How to create successful Facebook ads for doctors

Sixty-eight percent of United States adults say they use Facebook, according to Pew Research Center, making it the 2nd most popular social network behind YouTube. The social media network boasts 3 billion monthly users, and is an enticing component of any healthcare advertising strategy.

It’s not enough to simply set up a Facebook page and share posts. It’s long been recognized that organic reach on Facebook has been declining. For the past several years, Facebook has shifted its algorithm so that the News Feed (content seen by scrollers on the platform) fosters more connections between people and focuses less on media consumption.

To reach your ideal patients on Facebook, consider investing in advertising. Facebook ads are not a simple platform or tactic, however, and a medical practice can easily waste money targeting the wrong locations, target audiences, and times of day. Here are some tips to help you get started with learning how to place ads on Facebook for your medical practice. 

Before investing your healthcare advertising dollars on Facebook, you need to decide what your goals for your doctor ads are. Facebook advertising offers multiple formats for your doctor advertisement, and your goals can help you choose the correct one.

For a medical practice’s Facebook ads, common goals may be to:

It’s important to note that you may have to create a business manager account to run certain types of ads on Facebook.

Unlike paid search advertising where users are delivered healthcare ads based on information they’re seeking, Facebook ads interrupt a user’s news feed. When creating an audience for your healthcare ads, your aim is to group together people who are likely interested in what your practice is focused on. 

If you haven’t already, it’s especially helpful to define your ideal patient. If you’re a primary care physician, you may treat a wide range of patients ages 18 to 55, but an 18-year-old likely wouldn’t respond to the same ad that a 55-year-old would. Building Facebook audiences that align with your ideal patients can help you tailor your ad copy so they’re most effective. With Facebook advertising, you can also build audiences based on geographic location and even likes and interests.

You can also add a pixel to your website in order to retarget your web visitors with your Facebook ads. The Facebook pixel is a small piece of code that you, your website engineer, or a Facebook Marketing Partner can paste into your website code. Presumably, someone who was browsing your website was interested in learning more about you and was looking for a doctor. By retargeting them with your ads on Facebook, you can stay top of mind.

If you have a list of patient emails, you can also create a lookalike audience on Facebook advertising. A good audience size is between 20,000 and 100,000 people: This ensures your ads aren’t being served to the same people over and over and that you’re not casting too wide a net. When creating a lookalike audience, Facebook segments a group of users who have similar attributes to your current patients, which you can further filter by location and other categories. Do not target your current patients directly, as Facebook requires explicit consent, and your patient list is likely too small.

When boosting your organic content to a larger audience, you can also target users who like your page. According to a report by Socialinsider, the average reach rate for Facebook in 2024 is 5.90%.

Boosting your organic posts — also known as creating sponsored content — can help get your content in front of people who have already expressed an interest in hearing more from you.

Facebook users are constantly served with ads. The key to creating successful doctor ads means creating ads that are engaging, relatable, and relevant. Your medical ads should seem like a normal post in terms of copy and visual assets but stand out in terms of the content. 53% of people follow brands on social media to learn about new products and services. Fifty-two percent follow brands to stay up to date on company news. 

As an expert in your specialty, you have the distinct opportunity to educate users on their health. If you offer retail products or out-of-pocket services, you may also try to engage users with a promotion.

Before creating an ad, it’s important to familiarize yourself with Facebook’s advertising policies, specifically the prohibited and the restricted content sections. Perhaps of special interest to doctors, Facebook forbids advertising anything related to sex or sexual health. If you’re a plastic surgeon, photos of cosmetic procedures involving the breast, for example, may be flagged for nudity. Ads for weight loss products and services and cosmetic procedures must be targeted to people at least 18 years or older.

According to Statista, 98.5% of active Facebook users access the network via a mobile phone. Facebook is accessible via both desktop and mobile devices, so your ads will automatically be formatted for the mobile screen. However, there are considerations you can make to better serve mobile users. People using their phones are likely on the move, so if you’re using video for ads, you should keep them to about 15 seconds. 

For the same reason, you should keep your ad copy relatively short and to-the-point. People scrolling on their phones may not be inclined to read a lot of text. 

As with any medical advertising, it’s important to measure your ad performance. The metrics you’ll be reviewing depend on the original goal of the specific campaign. For example, if you were looking to drive traffic to your website, you will want to 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 and which do not. This is the best way to ensure you’re getting the best return on investment. In order to really get the most of your advertising, consider hiring an automated practice growth solution with experts who can guide you.