Key facts
- Google's Healthcare and medicines advertising policy applies to dental ads in most regions, restricting claims and, in some countries, requiring the advertiser to complete a certification process before ads are allowed to run at all.
- A new patient exam and cleaning is typically the entry offer that gets a household through the door, while implants, orthodontics, and cosmetic cases carry a far higher ticket and a longer decision cycle, and a marketing plan that treats every service the same is misreading the practice's own economics.
- Most dental patients now book through an online form or a practice management system's booking widget rather than a phone call alone, so a marketing vendor needs to know which practice management or scheduling software the practice runs before proposing a conversion path that assumes the wrong tool.
- Search phrases for dental care split sharply by urgency: "emergency dentist near me" behaves nothing like "invisalign cost", and a campaign built on one keyword strategy for both will either overspend on low-value emergency clicks or underserve patients who need care immediately.
- In the US, patient testimonials and case photos used in marketing have to respect HIPAA, and in Canada the equivalent constraints come from PIPEDA and provincial health information law, so any before-and-after photo or patient story needs documented, informed consent before it goes into an ad or a website.
Scope boundaries
Name the channels in scope: the website, local SEO and Google Business Profile, and Google Ads, or whichever subset the practice is actually hiring for. State which services get dedicated pages or campaigns, general dentistry, cosmetic, orthodontics, implants, since a single-doctor general practice and a multi-provider cosmetic-heavy practice need very different weighting.
Out of scope unless separately priced: in-office signage, direct mail, and any campaign requiring a certification the vendor has not completed under Google's healthcare advertising policy. Ask directly whether the vendor has run that certification process before, since an agency new to dental cannot legally run certain ad types until it has.
What the vendor must be given
Manager access to the practice's Google Business Profile, Google Ads account, and analytics property, not ownership of any of them. Read access, or a defined data feed, from the practice management or scheduling software so the vendor can see which campaigns actually produce booked new-patient appointments, not just form submissions.
A clear list of services the practice wants to grow versus services it is already at capacity for, since promoting a service the practice cannot staff for wastes ad spend. Written, documented consent processes the practice already has for using patient photos or stories, or a plan to build one before any campaign uses patient material.
Ownership and exit clauses
State that the practice owns its Google Business Profile, its Google Ads account, its website and domain, and its analytics properties outright, with the vendor added as a manager, never as the primary account holder. This matters more in dental than in many categories, since a practice sale or a doctor's retirement can mean an abrupt ownership transition that should not also mean losing the marketing accounts.
On exit, require full access handover within a set number of days and a copy of any patient consent documentation used in marketing, since that record needs to travel with the practice, not stay with the departing vendor.
Milestones and acceptance tests
Website and Google Business Profile audit within two weeks, including a check on Google's healthcare advertising certification status if the practice already runs ads. Campaign structure separated by service line within 30 days, so implants and general checkups are not sharing one budget with no visibility into which converts new patients.
Acceptance test at 90 days: can the vendor show, per service line, how many new-patient appointments were booked, not just leads generated, tying back to the practice management system where possible. A report that stops at form submissions without connecting to actual booked visits has not proven the marketing worked.
Scoring rubric
Weight bidders on category-specific competence, not just general agency credentials.
Dental-specific experience and understanding of the healthcare advertising policy, 25 percent.
Ability to separate and report by service line, 20 percent.
Integration with the practice's booking or practice management software, 20 percent.
Price and contract terms, 20 percent.
References from other dental practices, called directly, 15 percent.
A bidder with no healthcare-category experience should have to explain how they will handle the ad certification requirement before scoring further.
Questions every bidder must answer
Get these in writing.
Have you completed Google's healthcare and medicines advertising certification, and for how many dental clients have you run it?
How do you separate reporting between general dentistry, cosmetic, orthodontics, and implants?
What is your process for getting documented consent before using a patient photo or story?
How do you connect ad and website leads back to actual booked appointments in our scheduling system?
Who ends up owning the Google Ads account, the Business Profile, and the website once the contract is signed?
What happens to our accounts and any patient consent records if we switch agencies?
Related questions
Not automatically. Google's Healthcare and medicines advertising policy covers dental ads in most regions and, in some countries, requires the advertiser or agency to complete a certification process before the ads are allowed to run. Ask any bidder directly whether they have completed it and how many dental clients they have run it for.
Usually both, but weighted deliberately rather than equally. Checkups and cleanings tend to fill the schedule and bring in new households, while implants, orthodontics, and cosmetic cases carry a higher ticket and a longer decision cycle. A marketing plan should say explicitly how the budget splits between the two, not treat every service the same.
Only with documented, informed consent, and that consent needs to hold up under HIPAA in the US or PIPEDA and provincial health information law in Canada. This is worth confirming with the practice's own compliance process, and any marketing vendor should be asking for proof of consent, not just assuming it exists.
Tie reporting back to the practice management or scheduling system, so you can see booked new-patient appointments per service line, not just form submissions or calls. A vendor who cannot connect the marketing to an actual booked visit has not proven the spend is working.
Yes. Someone searching for an emergency dentist is ready to book within hours and needs a fast, obvious path to a phone number or same-day booking, while someone researching invisalign cost is earlier in a longer decision. Treating both with the same keyword strategy or the same landing page usually underserves one or overspends on the other.
SearchPod is a vendor for this kind of work and would answer this RFP; the acceptance tests here are the ones we agree to.
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