Google Ads for Hospitals: Service Line Campaigns, Negatives and Costs

Many hospital Google accounts we open look the same. One campaign called "Hospital". Two hundred keywords from cardiology to cosmetic surgery. Every ad pointing to the homepage. A monthly report that shows clicks going up and nobody able to say which department got a single patient from it. The money is real. The learning is zero. Here is how hospital owners can turn Google into something they can actually steer.

How should a hospital structure its Google Ads account?

One campaign for every service line you want to grow, and within that, one for each major procedure. Joint replacement is one campaign. Kidney stones is another. Cataract is a third. Each gets its own budget, so you can see exactly what each department costs to fill.

Inside each campaign, group keywords by intent, each with its own ad group:

• The treatment: "knee replacement surgery in Nagpur"
• The cost: "knee replacement cost with insurance"
• The specialist: "best orthopaedic surgeon near me"
• The condition: "knee pain while climbing stairs treatment"

Keep matching tight at first, with exact and phrase match. Loose matching on a new account sprays money across searches that have nothing to do with your departments.

Then decide budgets by margin and capacity, not by which head of department asks loudest. A line with strong margins and free theatre time deserves the next rupee. A line already running at full capacity does not need ads this month.

What should a hospital block in Google Ads?

Hospitals attract a lot of junk searches, because job seekers, students and visitors all search hospital names and departments. Build negatives before launch:

• job, vacancy, recruitment, salary, walk-in interview
• staff nurse, GNM, ANM, nursing course, internship, training, fellowship
• hospital management course, MBA, degree
• visiting hours, attendant pass, canteen, parking
• bill format, discharge summary format, sample
• free treatment and government scheme names, unless you are empanelled and want those patients
• other hospitals' names, unless you have decided to bid on them deliberately
• home remedy, ayurvedic, yoga, symptoms meaning

Then review the search terms report every week, campaign by campaign. Each irrelevant search becomes a negative, and each promising one becomes a new keyword. It is the single habit that saves the most money in the accounts we take over.

Why does every department need its own landing page?

Because a patient who searched for one procedure and landed on a page listing thirty specialities usually leaves. When we split hospital accounts into one campaign per treatment with its own page, enquiries rise and, for the first time, the owner can see what each treatment costs to acquire.

A strong department page includes:

1. A headline in the patient's words.
2. The condition, the options, including non-surgical ones, and the honest risks.
3. What happens, step by step, from first visit to recovery.
4. The lead doctors, with qualifications and procedures performed.
5. How pricing works, the package approach, EMI and the insurers you are cashless with.
6. Real reviews and results shared with written consent.
7. Eight to ten questions and answers.
8. A call button with that department's tracked number, WhatsApp and a short form.

Never promote prescription drugs in ads or on these pages, never guarantee results, and keep unproven treatments out entirely. Google reviews the page as well as the ad.

Why should a hospital run a brand campaign?

Patients who were referred, who saw your outreach OPD or who heard your name from a neighbour will search for you. So will a competitor's ads. A small campaign on your hospital's name and your senior doctors' names keeps you at the top when someone looks for you directly, and it is usually cheap.

Also remember that Google restricts personalised advertising based on health. You cannot follow people who visited your cardiology page around the internet. You win this channel on keywords, pages and answered phones.

What should a hospital pay for one patient from Google?

Judge every line by cost per treated patient: per surgery, per procedure, per delivery, per completed check. Not by clicks or leads.

Example: Two service lines each spend ₹1,20,000 in a month. Urology gets 160 leads at ₹750 each, and 6 go on to a stone procedure: ₹20,000 per procedure. General surgery gets 80 leads at ₹1,500 each, and 10 go on to surgery: ₹12,000 per surgery. The line with the more expensive leads was the cheaper one where it counts.

Compare each result with that line's first-year value and margin. Hospitals often run on thinner margins than boutique clinics, so a cost per case that looks fine on revenue can be a loss once you check the margin per procedure.

To get there, track properly. Give each department its own call tracking number. Count calls, form fills and WhatsApp taps as conversions, then send back to Google which leads were admitted or treated, so its bidding learns what a real patient looks like for each line. Hold off on automated bidding until a campaign has a steady flow of these conversions every month.

Who should answer the calls the ads create?

The most expensive mistake in a hospital account is paying for a call that rings out, or one that disappears into an IVR menu. Run department ads only when that department's enquiries can be answered by a trained person, and route ad calls to a lead desk that knows each department's doctors, schedules and package approach.

Our patient acquisition team builds service line accounts like this, and our conversion systems work sets up the lead desk behind them. See our hospitals page, and the Google chapter of Known Doctors Get Booked.

The short version

• One campaign per service line and procedure, each with its own budget.
• Budget by margin and capacity, not by who asks loudest.
• Block jobs, nursing courses, visiting hours and other hospital-specific junk before launch.
• Every ad lands on its department's page, never the homepage, and protect your name with a brand campaign.
• Judge each line by cost per admission or procedure against its margin.