Most clinic owners who run Google Ads are doing it wrong. Not in a way that costs them £100. In a way that costs them £1,000 a month in wasted clicks because their campaign structure is broken.
A professional Google Ads campaign for a clinic is not complicated, but it is systematic. One campaign per service. Tightly grouped keywords. A dedicated landing page per service, not a homepage. Location targeting set to your real catchment area. Negative keywords blocking every search that will never convert. Conversion tracking measuring bookings, not clicks.
That is the baseline. Not fancy. Not advanced. Just professional.
If you are running Google Ads and your account does not match this structure, you are leaking money. This post walks through what the baseline looks like and why each part matters.
- The problem with clinic Google Ads right now
- Campaign structure: one per service
- Keyword grouping: tight is better
- Landing pages: one per service, not one for all
- Location targeting: match your real catchment
- Negative keywords: block the waste
- Conversion tracking: measure bookings, not clicks
- Assembling the baseline
The problem with clinic Google Ads right now
A typical clinic Google Ads account looks like this:
One campaign called "Google Ads" or "Search". Inside it, 40 keywords. Some are specific: "ear wax removal near me". Some are broad: "NHS", "free consultation", "jobs". The ads all point to the homepage. Location targeting is set to "UK" or "within 50 miles" even though your patients live within 5 miles.
No conversion tracking, so you track clicks but not bookings. Every week, you look at spend and clicks and make guesses about whether it is working.
That account will leak money. Lots of it.
The waste comes from three places. First, you are paying for clicks that will never convert — searches for "NHS", "free", "jobs", people in wrong locations, people searching for conditions you do not treat. Second, when a click does come in, it lands on your homepage, which does not say anything specific about the service they searched for, so they leave. Third, you have no idea which clicks actually led to bookings, so you cannot learn what works.
A professional campaign fixes all three.
Campaign structure: one per service
The first rule is one campaign per service.
If your clinic offers ear wax removal, travel vaccines, and weight loss, you have three campaigns. Not one.
Why? Because each service has different keywords, different landing pages, different locations where patients search, and different conversion rates.
A patient searching "ear wax removal Manchester" is different from a patient searching "weight loss pills Manchester". They have different intent, different urgency, and different competition. If they both go into the same campaign, you cannot control your budget or your messaging per service.
In a single campaign, you might spend £50 on ear wax keywords and £50 on weight loss keywords. But ear wax keywords convert at 35% and weight loss keywords convert at 8%. You should be spending £150 on ear wax and finding a different channel for weight loss.
One campaign per service lets you see, budget, and optimise each service independently.
What if you offer the same service in multiple locations — say, ear wax removal in Manchester and Liverpool? That is still one campaign, but with two ad groups, one per location. The core service is the same, but the location targeting and the landing page change.
Keyword grouping: tight is better
Inside each campaign, you have ad groups. Each ad group contains a tightly related set of keywords.
For an ear wax removal campaign in Manchester, your ad groups might look like this:
Ad group 1: Exact location + service
- Ear wax removal Manchester
- Microsuction Manchester
- Ear wax clinic Manchester
Ad group 2: Condition + near me
- Blocked ear wax near me
- Ear wax removal near me
- Impacted ear wax near me
Ad group 3: Symptom + location
- Ear pain Manchester
- Ringing in ears Manchester
- Can't hear properly Manchester
Each ad group gets its own ad copy and its own landing page. When someone searches "ear wax removal Manchester", they see an ad that says "Ear Wax Removal in Manchester", not "Ear Care Services".
Tight keyword grouping means your Quality Score stays high, your ads are relevant to the search, and your conversion rate stays predictable.
Loose grouping (all 40 keywords in one ad group) means Google shows whichever ad it thinks will get the most clicks, not necessarily the one most relevant to the search. Your Quality Score drops, your cost per click goes up, and your ads become generic.
Landing pages: one per service, not one for all
This is where most clinics fail.
An ad for "ear wax removal Manchester" should land on a page that says "Ear Wax Removal in Manchester", with pricing, patient reviews, a clear booking button, and details specific to that service.
Most clinics send clicks to their homepage.
A homepage says "We are a clinic. We offer lots of services." The patient who clicked on "ear wax removal" sees a page that mentions weight loss, aesthetics, and travel vaccines. They have no idea where to book ear wax removal. Half of them leave.
A dedicated landing page for ear wax removal says exactly what the patient is looking for, shows them the price, the availability, the booking button, and social proof specific to that service. It answers the question they have. Conversion rate jumps from 2% to 8%.
Do you need a separate landing page for every keyword? No. You need one landing page per service. "Ear wax removal Manchester" and "blocked ear wax near me" can both go to the same ear wax removal page, because the patient intent is the same.
But if you run separate campaigns for ear wax and weight loss, you need separate landing pages for each.
Building a dedicated landing page per service takes time. It is also what separates clinics that make money from Google Ads and clinics that bleed money on Google Ads.
Location targeting: match your real catchment
Most clinics set location targeting too broad.
"Within 50 miles" means you are bidding on clicks from people in Stoke searching for your Manchester clinic. You are paying for a click that will never book. You lose the budget you could have spent on someone in Manchester.
Your real catchment is probably 5 to 15 miles depending on the service. Travel vaccines? People will drive 30 minutes. Ear wax removal? People will travel 10 minutes. Weight loss consultations can be online, so geography is less relevant.
Set location targeting to match the distance patients will actually travel for each service.
If you are in Manchester city centre and you serve patients within 10 miles, set radius targeting to 10 miles centred on your postcode. Do not set it to "UK" and hope Google figures it out.
You can set different radius targeting per ad group if different services have different catchments.
Negative keywords: block the waste
A negative keyword is a search term you tell Google not to show your ads for.
Every clinic should add these on day one:
- NHS
- Free
- Jobs
- Training
- Courses
- Salary
- Volunteer
- Complaints
A patient searching "NHS ear wax removal" is not looking for private treatment. A patient searching "ear wax removal jobs" is looking for employment. You pay for the click and they are not a patient. Block it.
Then, as your campaign runs, watch the search terms report. You will see exact words patients typed to reach your ads. Some will surprise you. A weight loss clinic finds searches like "weight loss diet plan free PDF" or "fastest weight loss pills". Neither will book a consultation. Add them to negative keywords.
Run your search terms report every two weeks for the first three months. Every term that got clicks but no conversions should either become a negative keyword or be split into a separate, better-targeted ad.
Over time, negative keywords can reduce your click waste by 20 to 40%.
Conversion tracking: measure bookings, not clicks
This is non-negotiable.
Without conversion tracking, you are flying blind. You see spend and clicks. You have no idea what actually happened next.
A professional campaign tracks bookings, not clicks.
How? When a patient books an appointment, your booking system sends a signal back to Google saying "this click converted to a booking". Over time, Google learns which keywords lead to bookings and which lead to wasted clicks.
This requires setup. You need:
Option 1: Direct booking integration. Your clinic booking system has a Google Ads integration that sends booking data back to Google automatically.
Option 2: Conversion pixel on confirmation page. After a booking is confirmed, the patient sees a confirmation page. That page has a Google Ads pixel that fires and tells Google "this click led to a booking".
Option 3: Manual conversion import. You download your booking data, match it to Google Ads clicks, and import it weekly.
Most clinics use option 2 because it is simple and works.
Without conversion tracking, you cannot answer: Which keywords convert? Which landing pages work? Which times of day bring bookings? If you cannot answer those questions, you cannot improve your campaign.
With conversion tracking, Google uses that data to automatically show your ads more to searches that historically led to bookings, and less to searches that led to wasted clicks.
Assembling the baseline
Here is what a baseline professional Google Ads account looks like for a clinic offering three services:
Structure:
-
Campaign 1: Ear wax removal
- Ad group 1.1: Exact location + service (Manchester)
- Ad group 1.2: Condition + near me
- Ad group 1.3: Symptom + location
-
Campaign 2: Travel vaccines
- Ad group 2.1: Travel destination + vaccines (Thailand, India)
- Ad group 2.2: Vaccine type + location (yellow fever Manchester)
- Ad group 2.3: Pre-travel + location
-
Campaign 3: Weight loss
- Ad group 3.1: GLP-1 + location
- Ad group 3.2: Weight loss + location
- Ad group 3.3: Obesity treatment + location
Landing pages:
- One for ear wax removal (handles all ad groups in campaign 1)
- One for travel vaccines (handles all ad groups in campaign 2)
- One for weight loss (handles all ad groups in campaign 3)
Location targeting:
- Campaigns 1 and 2: 10-mile radius around clinic
- Campaign 3: 15-mile radius (weight loss patients travel further)
Negative keywords:
- Applied at account level: NHS, free, jobs, training, courses, salary, volunteer, complaints
- Applied per campaign: condition-specific terms (e.g. "weight loss diet plan free", "ear wax removal DIY")
Conversion tracking:
- Enabled on booking confirmation page
- Tracks "booking" as the conversion event
- Configured to use booking timestamp and source
Budget allocation:
- Ear wax removal: £30/day (highest conversion rate, highest volume)
- Travel vaccines: £20/day (seasonal peaks)
- Weight loss: £15/day (lower conversion rate, requires better landing page before scaling)
That is a professional baseline. It is not complicated. It is systematic.
What changes after you have the baseline
Once the baseline is in place, optimisation is straightforward.
You watch your conversion tracking data. Which keywords convert? Increase their bid. Which keywords waste clicks? Add them to negative keywords. Which landing pages have high bounce rate? Rewrite them. Which times of day bring bookings? Concentrate budget there.
Most clinic owners jump to optimisation without building the baseline first. They try to optimise a mess.
Build the baseline first. Then optimise.
Read the detailed guide on how to structure a Google Ads account when you offer multiple services across multiple locations for a deeper walkthrough of each element.
If you want to know whether your current campaign matches the baseline — and where the leaks are — book a free 20-minute discovery call and we will review your account against the professional standard and show you where you are losing money.
