Google Ads for doctors and private clinics: campaigns, policies and budget (no remarketing on health conditions)

Google Ads for doctors, private practices and clinics works with local Search campaigns on "service + city" and "near me", ads written within the limits of healthcare advertising, a service page as the landing page, and tracking of bookings and calls. Competition is low right now: in September 2026 the results page for "private cardiologist london" showed not a single ad, and clicks cost between £1.90 and £7.73 on the UK keywords with data.

Not a single ad? Not even from the big groups?

Barely.

In the DataForSEO database Bupa, Nuffield Health and HCA Healthcare UK, three of the most visible private healthcare sites in the UK, have 3, 1 and 0 paid keywords respectively.

For a private practice, that's good news.

But before you open the account there are two sets of rules that change everything compared with a normal campaign:

• Google's healthcare content policies, which ban remarketing on health conditions;
• UK professional and advertising rules, which require every claim to be accurate and provable.

And then there are the mistakes we find in the medical accounts we inherit:

• remarketing to people who visited the "oncology consultation" page;
• the home page used as the landing page;
• hundreds of "conversions" that aren't bookings.

Here's what you'll find:

• what Google lets you advertise in healthcare (and what it doesn't);
• which campaign to open first;
• which keywords to use when the Keyword Planner has no data (9 out of 22);
• what to write in the ads within GMC and CAP rules;
• how to track without passing health data to Google;
• how much budget you need, worked out from real CPCs.

This article covers the paid side; the organic side is in SEO for healthcare. Dentists and psychologists have different constraints and CPCs: Google Ads for dentists and Google Ads for psychologists.

Let's start with the rules.

What Google allows you to advertise in healthcare (two policies to read before opening the account)

Google lets you advertise consultations, tests and services at a medical centre, but bans prescription-only medicines and unapproved treatments, and does not allow remarketing linked to health conditions. There are two policies to read.

The healthcare and medicines policy

The first is the Healthcare and medicines policy.

You can advertise: consultations, tests, services at a medical centre.

You can't advertise:

• prescription-only medicines;
• online pharmacies without Google certification (in the UK they must also be registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council);
• experimental or unapproved treatments.

What if I name a medicine just to explain a therapy?

You risk disapproval. Naming the medicine in the ad is enough to trigger it, even if you're only describing the treatment.

The policy on health in personalised advertising

The second is the policy on health in personalised advertising.

Health is a sensitive interest category.

In plain terms: you can't use audiences you created yourself (Customer Match, website remarketing lists, similar segments) for ads related to physical or mental health conditions, illnesses, sexual health or chronic conditions.

Google's examples: treatments for diabetes and arthritis, counselling for depression and anxiety, CPAP devices.

So no audiences at all?

No, some remain. Google's predefined segments (in-market, affinity, demographics, location) are still usable, because they exclude sensitive signals automatically.

In practice: no remarketing to people who visited the "oncology consultation" page.

It's the mistake we find most often in the medical accounts we inherit.

In healthcare, remarketing is limited to generic audiences (home page or locations page visitors) and generic messages.

And then there are the UK rules

The GMC's Good medical practice requires anything a doctor communicates, advertising included, to be accurate and not false or misleading, and forbids exploiting people's vulnerability or lack of medical knowledge (paragraphs 89 and 90).

The CAP Code, which also covers paid search ads, requires evidence for objective claims and has a section (12) on medicines, medical devices and health-related products.

Google doesn't check any of this. Complaints go to the ASA, and the GMC deals with the doctor.

Which campaign: local Search, not Performance Max (at least for the first three to six months)

For a practice with one or a few sites the right campaign is Search with radius targeting: 10-15 km from the clinic in a city, 25-30 km in a rural area. Performance Max comes later, once the account has a history of real conversions.

One detail that costs money: the location option goes on "presence", not "presence or interest".

Why?

Because otherwise you pay for clicks from people searching "cardiologist london" from Manchester.

If the sites are in different towns, one campaign per site.

And Performance Max?

It's not the starting point.

Without a history of real conversions the algorithm optimises on whatever it finds. And in a new medical account it finds clicks, not bookings.

It makes sense after three to six months, with at least 30 properly recorded conversions a month and the Google Business Profile linked, to cover Maps and Display with the same assets.

One of our own cases, outside healthcare but with the same structure.

Contesini has two branches in the province of Mantua, in Italy, with customers within a 30 km radius: exactly like a clinic.

Local Search plus Performance Max: 299 leads in seven months at €7.20 per conversion, 68% of which became opportunities.

For a clinic in Switzerland the scheme is the same: in Ticino we draw the radius on the canton and set the languages to German and French as well as Italian, for people searching from Zurich for a clinic in Lugano.

Further reading: when Google Ads makes sense.

Keywords: service + city, "near me" (and a Keyword Planner that can't see 9 keywords out of 22)

The keyword structure for a medical practice is one ad group per service (cardiology consultation, ultrasound scan, dermatology consultation) and one per specialty (cardiologist, dermatologist), each with city and "near me" variants. Phrase match for services, exact match for the few high-CPC keywords.

And broad match?

Not in the first weeks.

In healthcare it brings in searches for symptoms and conditions: cheap, but they don't book.

Then there's a problem nobody warns you about…

The Keyword Planner is partly blind in this sector.

Of the 22 UK service and specialty keywords we queried, 9 came back with no volume or CPC, including "private cardiologist london", "private dermatologist london", "private gp london" and "private gp near me".

Does that mean nobody searches them?

No. The results page for "private cardiologist london" has a local pack of three practices, an AI Overview and ten organic results from specialist clinics.

You plan with related keywords that have data. And after two weeks the search terms report tells you the truth.

Keyword	Searches/month	Average CPC	Top of page bid
dermatologist london	9,900	£4.86	£1.73-4.89
private doctor near me	5,400	£4.19	£1.13-6.71
medical centre near me	4,400	£1.90	£0.78-3.19
book doctor appointment online	3,600	£2.06	£0.79-2.64
eye clinic near me	2,900	£4.96	£1.53-6.05
private clinic near me	2,400	£4.48	£1.32-5.00
trichologist near me	2,400	£3.60	£0.97-4.83
nutritionist london	1,000	£3.74	£1.43-3.87
trichologist london	1,000	£6.78	£1.96-38.21
cardiologist london	720	£7.73	£1.88-8.89
private ecg near me	480	£2.72	£0.72-2.69

The spread is wide:

• "medical centre near me": under £2;
• "cardiologist london": almost £8;
• "trichologist london": the high top of page bid reaches £38, a sign that a few advertisers are bidding very aggressively on it.

Negatives, from day one

In healthcare there are plenty of stray searches. Exclude these straight away:

• public service: "nhs", "free", "a&e", "hospital" (if you are not one);
• jobs and training: "jobs", "vacancies", "salary", "course", "training";
• informational searches: "what does a", "symptoms", "home remedies".

Need a concrete example?

A private clinic that doesn't exclude "nhs" pays for clicks from people looking for the public service.

Further reading: how to do keyword research.

Ads: what to write within GMC and CAP rules (information yes, promises no)

A Google ad has 15 headlines of 30 characters and 4 descriptions of 90, and in healthcare you fill them with verifiable information, not promises. Price, location, doctor and how to book are fine; superlatives, guarantees and lines that play on the patient's worry are not.

This works:

• "Cardiology consultation + ECG";
• "Report on the same day";
• "Clinic on X Street, London";
• "Book online";
• "£250 all-inclusive";
• "Dr Smith, consultant cardiologist".

This doesn't, because it can't be proven or plays on the patient's worry:

• "London's best cardiologist";
• "Unbeatable prices";
• "Guaranteed results";
• "Don't wait until it's too late".

And the price: in or out?

In. In medical ads it pays: on "private cardiologist london" the first "People also ask" question is "How much does a private cardiologist consultation cost in the UK?", and one of the related searches is "private cardiologist london prices".

One condition: under the CAP Code a quoted price must include all non-optional charges. It must be the total cost to the patient, not a base price with extras added later.

The assets that carry the most weight

In a local medical account there are four.

• Call asset, with the reception number and a schedule matching the hours when someone answers. An ad with the phone active at 10pm pays for clicks that end up on voicemail.
• Location asset, linked to the Google Business Profile: it adds address and distance.
• Sitelinks to "Book", "Locations and opening hours", "Services and prices", "Our doctors".
• Callouts for practical information: "On-site parking", "Results online", "Insured patients welcome".

What about buying a competitor's name as a keyword?

Some clinic chains do it. Google allows it.

But an ad from a doctor that appears for another clinic's name sits badly with the duty not to mislead. We don't do it on medical accounts.

Landing page: the service page, not the home page (and a three-field form)

The landing page for a medical ad is the page for the service searched, with the same information as the ad: what it includes, how long it takes, price, location, doctor, how to book. Using the home page as the landing page is the most common and most expensive mistake.

Why so expensive?

Because the patient searches "private cardiologist london", lands on a list of specialties and leaves. And you've already paid for the click.

Above the fold you need two ways to book:

• a clickable phone number;
• a three-field form: name, phone, service.

The form must NOT ask for the reason for the visit or symptoms.

It isn't needed to book, and it's health data, special category data under UK GDPR, that would end up in a CRM and in Google Ads. Service and preferred time are enough; reception can ask the rest on the phone.

If the diary runs on an external booking platform such as Doctify, the "Book" button can point there. But the click must be tracked as a conversion before the user leaves the site.

Further reading: why a website does not convert.

Tracking: bookings and calls, without health data (three conversions, nothing else)

A medical practice has three conversions: booking form submitted, call from the ad or the website with a minimum duration of 30-60 seconds, click through to the external booking diary. Time on page, scroll depth and menu clicks are not conversions, and if they're imported as such the campaign optimises on nothing.

Sounds obvious?

We see it in almost every account we inherit. Not only in healthcare.

Valore Solare had 15,267 "conversions" in a month against 5,467 clicks.

More conversions than clicks.

They were technical events.

Sunscape in 2024 counted 1,487 conversions at €0.61 each. None of them was an enquiry.

A medical account with 800 "conversions" a month and 12 real bookings is not an exception.

Event names

Keep them generic: "booking", "call". Not "booking_oncology_consultation".

An event with the service in its name, linked to a user identifier, is health data passed to Google.

The same goes for uploading customer lists: in healthcare you don't do it.

Further reading: how to set up Google Analytics.

How much budget you need: the maths from real CPCs (at least £30 a day per site)

The sensible minimum budget for one site is £30 a day, about £900 a month, and it comes from three numbers: CPC, landing page conversion rate, value of a booking. With an average CPC of £3.50 and a 6% conversion rate, a booking costs £58.

You've seen the CPCs above.

The conversion rate of a well-built service page, with phone and form, sits between 5% and 10% in the local projects we work on. We use 6% to be prudent.

The scenarios:

• £3.50 CPC (between "medical centre near me" at £1.90 and "private clinic near me" at £4.48, with a few pricier keywords): £58 a booking;
• "nutritionist london" at £3.74: £62;
• "cardiologist london" at £7.73: £129, which only makes sense if the value of the first consultation and the follow-ups covers it.

Scenario	CPC	Conversion rate	Cost per booking	Monthly budget	Expected bookings
Multi-specialty clinic, general services	£3.50	6%	£58	£900	15
Private specialty (nutrition)	£3.74	6%	£62	£1,000	16
High-CPC specialty (cardiology, London)	£7.73	6%	£129	£1,500	11

And below £30 a day?

Daily clicks are so few that the algorithm doesn't learn and the data can't be read.

Anyone proposing £5 a day on a medical campaign is selling a report with one or two clicks a day and no decision possible.

Two caveats (with our clients' numbers)

One: the first month costs double.

On Valore Solare the first month produced 9 enquiries at €212 each. Once up to speed, the cost per enquiry fell to €70.78.

On Macropix it went from €94 in 2024 to €39.44 in 2025, on the same account.

Two: the 6% is our own average across local sectors, not a medical figure.

On a new healthcare account it needs checking after 60 days, and the maths redoing.

Further reading: Google Ads statistics 2026 to compare CPCs and conversion rates by sector.

The mistakes we find in medical accounts (six, always the same)

The most common mistakes in the Google Ads accounts of practices and clinics are six, and the most serious is remarketing on condition pages, the leading cause of suspension. The others waste budget quietly.

• Remarketing on condition or service pages. It breaches the personalised advertising policy and is the most common cause of suspension.
• Symptom and condition keywords. "Chest pain", "skin rash": cheap clicks that bring readers, not patients. The big groups pick up that traffic organically with their health information pages (Bupa has an estimated 3.3 million organic visits a month, Nuffield Health 1.6 million), with almost no ads.
• Home page as the landing page. The patient searches for a service and lands on a list of departments.
• Technical conversions imported. Scrolls, time on page and menu clicks counted as bookings: the algorithm optimises on the wrong clicks.
• Ads running when reception is closed. The call is the main conversion on mobile; without ad scheduling half the budget ends up on voicemail.
• Unprovable claims in ads. "Best", "leading", "guaranteed": Google won't stop them, but they're exactly what a complaint to the ASA picks up.

An observation, with caution.

In the DataForSEO database the three big groups have almost no paid keywords, and there were no ads on the results page we checked.

Maybe they run campaigns you can't see?

They may: local campaigns that a national crawler doesn't pick up.

But for a clinic with two sites, the data says one clear thing: today, ads on "service + city" face little competition from the big players.

Google Ads or SEO for a medical practice? (from week two versus three to six months)

Google Ads brings bookings from the second week and switches off when the budget stops; SEO takes three to six months on service pages, but then works with no cost per click. The sensible route is to start both, in the same quarter.

The local pack is proof of what the organic side can hold: on "private cardiologist london" the three practices in the local pack have 238 to 379 reviews each, all with a 5.0 rating.

The order we follow:

1. the Search campaign on the ten most requested services starts straight away;
2. in the same quarter we write the ten service pages that act as landing pages;
3. over time, those pages rank on their own, and the Google Business Profile and the location page work with no cost per click.

Same pages, two channels.

The organic method is in SEO for healthcare; how the two channels add up, in SEO and Google Ads together.

Frequently asked questions

Where to start (with £30 a day and 60 days)

Not Performance Max, but local Search with a radius and the "presence" option.

Not 800 "conversions", but real bookings and calls.

Not the home page, but the service page, with the all-inclusive price.

Not £5 a day, but at least £30, for 60 days.

Now, two concrete things.

If you already have an account: open the conversions report and count how many are real bookings or calls. If they're less than half, the first job is tracking, not keywords.

If you're starting from scratch: choose the three services with the highest margin and the easiest-to-reach site, write the three pages, and launch a single Search campaign at £30 a day for 60 days. The cost per booking worked out from that data tells you whether and how far to expand.

If you'd like us to look at the account before you spend any more, book a strategy consultation: the first thing we check is the conversions.

See you next time!