Marketing to Healthcare Providers: Real cost of management [Google, Facebook, and Linkedin]

It's no secret that Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn Ads offer different options and benefits for advertising your business.

But what about the cost of management? How do these platforms compare when it comes to the amount you'll spend on a lead?

Let’s compare each of the platforms. We’ll be exclusively covering cost-per-click (CPC) advertising for each. CPC means you only pay when someone clicks on your advertisement and lands on your website, Facebook page, or landing page where you have designed your campaign to lead them. 

Covering the Basics

Google Ads

Google Ads is a search-driven marketing platform. It lets you control who you target your ads to based on your target audiences' identified keywords entered into Google Search. Keywords are the most common terms people type into Google while looking for information.

For example, you can target and display our advertisement only to people who search for the keywords “COVID lawsuits,” “Medical Portfolio Investments,” or “Life Insurance.” Google will help your audience find you when you have the right keywords. 

Facebook Ads 

Facebook Ads are not search-based like Google Ads. However, Facebook allows you to get very specific with the target audience for your advertisement based on location, demographics, interests, and psychographics.

For example, you can have the advertisement displayed only to health care providers within Virginia who are between 30-65 years of age and are interested in medical lawsuits, risk management, or financial assistance.

It’s important to note the narrower you focus your targeting, the smaller the audience you will have. 

This means every click is likely to be more highly qualified; however, the cost per click will likely be more expensive than a broader criterion due to the niche target audience. 

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ads are also highly targeted when selecting who you want to reach within the professional space. It allows you to choose your target audience based on location, industry verticals, company size, revenue, job functions, department, role, decision-making levels, and more.

For example, you can direct our advertisements to those within the healthcare industry in any specific state or metro area with annual revenues of over $60 million. 

You can target professionals within these companies at any level, from the C-suite to individual HCPs.

Again, the tighter the search criteria, the more expensive the cost per click is likely to be, but the clicks will be more qualified.

How Much Will It Actually Cost 

Last but not least, the main question – how much will it cost you per click on each of these platforms? The answer to that question, unfortunately, is – it depends. It varies on a wide variety of factors. 

When closely compared, Google Ads is the least expensive of the three for CPC and can be relatively cheaper if the keywords you target are not highly competed for by other advertisers in your space. 

Facebook Ads are more expensive, and LinkedIn is even more costly, but each comes with its pros and cons. 

Google Search Ads 

Advertising costs on keywords for the exact kinds of services your business performs can range significantly. Ads on search results are advertising to prospects at the exact moment they’re looking for information on products/services that your business sells. 

By looking at Google’s Keyword Planner (which anyone can use with a free Google Ads account), you can get an estimate from Google on costs for your paid search campaign. 

The chart below shows costs for keywords where a healthcare provider may be looking for attorney counsel.  You may be surprised to see that an average Cost Per Click, nationwide, may run you well over $30. 

Factor that in with your conversion rate, which is the number of conversions (leads) divided by the number of clicks. According to Wordstream, the average conversion rate for legal services is about 6%. 

This means that for every 1 conversion, you’ll need 16 clicks on your ads from relevant searchers.

That comes to a total of $960 just for 1 conversion, and that is just the initial phone call, you still have to close the client in your sales funnel. 

Not to mention, you’ll likely be hiring an expert to manage your PPC campaigns. While costs for this service also vary, you can estimate around $1,000 per month in management or 10% of ad spend (whichever is greater). This will need to be added to your total cost per acquisition when calculating ROI. 

Factor that in with your conversion rate

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Here is another look at the keyword cost data from Google.

Keyword

Top of page bid

health law lawyers - $34.12

healthcare audit lawyer - $21.12

healthcare employment attorney - $21.46

healthcare lawyer near me - $22.00

healthcare m&a law firms - $30.01

healthcare malpractice lawyers - $47.25

largest medical malpractice law firms - $36.60

medical business attorney - $32.81

medical business attorney near me - $23.40

medical care attorney - $23.25

medical law advice - $21.90

medical law attorneys - $39.06

medical law firms near me - $26.46

medical malpractice trial attorney - $50.00

negligence law firms - $33.71

‍Facebook Ads

Facebook allows for a daily budget or a lifetime budget for advertising. Using Facebook’s advertising platform allows you to advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Facebook audience network.

According to Revealbot, the average CPM on Facebook across all industries is $14.40, higher than last year, which was $11.54. Source

Wordstream has provided some industry averages for Facebook Ad engagement.

The average Click Through Rate  (CTR) across industries is 0.89%.

Finance is only 0.58%, and Business and industrial is right on the average of 0.89%

How do you estimate costs? Unfortunately, there aren’t many proven models or tools that exist today. Facebook will give you an estimate of the audience size you’d like to target. They also will give you an estimate of the number of clicks your campaign or ad set will receive daily.

However, it should be understood that these are very broad estimates by Facebook. And, like Google, they often inflate metrics that make Facebook Ads look more enticing when it comes to how much budget you give your campaigns. 

For example, let's say you wanted to launch a campaign targeting medical students who were about to graduate and become practicing doctors. 

According to Facebook, there are nearly 3.8M users in the US who are interested in Medical School. 

The image below shows Facebook data for audience size

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Next, with a daily budget of $10, Facebook “estimates” that your campaign will reach up to 3.1k users per day and generate up to 84 clicks. 

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Marketer beware, these estimates are VERY optimistic.

But, based on our previous numbers, we can assume that if the audience size is 3.8 million and our Cost Per Thousand (CPM) impressions is $14.40, it would cost you over $27,000 to serve 50% of that audience.

((Audience Size x 50%) / 1000) x $14.40 = $27,360.00

When calculating Facebook’s average cost per click, another important factor is your campaign objective. There is much dispute over which study is closest to an actual average, so for this example we’re going to assert that your average CPC will be $2.48 (Business & Industrial Industry).

This means that your campaign could generate over 11,000 clicks. Not bad, but your conversion rate will be far less than Google Ads likely. This is because you are interrupting the user who is doing something else (scrolling their feed) as opposed to showing up during the EXACT moment they are searching for a solution.

With a 3% conversion rate, you would generate 330 leads at the cost of around $81 per lead.

Now, again these leads are less qualified than the leads from users who were searching for a solution, so you’ll want to keep that in mind when estimating your ROI.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn allows both CPC and CPM advertising but is more costly than other online platforms and requires a larger daily budget to be effective.

Depending on your targeting criteria and competition on LinkedIn, CPC can start anywhere from $2.00 to $6.00 or more, which is quite high compared to other social networks. The industry-wide average CPC is $5.60.

Linkedin and Facebook are very similar in the way they provide daily reach and audience estimates. From there you can use the same calculation that was executed with the Facebook example above to estimate your campaigns ROI. As a general rule of thumb, you can expect LinkedIn’s advertising costs to be higher than Facebook’s, due to the platform's B2B user base.

If you are feeling lost, frustrated, or even more confused- we understand completely. These platforms are designed and effectively marketed as intuitive advertising platforms that leverage machine learning to do all the hard work for you. 

Unfortunately, the reality is that these campaigns require expert setup and management. 

The campaign objective, audience size, and/or ad creative you choose all play a factor in calculating your campaign costs. 

With all of these variables at play, building a reliable model for estimating performance is very, very difficult. 

Forget About Cost Per Click: Perla Provides an Advertising Platform Based On Results 

While these different marketing strategies are beneficial for healthcare consultants seeking leads from healthcare professionals and entities, Perla has a new and better way forward.

Founded to correct the inefficiencies of traditional healthcare consulting sales and marketing, Perla is a private networking platform that enables you to market DIRECTLY to healthcare entities and professionals in the segment your organization specializes in. 

Powered by intelligent matching, Perla allows you to reduce the length of your marketing efforts by ensuring you’ll only receive leads from healthcare entities and professionals searching for your exact offerings. Make the most out of your CPC by targeting qualified audiences.

Add Perla into your sales and marketing process to make the most out of your marketing budget while speeding up your sales timelines. 

Join as an advisor! Learn more about Perla and see how it works.