Google Ads for med spas: what converts, what gets disapproved, and a budget that works
Campaign structure for injectables and laser, Google's policy on prescription drug terms, negative keyword lists, and realistic cost per treatment.
The typical med spa Google Ads account has one campaign, broad match keywords, "botox" as the top spender, and a landing page that is the clinic home page. It produces price shoppers, students writing papers, and people looking for a job. The owner concludes Google Ads does not work for aesthetics and moves the budget to Instagram.
Google Ads works fine for med spas. It is the only channel where someone is actively typing that they want a treatment right now. It just punishes sloppy structure harder in this category than in most, and it has a policy layer that trips up half the accounts that try.
The policy layer, first, because it will stop you
Google's healthcare and medicines policies restrict how prescription drug terms can be used. The practical effect for an aesthetic clinic: you can generally bid on branded injectable names as keywords, but using those brand names in ad headlines, descriptions and landing page claims is where disapprovals come from, and requirements differ by country and by product. Weight-loss injectables are more tightly restricted than neurotoxins and the rules there have moved more than once.
The structure that survives:
- Bid on the branded terms as keywords. That is where the search volume is.
- Write ad copy about the treatment category and the consult. "Wrinkle relaxing treatment. Board-certified injector. Free consult this week." No brand name, no unit price, no dosing.
- Keep the landing page clean of medical claims, before and after collages, and anything that reads as a guarantee.
- Add your medical director and provider credentials to the page. It helps with both policy review and conversion.
If a campaign gets disapproved, fix the copy rather than appealing. Appeals in healthcare categories are slow and you lose the weeks.
Campaign structure that stops the waste
Four campaigns, separated because their cost per click and their intent are nothing alike:
- Injectables. Neurotoxin and filler terms, phrase and exact match only. Highest intent, highest CPC, usually $6 to $18 per click in a mid-sized metro and past $25 in Los Angeles, Miami or northern New Jersey.
- Laser and devices. Hair removal, resurfacing, body contouring, plus the platform names your clinic actually owns. Longer consideration cycle, cheaper clicks, needs a dedicated landing page per device.
- Brand. Your clinic name. Cheap, high converting, and worth running because competitors bid on you. Budget it at 5% to 10% of the account.
- Non-brand skin. Facials, peels, medical-grade skincare, acne. Lowest ticket. Run it only when the calendar has room, because it fills the schedule with low-value appointments if you let it.
Nothing on broad match until an account has 90 days of conversion data, and even then only with a tight negative list. Performance Max in this category will spend into placements you would never choose. Test it after Search is profitable, never before.
The negative keyword list
Build these on day one:
free, cheap, groupon, coupon, deal, DIY, at home, kit, buy online, training, certification, course, school, jobs, hiring, salary, near me reviews, side effects, gone wrong, lawsuit, class action, dissolve, botched, and every competitor clinic name in your area unless you are deliberately conquesting.
Add the treatment names you do not offer. A med spa that does not do hair transplants or PRP for hair should not be paying $14 a click for it because of a loose phrase match.
Review the search terms report weekly for the first two months. In most new med spa accounts, 25% to 40% of first-month spend goes to searches you would never have chosen.
What a lead and a treatment actually cost
Expect $30 to $90 per lead on injectable and laser terms in a mid-sized metro, and $90 to $200 in the most expensive markets. That is a lead, meaning a form fill or a call.
The number that matters is cost per treatment performed. Between the leads that never answer, the consults that no-show, and the consults that do not convert, most clinics find their cost per performed treatment is three to five times their cost per lead. At $60 per lead, a 55% consult-to-treatment rate and a 25% no-show rate, you are near $180 per treatment performed.
That is fine when your average treatment is several hundred dollars and the client returns three times a year. It is a disaster if you treat the first transaction as the whole revenue. Lifetime value is what makes aesthetic Google Ads work, which is why the membership and rebooking structure in the pricing guide affects your ad math more than your bid strategy does.
Budget, bidding and the first 60 days
Do not start under $2,000 a month in media. Below that you cannot gather enough conversion data to leave the learning phase, and Google will spend inconsistently.
Start on Maximize Clicks with a CPC ceiling for the first three weeks to gather data, then move to Maximize Conversions once you have 30 conversions in 30 days. Set the conversion action to a booked consult, not a page view and not a phone click. If you count phone clicks as conversions you will optimize toward people who tap and hang up.
Turn on call reporting and record the calls. In a med spa, a startling share of paid calls die at the front desk over price. You cannot fix that without listening.
Run ads only in the hours someone answers. If nobody picks up after 6 p.m., either schedule the ads off or set up missed-call text-back, covered in the follow-up guide. Paying $14 a click to ring an empty desk is the most common way med spas lose money on Google.
Frequently asked
Should I use Google's Local Services Ads? Those units are not available for most aesthetic categories, and where they appear they lean toward licensed home services and professional services. Put the budget into Search.
Do I need a separate landing page or is my home page fine? Separate, always. One page per campaign theme with the treatment, the provider credentials, the price framing and a booking form above the fold. The website essentials guide has the full checklist.
How long before Google Ads is profitable for a med spa? Plan on 60 to 90 days to a stable cost per booked treatment. Anyone promising profitability in week two is quoting you a lead number, not a revenue number.
If you want the account structured and run, it is one of the services in the free 14-day trial, and you keep the account either way. Text or call (385) 832-6175.