How to create successful Facebook ads for doctors

Sixty-eight percent of United States adults say they use Facebook, owned by Meta, according to Pew Research Center — making it the second most popular social network behind YouTube. Meta has 3.43 billion daily active users across its social media family as of March 2025, and is an enticing component of any healthcare advertising strategy.

It’s not enough to simply set up a Facebook page and start posting. What users see in their Facebook feed is determined by what Meta calls personalized ranking, which uses an AI algorithm to show a mix of:

One of the factors in your content being recommended is how many views and interactions both you and the content you’re sharing have had over time. This means if you aren’t established on Facebook with good engagement already, you might have a hard time reaching your ideal patients.

This makes Facebook ads a strong investment — with the right approach. Facebook ads are not a simple platform or tactic, and a medical practice can easily waste money focusing on the wrong locations, target audiences, and times of day.

Here are some tips to help your medical practice deepen your digital marketing strategy and get started with learning how to place ads on Facebook.

Before you invest your medical practice healthcare advertising dollars in Facebook ads, determine your goals. They might include:

Creating a Facebook business page is an important step in boosting your posts and running other types of ads. You may also need to create a business portfolio or use Meta Business Suite for ads with specific audience targeting and metrics.

Unlike paid search advertising, which shows users healthcare ads based on their search queries, Facebook ads interrupt a user’s feed. Since ads perform better when they are relevant to their audience, first think about who might be interested in your practice’s specialty by their location and age. In other words, define your ideal patient.

Then define your audience for this specific healthcare ad. If you’re a primary care physician, you may treat patients aged 18 to 55. But an 18-year-old potential patient likely wouldn’t respond to the same ad copy as a 55-year-old. Facebook advertising allows you to build separate audiences based on demographics, like age, geographic location, and even likes and interests.

You can also add a Facebook pixel to your website to retarget visitors with your Facebook ads. This small piece of code, which you or your web team can implement, allows you to reconnect with people who previously browsed your site. By using this pixel to show these potential patients targeted ads on Facebook, you can stay top of mind during their decision-making process.

If you have a patient email list, you can create a lookalike audience for Facebook advertising. This feature identifies users with attributes similar to your current patients, which you can refine by location and other categories.

Aim for an audience size between 20,000 and 100,000 for optimal delivery — not so narrow that ads the same people over and over, yet not too broad to be effective. Remember not to target your current patients directly, as Facebook requires explicit consent for that and your patient list is likely too small anyway.

When boosting your organic content to a larger audience, you can also target users who like your page. According to Hootsuite, the average Facebook engagement rate for healthcare is 1.9% as of January 2025.

Boosting your organic posts — also known as creating sponsored content — can help get them in front of people who already want to hear more from you. Note that these are still considered ads.

Facebook users get ads constantly. The key to creating successful ads for healthcare services means creating ones that are engaging, relatable, and relevant. They should feel natural in their copy and visual style while offering standout content.

But what should that content be? Consumers follow brands to learn about new products or services (68%), access exclusive deals or promotions (46%), and because they post enjoyable or entertaining content (45%), according to Sprout Social in 2025.

If your practice offers retail products or out-of-pocket services, consider engaging potential patients with targeted promotions that highlight these offerings. In addition to promoting your services, as a healthcare expert, you can also educate about health while earning trust.

Before creating an ad, familiarize yourself with Meta’s advertising policies, specifically prohibited and restricted content. For instance, Facebook does not allow ads that depict nudity. This means that if you’re a plastic surgeon, you might not be able to use photos of procedures involving the breast. Ads for weight loss products and services and cosmetic procedures must target only people at least 18 years or older.

Facebook is accessible via both desktop and mobile, so your ads will automatically be formatted for mobile screens. However, there are ways to better serve mobile Facebook users.

For instance, you have a limited opportunity to catch someone’s attention, especially if they’re on mobile and on the go, so if you use video ads, keep them to about 15 seconds. For the same reason, keep your ad copy relatively short and to the point.

As with any type of healthcare advertising, it’s important to measure your Facebook ad performance. Wha metrics you review depend on your original goal for a specific campaign.

For example, if you aimed to drive traffic to your website, monitor link clicks and click-through rate. The click-through rate measures the percentage of clicks in comparison to how many people saw the ad. If these are low, you may want to try different advertising copy, images, or both.

If your original goal was to increase your Facebook page likes, then you should monitor how quickly your audience is growing.

Creating successful Facebook ads for doctors requires more than just placing the ad. After some time, you will begin to understand which doctor ads perform well for you and which do not.

Continuously monitor what isn’t performing to your standards and conduct optimizations to improve your content. This is the best way to ensure you’re getting the best return on investment.

To get the most of your advertising, Tebra’s strategic healthcare social media marketing solutions can help you attract local patients, engage with your community, and more. Book a free demo today find out more.