# Google Ads for Dentists in Australia (2026): What to Run and What It Costs

> How dental practices can use Google Ads in 2026: which campaigns to run, what Ahpra's rules mean for your ads, and what a new patient enquiry costs.

- Original page: https://performancemarketer.com.au/google-ads-for-dentists-australia/
- Published: 8 November 2026
- Last updated: 8 November 2026

In August I spent two days in a room with four practice owners, running a marketing workshop for dentists. By the end of day one the same handful of questions had come up over and over, in slightly different words. Does Google Ads work for a dental practice? What does it cost? What am I allowed to say in an ad? And why does my current report look great when the appointment book doesn’t?

So this post is my answer to all four, with numbers from a practice we took live in October.

The quick version: yes, Google Ads works for dental practices, because patients search by treatment and by suburb, which is about as good as it gets for a search ad. Cranbourne West Dental, a clinic in Melbourne’s south-east, spent $1,891 in its first 19 days and got 62 patient enquiries, about $30 each. Run a campaign for each treatment you want more of, keep your own practice name in a campaign of its own, follow Ahpra’s rules, and check your tracking isn’t counting the same patient twice.

## Why Google suits a dental practice

People search for dentists constantly, and they tell you exactly what they want. Here are the monthly searches across Australia (Semrush, checked 7 November 2026):

| Search | Searches a month |
| --- | --- |
| dentist near me | 60,500 |
| invisalign | 22,200 |
| dental implants | 8,100 |
| wisdom teeth removal | 8,100 |
| dental clinic near me | 5,400 |
| emergency dentist | 3,600 |

Each of those is a different patient with a very different value to your practice. Someone searching “dentist near me” might be worth a check-up and a clean. Someone searching “dental implants” is thinking about spending thousands. That’s the case, right there, for running campaigns by treatment rather than one campaign called “dentist” with everything in it.

## What it costs

Semrush puts the average click on “dentist near me” at about $4.93, “dental implants” at about $5.10 and “invisalign” at about $3.03. Those are national averages. In a competitive suburb you’ll usually pay more, and you’ll notice some big practice groups bidding hard on the treatment searches.

Rather than quote averages, though, here’s a real account. Cranbourne West Dental’s Google Ads went live on 19 October 2026 with no history at all. The first 19 days looked like this:

| Ad spend | $1,891 |
| --- | --- |
| Form enquiries | 37 |
| Online bookings | 7 |
| Calls from the ads | 3 |
| Taps on the phone number on the website | 15 |
| Total enquiries | 62, about $30 each |

Two campaigns ran side by side. The one for people searching for a dentist near them brought in nearly all of the enquiries, at about $23 each. The one aimed at specific treatments cost about $130 an enquiry. Both are fine, but you’d want to know which was which before you decided where the extra budget goes. The full story, including a fairly quiet first week that would have worried a lot of practice owners, is in the [Cranbourne West Dental case study](https://performancemarketer.com.au/cranbourne-west-dental-google-ads-case-study/).

I’d point out that this was done on roughly $100 a day. You don’t need $10,000 a month to find out whether Google Ads works for your practice. You need the right searches, a decent page and tracking you can trust. Management sits on top of the ad spend. Ours starts at $2,000 a month for Google Ads, month to month.

## The campaigns we’d set up

**One for people who need a dentist this week.** Searches like “dentist near me” and “dental clinic Cranbourne” are the closest thing to a booking there is. In the account above, this campaign did most of the work, and it usually does.

**One for each treatment you want more of.** Check-ups and cleans, emergency, implants, Invisalign, wisdom teeth. Each gets its own ads, its own landing page and its own budget. If an implant patient is worth ten times a check-up to you, those two shouldn’t be sharing a budget. Expect the treatment enquiries to cost more, and judge each one against what that patient is worth rather than against the near-me campaign.

**Your own practice name, kept separate.** People searching your name are already yours. Some of the enquiries in the account above came from people searching for the clinic by name, and that’s fine to pay for, since competitors can bid on your name too. Just keep it in a campaign of its own. Otherwise it makes everything else look better than it really is.

**Emergency, with the hours to match.** If nobody can see an emergency patient after 5pm, don’t run emergency ads after 5pm. It sounds obvious, and I see it ignored all the time.

**Keep out the voucher hunters.** Searches for “free check-up” or “cheap dentist” tend to bring people who leave when the voucher runs out. Add them as negative keywords unless that’s the patient you actually want.

## Ahpra’s rules apply to your ads too

Your Google Ads, your landing pages and your Facebook posts are all advertising under the National Law, so Ahpra’s advertising rules apply to them. The ones that catch practices out:

- **No testimonials about clinical care.** That includes reviews on your landing page. Reviews about the experience, like friendly staff or easy parking, are treated differently, so check before you use any.
- **Offers need their terms.** A discount or a gift has to state the terms and conditions in the ad or right next to it.
- **No promises you can’t keep.** Nothing that creates unreasonable expectations of a result.

The [Ahpra advertising hub](https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Resources/Advertising-hub.aspx) has the full guidelines and a testimonial tool, and the ADA has a short [advertising compliance](https://ada.org.au/explore/topics/advertising-compliance) summary. We’re not lawyers, so when something feels borderline, check with them or your indemnity insurer before it goes live.

## Check your tracking before you believe the report

This is the one I’d put at the top if I had to pick. It’s the most common problem we find in clinic accounts, and it’s invisible until someone goes looking.

What happens is this. The website sends two separate events every time someone submits a form, both get set up as conversions, and every enquiry quietly counts twice. Add your own practice name searches on top, and the account looks far better than it is. The agency’s report says 90 enquiries, the front desk says 50, and everyone assumes the front desk is losing messages.

So before a dollar was spent on the account above, the tracking was built to count each enquiry once, by type: forms, online bookings, calls from the ads, and taps on the phone number. If someone who runs a practice is going to read the report, it has to be a number they can check against the appointment book.

If your ads report a great month but the book isn’t any fuller, start here. Our guide to [auditing your own Google Ads account](https://performancemarketer.com.au/how-to-audit-your-google-ads-account/) walks through the checks, and you don’t need an agency to do them.

## What about Facebook and Instagram?

Google catches patients who are ready now. Facebook and Instagram are better for treatments people think about for a while, like aligners or whitening, and for getting your practice known in the local area. Most practices should start on Google and add Facebook once the first campaign is paying for itself. We go through the choice in [Google Ads vs Facebook ads](https://performancemarketer.com.au/google-ads-vs-facebook-ads/), and our wider approach for clinics in [allied health marketing](https://performancemarketer.com.au/allied-health-marketing-google-ads-seo/).

## Questions practice owners ask me

### How much should a dental practice spend on Google Ads?

Start with what a new patient is worth to you over a year, and how many enquiries you turn into appointments. The clinic above paid about $30 an enquiry on about $100 a day. Expect the cost to vary a lot by treatment, and judge each campaign against what that particular patient is worth.

### Can I advertise a new patient special?

Yes, as long as the terms and conditions are stated clearly alongside it. Think about who it attracts, though. A $99 check-up offer brings $99 check-up people.

### Should I bid on my own practice name?

Usually yes, because competitors can, and it’s cheap. Just keep it in a separate campaign so you can see what your other campaigns are doing on their own.

### Do online bookings count as conversions?

They should, if your booking system can pass them back to Google. They’re the closest thing to a booked patient you’ll see in Google Ads, and they’re worth more to the bidding than a form fill.

## Want more of the right patients?

Give me a call, or book a time below. We’ll look at which treatments you want to grow, what people are searching for around your practice, and whether your tracking can be trusted. See how we work with [dental practices](https://performancemarketer.com.au/dental-marketing/) and how we run [Google Ads](https://performancemarketer.com.au/services/paid-search/).

[Book a call](https://performancemarketer.com.au/contact/)

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Performance Marketer Digital is a Melbourne performance marketing agency run by founder Hatim Abbas. It runs Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram ads, SEO and conversion tracking for Australian businesses, with clients across 23 industries. Management starts from $2,000 a month, plus ad spend. Phone +61 424 482 653. Book a call: https://performancemarketer.com.au/contact/