Search Engine Marketing For Hospitals

Google Ads for a hospital is many small campaigns, not one big one. A search for “orthopaedic surgeon near me” has different value, urgency and cost per click from “full body checkup price Gurgaon” or “IVF treatment cost”. The patient journeys differ too. A joint replacement decision may take weeks and involve the whole family. A dengue fever search turns into an OPD visit the same day.

Most hospital accounts we audit lump everything together. One campaign with hundreds of keywords across every department, a single budget, the home page as the landing page and conversions counted as “any form submission”. The result is that cheap, low-value clicks such as general physician queries eat most of the budget, while high-value departments like cardiac surgery get barely any impressions. Nobody can say what an orthopaedic enquiry actually costs.

Common problems in hospital paid search

No split by department. When cardiology, orthopaedics, gynaecology and health packages share one budget, Google spends where clicks are cheapest, not where the hospital earns the most.
Calls not connected to outcomes. The call centre takes the calls, but nobody links them back to the campaign. Bidding runs blind.
Insurance searches ignored. People search “cashless hospital for Star Health near me” or “CGHS empanelled hospital Noida”. If you are empanelled, these are high-intent patients.
Competing with your own doctors’ names. Branded campaigns on senior consultant names, without coordination with SEO, often pay for clicks you would get free.
Automated campaign types left unchecked. Performance Max and broad match can drift into irrelevant searches like medical jobs, nursing courses or medicine wholesale unless they are monitored closely.

How we structure hospital Google Ads

Campaigns by department and procedure, with separate budgets for priority specialities agreed with management, plus campaigns for health check packages and, if relevant, international patients.
Emergency and urgent care campaigns built around calls, scheduled 24×7 if your emergency line is staffed around the clock, with location targeting close to the hospital.
Insurance and TPA campaigns that only mention the insurers and schemes you are currently empanelled with, sending people to a page that explains cashless admission.
Landing pages for each department and major procedure, showing the doctors, OPD timings, a call button, a short appointment form and honest cost information where the hospital allows it.
Call tracking connected to your call centre, with call outcomes such as “appointment booked” fed back to Google Ads so bidding learns from real bookings.
A long negative keyword list for jobs, nursing and medical courses, internship, free treatment, government hospital names and medicine suppliers.
Monthly budget reviews by department, so management can move money from a saturated speciality to one with room to grow.

A sample split for a mid-size hospital

To make this concrete, a 150-bed multispeciality hospital in a city like Ludhiana or Dehradun might start with five campaigns: emergency and urgent care, orthopaedics and joint replacement, cardiology, a women’s health or maternity campaign, and health check packages. Each gets its own budget and landing page. General medicine and paediatrics often fill through walk-ins and referrals anyway, so they wait. After three months we compare the cost per booked appointment across the five and suggest where the next rupee should go. The split will look different for every hospital, because it depends on where you have doctors with free OPD slots and surgical capacity. Advertising a department with a three-week waiting list just frustrates patients.

Healthcare policy and claims in hospital ads

Practical guidance, not legal advice:

Google’s healthcare and medicines policy restricts ads for some treatments, prescription drugs and experimental procedures. Certain categories, such as addiction treatment services, may need extra certification. We check each department’s ads against current policy before launch.
Remarketing and audience targeting based on health conditions are not allowed. Campaigns must rely on what people search for, not on what Google knows about their health.
Ad text should not promise cures, guaranteed outcomes, “painless surgery” or “lowest cost” unless you can substantiate it. NMC rules also limit how individual doctors can be advertised.
Accreditation mentions such as NABH or JCI only if current for the advertised location.
Appointment forms need DPDP Act 2023 consent and should not ask for diagnoses or reports.

How the account develops over six months

Month 1

Audit of the current account, agreement on priority departments and budgets, call tracking set up with the call centre, landing pages for the first three or four departments and launch of emergency, package and priority speciality campaigns.

Months 2 to 3

Search terms reviewed weekly, negatives expanded, bids adjusted by time and location, and the first comparisons of cost per enquiry across departments. We also check with the call centre that lead quality matches the numbers.

Months 4 to 6

More departments added, budget shifted toward specialities with the lowest cost per booked appointment, and branch-level campaigns for hospital groups. By this point the hospital should be able to see what each department’s enquiries cost and decide where to invest.

What we measure in hospital campaigns

Metric	Why it matters
Booked OPD appointments by department	Shows which specialities ads actually fill.
Emergency calls from ads	Tracked separately so they do not inflate OPD figures.
Cost per enquiry for high-value procedures	Joint replacement or cardiac enquiries justify higher bids.
Health package bookings	Often the easiest revenue to attribute directly to ads.
Wasted spend from irrelevant searches	Shows the leaks we have closed each month.

If your hospital spends on Google Ads but cannot tell how much each department’s enquiries cost, we can help. Give us read-only access and we will audit the account free of charge, then show you a department-wise structure with tracking that your finance team can follow. Phone +91 96535 45560 or write to info@digiintern.com.

Frequently asked questions

How should a hospital split its Google Ads budget?

By the value and capacity of each department. High-value specialities with spare OPD and surgical capacity usually deserve more budget. Departments that are already full need less. We agree priorities with management at the start, then shift budgets monthly based on cost per booked appointment, not clicks.

Can we advertise insurance and cashless treatment?

Yes, as long as you only mention insurers, TPAs and government schemes you are currently empanelled with. Wrong claims lead to angry patients at the admission desk. Ads should send people to a page that lists your current panels and explains the documents needed for cashless admission.

Is Performance Max a good idea for hospitals?

It can work for health check packages, but it needs close monitoring for hospitals. It may show ads on irrelevant searches or placements, and health targeting rules limit how it can learn. We usually start with search campaigns by department and test Performance Max only once tracking is reliable.

How do you track calls that go through our call centre?

We use tracking numbers on ads and landing pages and work with your call centre to log call outcomes such as appointment booked, enquiry only or wrong number. Where possible these outcomes are imported into Google Ads so bidding learns from real bookings rather than raw call counts.

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Search Engine Marketing for Hospitals & Multispeciality