time.
You can have the best ad copy in the world, and the best offer. But if the wrong people are seeing your ads, you won’t achieve any meaningful results.
You’ll be much more successful showing your worst ads to your best audience, than showing your best ads to the worst audience.
When deciding where to show ads and how to target them, we have to consider a few factors:
- What is the user’s intent? Are they just browsing, or actively looking to take care of an aesthetic issue?
- Are you promoting a “Must Have” or a “Nice-to-Have” treatment?
- How important is the price to them? Are they looking for a deal, or do they want the best quality?
User Intent
If you want users who have the highest intent to schedule (and keep) an appointment, Search Ads on Google are typically better than Facebook/Instagram.
The users with the highest intent will often search for a combination of treatment + location:
- BOTOX near me
- tummy tuck los angeles
- CoolSculpting deals
- gynecomastia surgeon
All of the searches above communicate a very clear readiness to take immediate action.
Of course, there can also be searches from users who are higher up in the marketing funnel, and have a lower level of readiness to make a decision. These users are typically still in research mode and are less likely to take action. Searches like: “wrinkle treatment”, “remove acne scars”, “SculpSure reviews”, “11 lines”, etc.
Ads on Facebook don’t depend on keywords, but rather on user attributes and audiences. Hence, it’s more difficult to specifically target users based on their level of intent to get a specific aesthetics procedure.
For example, if you are promoting a very specific treatment on Facebook/Instagram, only a fraction of the users may have a very high intent to take action, while most may have a low level of interest. This can result in having a large portion of leads from Facebook/Instagram who are simply looky-loos and won’t make an appointment. (Of course, follow up systems also play a big role, but more on that later.)
As such, if you’re looking for the leads with the highest intent to take action, Google Ads is typically the better way to go.
“Must Have” vs “Nice-to-Have”
“Must Have” treatments typically have a higher emotional value attached to them, and seek to correct a frustrating or embarrasing problem. This includes things like: tattoo removal, psoriasis treatments, earlobe repair, rosacea treatments, etc.
These will often be accompanied by a real feeling of self-consciousness.
“Nice-to-Have” procedures are those that can augment a person’s appearance, but don’t have the same emotional charge. These types of procedures also tend to have a lower committment and less downtime: things like neuromodulators, facials, fillers, and non-invasive body contouring (in some cases).
Of course, there is also crossover between the two. (For some people, neuromodulators and fillers are an absolute “must have”, especially if they’ve been relying on these treatments for many years.)
But consider the following two scenarios; who is more likely (on average) to feel a stronger sense that they must get a treatment soon:
- a 25 year old who is starting to notice crow’s feet and is researching BOTOX on a whim, or
- a 25 year old who has severe hyperhidrosis (with embarrasing armpit stains on their clothes) and is looking at BOTOX armit injections, Brella or MiraDry
With this in mind, if you’re promoting a “must have” treatment, you’ll have an easier time targeting (and getting appointments) users with Google Search ads.
You will have a harder time finding the right people for “must have” treatments on Facebook/Instagram. It all comes down to targeting. If you’re unable to create hyper-focused audiences on Facebook, then most of the people who will see your ads will not be in the right mindset (or the right stage of their journey) to make and keep an appointment.
In this way, Facebook tends to be a better option for promoting “Nice-to-have” treatments, because such treatments have a wider overall audience, and are therefore easier to target.
Further, users in a “Nice-to-have” mindset tend to respond well to a good offer. Because the emotional charge of self-consciousness isn’t as strong, you need to sweeten the deal to get them to take action.
Google Ads can also be used to promote “Nice-to-have” treatments, but you typically have less space to in Search Ads to outline your offer (headlines are limited to 30 characters each, and descriptions to only 90). You can also use Promotion Extensions, but you have very little space to outline a detailed offer.
On the other hand, ads on Facebook/Instagram can include a lot more text and videos that make it easier to promote your offer, and also allow users to quickly get to know your aesthetics practice. It’s a huge benefit for convincing the “Nice-to-have” audience to set an appointment.
Importance of Price vs Provider Expertise
A good way to quickly see if a procedure is price-based or expertise-based, is to ask yourself: “How far would the average consumer travel to get this done?”
If the answer to the above question is “not very far”, then you’re likely dealing with a price-based treatment.
Some procedures have been commoditized over the years, to the point, where price is the determining factor for most patients. Things like facials, BOTOX, some fillers (depending on the purpose), dermaplaning, and even non-invasive body contouring, to name a few.
Generally, if you can envision someone commonly searching for a treatment name + “groupon”, then price will be a big factor in the prospect’s decision to set and keep an appointment. Things like:
- BOTOX groupon
- HydraFacial groupon
- EMSCULPT groupon
- Semaglutide groupon
- Laser hair removal groupon
The price-focused treatments can be promoted well both on Google and Facebook/Instagram. However, the mistake that many aesthetics practices make is they don’t have a good offer. They will simply run ads for the treatment, but there is no good offer to entice people to make and keep an appointment. Having a good, competitive offer is absolutely key for promoting these price-dependent treatments, regardless of the platform.
Other treatments require significantly greater skill from the provider. Things like:
- labiaplasty
- blepharoplasty
- hair transplants
- gynecomastia surgery
- many of the advanced laser skin procedures
Typically, these don’t just require the provider to be siginficantly more skilled to perform them correctly, but are also more invasive, with a much higher emotional cost to the patient. They also tend to fit more into the “must have” category.
Here, the provider expertise becomes a much bigger factor. Certainly, the procedure has to be affordable, and the price has to be reasonable/comparable to other providers. But the price isn’t the single-most determining factor.
These types of patients have a strong emotional investment in getting their issue resolved.
The best way to reach these types of patients is through Google Ads. These patients are in a “must have” mindset, and are actively researching a solution to their issue. This is exactly who you would want to see your ads.
Their decision will be less impulsive and they will do a lot more research about your practice and reputation before they make an appointment. But once they set the appointment, they’ll be much more likely to keep it.
Conversion Rates – From Lead to Appointment
Because of their different dynamics you will find that leads from Facebook/Instagram ads are usually harder to convert into appointments (even when you have a great offer). They also tend to be more flaky when it comes to keeping their appointments.
This is because their decisions to contact you are often based on impulse. They saw a good deal for a “nice-to-have” treatment, and they wanted to get more information. But their level of committment is quite low.
Leads from Google Ads, on the other hand, tend to be more committed to a decision, especially if it’s for a “must have” type of treatment.
Having said that, leads from Google Ads also tend to be more expensive. So you have a higher rate of conversion from Lead —> Appointment, but they do tend to cost more as well. (You’re paying more for the higher quality.)
Logistics Really, Really Matter
Although Google tends to provide higher quality leads, I have seen many aesthetics practices do a great job converting leads from Facebook/Instagram campaigns. This was true for both “must have” and “nice-to-have” treatments.
The common factor for all of these practices is that they had excellent internal infrastructure for handling their incoming leads.
These practices weren’t just focused on getting the leads, but also on taking the lower quality leads, engaging them through great content and follow up systems, and significantly raising the leads’ level of interest.
When I talk about “lead quality”, what it simply means is how hot or cold a lead is. The hotter the lead, the easier they are to convert into a patient. The colder the lead, the harder your front desk needs to work to get them to set and keep an appointment.
If you’re willing to put in the effort to work with colder leads, you can see great results from Social Media ads. But it does take committment.
You would need to invest in things like:
- training your front desk to really sell to these leads (not just answer questions, but overcome objections and push for that appointment)
- develop great promotions that are better than your local competitors
- invest in a really good, fast website, with excellent load times and intuitive navigation
- invest in systems that provide drip email and SMS campaigns
- answer calls and lead inquiries immediately (not the next day, or an hour later, but within a couple minutes of the lead initiating contact)
- create excellent Social Media content that genuinely engages the user, and does so regularly (not just one or two videos here and there, but an abundance of engaging content)
If you have the willingness and the resources to invest into building out your logistics, you can see a lot of success over time. Because what you’re really doing is investing in systems that help take cold leads, and gradually warm them up into very hot leads who want to get the procedure.
On the other hand, if your practice has limited time and resources, you may get a better ROI by focusing on high intent patients who are looking for “must have” treatments. You will get fewer leads (and they’ll be more expensive), but they will also be warmer and easier to convert into patients.