Google YouTube ads Vs. Google Display Ads vs. PPC Ads for Doctors & Dentists

Paid advertising is an effective way for doctors to get their message in front of their target audience. It can be vital for a medical practice if they are trying to build organic ranking for a newly launched service or if they have just opened in an area. Paid advertising can also be an effective strategy to lure target patients away from other medical practices. However, it is essential to remember that paid advertising can be expensive, and a medical practice, who likely does not have an unlimited marketing budget, needs to know where to spend their paid ad budget. They will best be able to accomplish this if they know the differences between Google YouTube Ads, Google Display Ads, and PPC ads and the metrics used to measure their success.

PPC Ads

Paid search advertising or paid search results are among the most common and popular PPC ads. More than likely, a medical practice will use Google AdWords, now known as Google Ads, to create, manage, and deploy its PPC ad campaign. In this form, PPC ads work with medical practices paying to have their ads appear when a target audience uses specific keywords. They pay by “bidding” on keywords, known as an auction-based model, and if they win, their ad will appear. Often, these ads will appear before organic or local results, but they can also occur after organic results in some situations. Generally, there will be 3 paid results in search results, but more, depending on the popularity of the word, can be displayed.  

Whether or not a paid ad will appear depends on several different factors, but the most impactful factors are:

• Quality Score– Is the ad relevant to the keyword or keywords the person is using in their search query? 
• Domain Authority – Does Google consider the ad’s destination reliable and authoritative?
• Keywords – Does the search match any keywords a medical practice is bidding on?
• Bid – How much is a medical practice willing to pay for a click?
• Budget – Is there a remaining budget in the day to pay for the bid?
• Targeting – Does the search fit the parameters for the bid, such as targeting a specific location or type of device on which the search is being done?

If a bid is successful, the paid search ad will appear. It will have three parts or four parts:

• Headline – A few words describing the topic or subject of the website someone will be sent to.
• Description Text – A sentence or two, usually with a call to action, that talks more about the link’s destination.
• Display URL – Usually, the website’s homepage the search engine query will be sent to, although usually not the full URL of a specific landing page.
• Ad Extensions – If the medical practice provides additional information, a search ad can have other relevant links that may also interest the search engine user. 

Google Display ads

Google Display Ads also operates with their search ad cousins inside Google AdWords. However, they work in a very different way than paid ads. Paid ads are considered “pull” advertising, as they pull people in to click on the ad when they use specific keywords, and medical practices only pay when they are clicked on. Display ads are considered “push” advertising and are presented to everyone. 

Display ads do not appear on Google search results but rather on other websites. Many people encounter display ads when they visit various websites, including those that display news, events, blogs, and even social media websites. Like search ads, a medical practice can choose a geographic location or radius for these ads. This avoids showing a display ad at someone too far away to drive to a medical practice for a service. Unlike search ads, a medical practice does not choose keywords for these ads to show but rather on websites. A medical practice will want to choose what websites these ads will display on, often selecting sites they think their target audience will visit. Other targeting factors to keep in mind:

• Interests – Display ads can be on some websites, such as news websites, targeted by interests or topics.  
• Intent – Ads can look at a user’s search history and be triggered if it indicates the ad is relevant.
• Similar audience – If a user matches specific characteristics of a target audience, the ad could be served to them.
• Remarketing – A powerful tactic where ads are displayed on other websites if a user has previously visited a medical practice website.
• Device targeting – Showing display only on certain devices, such as a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile phone. 

All display ads appear across the Google Display Network, which reaches 90% of all users over several million websites. However, not all websites have the same “space” available for display ads. A medical practice needs to create numerous display ads to fit the most common dimensions. The most common spaces available on the GDN include:

• Billboard: 970 x 250 pixels
• Medium Rectangle: 300 x 250 pixels
• Leaderboard: 728 x 90 pixels
• Wide Skyscraper: 160 x 600 pixels
• Large Rectangle: 336 x 280 pixels
• Half Page: 300 x 600 pixels
• Mobile Banner: 350 x 50 pixels

Google YouTube Ads

As you may have guessed, Google YouTube ads appear only on YouTube videos and on YouTube’s website. Like display ads, there are several types of ads a medical practice can choose from, and these choices will determine where and when these ads appear. Videos also require more production than PPC ads or display ads. A high-quality video needs to be produced to go along with these ads. A one size fits all video will not work for these video ad types listed below. Different videos of different lengths need to be created to accommodate these ad types. 

• In-feed Video Ad – These ads will appear on YouTube’s home page, search results, and related videos as people watch other videos. If people click on it, they will be sent to the video for them to watch. These only cost money if they are clicked on.
• Skippable In-Stream Ads – These ads are generally the standard type of ad a medical practice will use. These ads will play before a video and give users a choice of skipping it after about 5 seconds. A medical practice only pays for the ad if they watch at least 30 seconds (or all of it under 30 seconds) or take other actions like clicking on a link. These ads can be between 12 seconds and 6 minutes long. Generally, these ads should hook a watcher’s attention as quickly as possible, tell a story, and give a compelling call to action (CTA.)
• Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads – These ads are only 15 to 20 seconds long, but users cannot skip the ad. These ads will appear before, after, or during a video. For an ad to appear in the middle of a video, it should be 10 minutes or longer. These “mid-roll” ads usually give a 5-second notice to those watching that an ad is coming. With a shorter amount of time, these ads need to get to the point quickly and include a call to action.  
• Bumper Ads – These ads are like non-skippable ads in that users can not skip them, but they only appear at the beginning of a video and are 6 seconds long. They are a great way to bring awareness to a new service or business or to generate interest in a product. With 6 seconds, a message needs to be finely tuned to reach the right audience and get a conversation.  
• Overlay Ads – Overlay ads can be thought of as display ads for videos. These ads will appear at the bottom of videos when they are being viewed. An overlay ad is often used to supplement other in-stream video ad campaigns. These ads will take up a small part of a video to not appear intrusive to the person watching the video.  

What metrics does a medical practice need to look at to determine if their ad campaign is successful?

The success of a paid advertising campaign is determined by looking at metrics. Google YouTube Ads, Display Ads, and PPC ads share some similar metrics, and there are metrics unique to each kind of ad. Below are essential metrics a medical practice should follow with each type of online paid advertising.

PPC Ads

• Clicks: The number of times an ad was clicked on and, subsequently, the number of times an ad cost a medical practice money. 
• Cost per Click: Each click of an ad costs money out of a marketing budget, so the Cost Per Click is the average amount each click costs a medical practice.  
• Click Through Rate (CTR): This number is a percentage and represents how often an ad was clicked. This percentage is determined by the number of clicks divided by the number of times the ad was shown.  
• Impression Share: This metric tells a medical practice how often an ad was shown for the assigned keywords. This number is out of 100%.  
• Conversion rate: When a click accomplishes a goal, like making an appointment, it is considered a conversation. The conversions rate is the number of conversions divided by the number of clicks.  

Display Ad Metrics

• Impressions: The number of times a display ad is shown to someone on any website. Multiple impressions can be delivered to the same person.   
• Clicks: The number of times an ad was clicked on and, subsequently, the number of times an ad cost medical practice money. 
• Cost per Click: Each click of an ad costs money out of a marketing budget, so the Cost Per Click is the average amount each click costs a medical practice.  
• Click Through Rate (CTR): This percentage represents how often an ad was clicked. This percentage is determined by the number of clicks divided by the number of times the ad was shown. The CTR of display ads will be lower than PPC ads.  
• Viewable CPM (vCPM): A medical practice also pays for impressions, unlike PPC ads where they do not. This cost indicates how much it costs to show an ad 1,000 times or the cost per thousand impressions. It would count as a view if the ad were shown for more than one second to someone browsing a website.
• Post-impression conversions: A post-impression conversation occurs when a viewer may not click on a display ad but later clicks on a website through another channel, such as email, social media, organic search, or another PPC ad. These conventions are only recorded if a viewer visits another track within a certain amount of time.  

YouTube ad Metrics

• Traffic sources: This metric will tell a medical practice where views came from. The usual top sources are YouTube Search, suggested videos, Google Search, playlists, and videos embedded in external websites. 
• Impressions and click-through rate (CTR): Like other ads, this metric will tell a medical practice how often they are shown, and the CTR will be a percentage based on clicks divided by impressions.  
• Watch time and average view duration:  This important metric will tell a medical practice the total time a video has been watched and how long someone usually ends up watching it. For example, a medical practice may have a great 5-minute video. Still, if people are only watching, on average, the first 30 seconds, then it needs to be more engaging for them to watch more of the video.  
• Key moments for audience retention: This metric will identify parts of a video with the most engagement and retain the most viewers. This information is critical for medical practice to refine their videos further.  
• Likes, dislikes, and comments on top videos:  These engagement metrics can tell a medical practice how many viewers are, positively or negatively, or engaging with videos.
• Location, gender, age, and language:  For medical practices serving a community, location, and language statistics should not be much of a surprise. If a video ad is targeted correctly, gender and age should also be in an expected range.  
• Returning viewers, unique viewers, and subscribers:  For medical practices, this information is helpful for viewers who have decided to explore their YouTube channel for more videos. It also gives a medical practice an idea of how many new subscribers follow their channel.  
• Watch time for subscribers:  Generally speaking, a subscriber will watch a video longer than someone who has never seen it before. This metric will show a medical practice how engaged subscribers are to a practice’s YouTube channel and how long they are watching compared to non-subscribers.  

The experts at PatientGain.com are available to help you create a high-performance paid advertising campaign using YouTube Ads, Display Ads, and PPC Ads.  Contact us today and let us show you what we have done for other practices across the country!