"Stop Lighting Your Money on Fire" - Choosing the Right Online Ads for Your Dental Practice

Are you spending money on dental ads without really knowing what’s working?

In this episode of The Dental Marketing Mix, Dan Brian is joined by DentalScapes co-founder Brian Craig to break down how dentists should think about online advertising in 2026 — and how to avoid lighting your marketing budget on fire.

They walk through the three primary advertising channels dental practices use today: Google Local Services Ads (LSAs), traditional Google pay-per-click (PPC), and social media advertising. Dan and Brian explain when each channel makes sense, how much practices should realistically budget, and why choosing the wrong strategy at the wrong time can quickly destroy ROI.

The conversation also dives into real-world cost-per-lead benchmarks, why front desk call handling is just as important as ad performance, and how AI-driven ads — including advertising inside tools like ChatGPT — are poised to change dental marketing in the near future.

If you’re new to advertising, frustrated with current results, or trying to decide where to allocate your marketing dollars in 2026, this episode offers a clear, practical framework to help you make smarter decisions.

Key topics covered:

• Where dentists should start with online advertising
• Google Local Services Ads vs traditional Google PPC
• How social media ads fit into a dental growth strategy
• Budget expectations and cost-per-lead benchmarks
• The hidden role of front desk conversion in ROI
• What AI advertising means for dental practices

For full show notes and resources, visit the episode page: https://www.dentalscapes.com/stop-lighting-your-money-on-fire-choosing-the-right-online-ads-for-your-dental-practice/

To get help building a smarter, more efficient dental advertising strategy, schedule a free strategy call at https://DentalScapes.com/start.

Transcript

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Welcome back to the Dental Marketing Mix. My name is Dan Bryan. I'm the co-founder of Dentalscapes and I'm joined today by my other co-founder, Brian Craig. And we are here to dig into something we haven't talked about on the show in quite some time, but super important and relevant as we kick off 2026, crazy that we're there. ah But we're going to be talking about online advertising, specifically what type of online advertising is most appropriate in whatever situation related to dental marketing. so welcome back to the show, Brian. uh What would you say to a dentist who is just starting out in online marketing or at least online advertising and they're trying to think, you know, where do I put my money? Is it Google ads, traditional pay-per-click? Is it local services ads? Is it social media ads? Where would you start in terms of advising that person? Yeah, great question for somebody just starting out um with the exception of pediatric dentists as of January 2026, since that's not available on the platform yet. I would point people pretty strongly towards Google's local services ads. um They are an easy way to kind of dip your toes in the water of dental paid advertising. ah There's a lot of aspects of them that are are great for practices just starting out. with ads. And one of those aspects that I always think is so great is that unlike traditional Google ads, which are pay per click, you're paying for a click on the keywords that you bid on, with local services ads or those LSAs, like you said, that's a pay per lead product. And so you're actually only paying when someone calls your practice. How does that work in theory? That's an important distinction and that's one of the things that makes this LSA product the go-to for practices starting out. How they work, like you mentioned Dan, traditionally with paper click, like your traditional Google ads, what happens is somebody searches for a dentist near me, orthodontist near me, whatever, they see the ad, they click on it. With traditional ads, you're charged at the click. The difference with LSAs is when somebody sees your ad on LSAs, they're either going to call you or message you through the LSA product. And Google uses their AI, their artificial intelligence, uh to evaluate that call or message. And they try, not hard enough sometimes, but they try to determine based on the length of the call, based on the transcript, based on the content of the message. Is this a potential new patient for the practice? ah If it's yes, they will charge you for it. If it's no, ah generally they won't. So um it lends itself to less waste than the traditional Google Ads products, especially for uh firms just starting out. Yeah, and often easier to maintain, you know, cost efficiency for most of the practices that we work with. And like you said, we advise most practices, the overwhelming majority that we start with, especially, you know, if they haven't yet, you know, run online advertising to start with LSAs. It's a great entry point. The other thing I really like about it is that it's a trust building ad product. And so, you know, typically the leads that you get through the LSAs are at least slightly more warmed up. uh in terms of their familiarity with your practice. LSAs for those listening who are not familiar, they actually include uh your Google reviews, your average rating. They also include a Google screened uh badge that basically vouches for you as a practice because you do have to submit some information and documentation upfront before you can run those ads. You have to submit your liability insurance, uh complete a background check, that sort of thing. But I really do like that it's a truly trust-building uh ad product. So that's pretty cool. ah You know, what would you say though on the flip side, when would a traditional Google ads campaign or the pay-per-click campaigns, when might that better serve a dental practice? So those are generally a more advanced tactic is what I would refer to them as. We don't see a ton of practices run Google Ads successfully in-house. So I would say if you're going to do it, have a professional do it, whether that's Dentalscapes or some other ah agency that has proficiency in Google Ads, because the Big difference between LSAs and traditional Google ads that I see in practice is that you can set your money on fire and do it quickly with traditional Google ads. It's a little harder to do that with LSAs. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Google ads are increasingly complex and complicated. Google has rolled out all kinds of AI technology to assist ads managers and honing their strategies and that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, Google's priority is making money. in my opinion, those AI recommendations and that within Google ads are not always up to snuff. You gotta be really careful and like you said, you can light your money on fire really quick. Google uh search ads though, which encompass both PPC and LSAs, the beauty of that is it's very high intent that we call it. So folks are on Google looking, actively looking for another or a new dental provider or a new orthodontist. And so it's a great way to reach folks at the point that they are actively considering uh booking an appointment. Very high intent there. On the flip side, most people aren't going on social media to look for a new dentist. Not necessarily, anyway. They're going to be entertained or get educated or connect with friends and family. uh What can you say about when social media ads, though, might be appropriate for a practice? really like social media ads for practices. uh You have a good point Dan in that social media ads are more of a branding play. um Whereas Google ads are more like somebody searching for emergency dentists near me. There's an acute need right there. um Whereas social media ads are more like, hey, I might've been looking for a dentist to, you know, at some point or I might be interested in switching my last three visits sucked or you whatever it is. ah So social media ads really give you a chance to showcase your personality, to showcase your practices, personality, let people know who you are, how you're different, ah to really tell the story. And hard sells don't work as good on social media ads. ah So, you know, I think both have their place, but I really like social media ads for dental because ah it's usually, it's usually not a, need to make this decision today. ah So you can have that repetition over time and have them be very successful. Yeah, and it's a great opportunity also for retargeting to serve, you know, acts on social media to folks who have already visited your practice website uh or maybe explored, you know, potentially booking an appointment. So it's a great way to bring those folks back and actually get them to convert. You know, the creative is super important. Like you said, uh imagery video plays really well on social. The other thing I would say is, you know, I agree with you completely. They're they're mostly a brand play. Just keeping the practice top of mind for folks who may be, you know, at some point considering a new dentist. But if you have the right offer, a special offer or something that's really truly compelling, especially combined with really nice creative, really good imagery or video, uh you know, maybe it's a it's an Invisalign special or maybe it's an offer for, uh you know, a certain amount off of lightning with, you know, a new patient appointment, whatever it might be. uh There are specific promotions that we at Dentalscapes have seen work really well for the practice that we partner with. And so it's always something that I think folks should keep in mind. But, you know, we've gone over the three primary types of advertising, social media that of course encompasses Facebook and Instagram. You know, we've talked about search marketing, you know, the traditional Google PPC ads, LSAs, you know. Boiling it down though, what does this look like in practice? For a practice maybe unfamiliar with online advertising, let's go back to Google Ads to start, both LSAs and PPC. What sort of a starting budget that you would recommend a practice start with? Because there is a point at which spending too little doesn't give you what you need to really be successful, isn't that right? 100%. Yeah, so what we usually recommend for most practices, and you can certainly kind of tailor this to your market and to your goals, is to start with about $1,000 a month on the LSA product. Since social media ads are not quite as high in cent, they're generally gonna be cheaper. So with LSAs, you could start out with $1,000 there, whereas If you're running meta ads, $50 a week is going to get you in front of lot of eyeballs. So those are the two products that I would recommend to most practices starting out with. If you've got $5,000, $10,000 a month to put into ad spend, that's when we start looking at something like traditional Google ads. It is very much an advanced tactic for most practices. Yeah. What are you seeing right now because you lead the client services team at DentalScapes, you're actively managing our ads team. What are you typically seeing? uh Obviously it's going to depend greatly by market and competition and that sort of thing. But what's sort of a ballpark range in terms of what you see for cost per lead from say LSAs? Let's start there. Yeah, for general dental, it's interesting because we have quite a spread. There are some practices in markets like Charlotte, those size markets, that we're seeing cost per lead as low as $35, which is just generally going to be an incredible return on investment. If I had to nail down an average, I would say you're gonna be in the 60 to $70 range per qualified lead um for most practices. Yeah, and then obviously a dental marketing agency like ours, like Dentalscapes, can really only deliver qualified leads and then it becomes up to the front desk and its performance to convert those calls or those messages into actual booked appointments. And so, you know, I know when you and I talk with potential clients, we really break down what those anticipated uh costs per new patient might be at various levels of conversion. so, you know, a healthy front desk is converting 60 % plus, you know, of those qualified calls into actual booked appointments. uh You're going to pay more if you're only converting at 50 % or less, of course. uh What, you know, to that end, you know, based on that math, what's sort of a decent range for most practices to consider when it comes to a new booked appointment for just general procedures? So it would be like a new patient, truly not. Not Invisalign, not Implants, certainly gonna pay a heck of a lot more there. But what can practices sort of expect? Yeah, so I think for most things you're gonna be in the 100 to $130 range. And that's really a math thing, right? Because if we say, and you can back these out based on your practices metrics. If we say, a new lead for the practices, I'm just gonna say $50 to make numbers easy. And your practice is converting at 50%. That's a hundred dollars a new patient. If your practice is converting at 25%, you know, it suddenly gets really expensive and you can see how important it is to have your front desk really dialed in and converting well. And like one thing that we see a lot of issues with is if somebody leaves a message, ah if it goes to voicemail for whatever reason, Odds are you're not getting that patient back unless they were already a referral. and even if you pick up the phone, talk to the person and they say, hey, yeah, I might go ahead and do that. Thanks for the information. If you're not following up with them until you get a no, these are just patients falling out the bottom of the bucket. So as that happens, if the follow-up is not great, if the initial know, conversation and conversion is not great. These ads can get two, three, five, 10 times more expensive. Yeah, and like you said, I mean, you mentioned it, you know, in relation to the PPC ads uh also with LSA, not to the same extent, but if you're not handling those calls appropriately or calls are going to voicemail, you really can truly light money on fire. So I think it's always worth any dentist owner out there interested in online advertising, reach out to a marketing agency experience and running those ads like dentalscapes. At Dentalscapes, can tell you, we include ads management in our marketing programs. There's no additional commission or anything like that based on ad spend. We're solely incentivized to do the best job possible to maintain that relationship. So closing things out, Brian, where would you recommend that any dentist out there or practice administrator listening to this podcast, uh where would you recommend that they start if maybe they're not running any advertising right now? What's the first step to get started? Yeah, if you're not running any advertising right now, take a look at Google's local services ads. um One of the big issues that we see, or I'll say like kind of a blind spot with a lot of practices, is there's a, I'll say a thought process that is pretty outdated at this point that says, hey, if I'm ranking well organically, if I'm... you know, the best there is number one in the maps and number one in the traditional organic results. I'm going to get a lot of new patients. And the reality is today, that's not the case as it used to be, you know, years ago, um, between, uh, of course AI overviews are, are, uh, and chat GPT, that's a topic for another day. Um, but even not counting those, you've got LSAs at the top of the page. then you've got ads, then you've got sponsored maps. So, you you might be two viewable sections down before you even hit organic results. So a lot of people aren't even seeing you if you're not running ads. So successful practices are doing both right now. Yeah. And we always advise that whenever possible, you own as much real estate, we call it, you know, on that search results page. So super important for visibility, driving as many clicks as possible, converting as many calls into actual booked appointments. Now, just because you mentioned it, and I know you said it's a topic for another day and it will be, uh but we've been talking a lot on this podcast and we actually started doing a kind of Monday marketing rundown where each week we kind of talk a little bit about recent developments in dental marketing. But the big topic looming in 2026 right now is ads coming to AI search results and coming to Google's AI overviews and chat GPT and all of that. What do we know right now and how could this potentially change the game completely? Yeah, so what we know right now is on Friday afternoon, I believe it was, OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, announced that their ads product is in internal testing right now. We'll be coming into beta soon. When any one of these products like this comes out, the early adopters, like you can really make some good money you can really get like some outlandish results if you're at the front end of this technology, at the front end of what's coming out. So we're still keeping an eye out for information as it's being released. But whenever this chat GPT ads product goes general availability, uh we want practices to be in there to be advertising. uh Absolutely. just like we talked about, yeah, and just like we talked about LSAs being a trust building ad product and, you know, being in part, actually one thing we didn't talk about, but your placement in LSAs is actually influenced by your reviews and your, you know, your trust signals. But one thing you know, that we know already about these AI ad products is that they will undoubtedly be influenced by, you know, the trust signals of your practice. so, you know, generating as many five-star Google reviews as possible, getting as many citations and trusted sources, uh anything that can communicate to these LLMs, your practices credibility and authority and trust is going to be super critical. So, I would say for folks listening today, you you can't jump into AI ads quite yet. We're close, like Brian said, but if you want to get ready, uh really double down on what's already working in SEO and that, is, you know, building trust, communicating experience, expertise, authority, trustworthiness. It's only going to position you really well uh to be as cost effective as possible when advertising rolls out in general. for these AI search results. So it is an exciting time in online advertising. It's a brave new world. Obviously AI has changed damn near everything already. And there's gonna be more in 2026, absolutely. So thanks so much for sharing your insight and expertise today, Brian. We'll be back at it next week with another episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please take just five seconds and leave us a review or just a five-star rating. on Apple podcasts or Spotify or YouTube, wherever you listen to or watch your shows, we'd really appreciate it. It truly is the best way to help us at DentalScapes uh help more dentists and practice administrators out there. So thanks so much. Thanks for joining Brian and we'll be back at it next week. All right, we'll see you.