Google Ads for Eye and Specialist Clinics in Surat: A Setup

An eye hospital in Surat was spending well on Google and getting plenty of clicks. When we opened the search terms report, a large share of the budget was going to people looking for spectacle shops, contact lens prices online, free eye camps and optometry courses. Real cataract patients were in there too, but they were paying for everyone else. Google search ads are brilliant at catching people at the moment they need you. They are just as good at catching everyone who does not, if you let them.

How should a Surat clinic structure its campaigns?

By treatment, not by area. Cataract surgery is one campaign. LASIK is another. Retina care is a third. Each gets its own budget, so you know exactly what each treatment costs you to acquire.

Inside each campaign, split ad groups by intent:

Most Surat patients search in English or Hinglish, even when they speak Gujarati at home. You will see some Gujarati words appear, like "motiyo" for cataract, so watch your search terms and add the ones that bring real patients. Start with exact and phrase match, and build the account out from what actually converts.

Which areas should you target?

Handle areas through location settings, not separate campaigns. Target a realistic radius around each clinic, plus the specific towns that already send you patients. For many Surat specialists that includes places like Navsari, Bardoli, Vyara, Bharuch, Ankleshwar and Valsad, but your own CRM is the only list that counts. Pull the addresses of your last hundred treated patients and target what you see.

Decide deliberately whether to show ads only to people who are physically in those areas. Relatives abroad do search for a parent's surgery in Surat, but they are a different conversation, better handled through your website, your videos and fast WhatsApp replies than through broad location settings that let your budget leak worldwide.

Which searches should you block?

Build the negative list before launch, and grow it every week. For an eye clinic in Surat, a starting set might be:

1. Shops and products: optician, spectacles shop, frames, sunglasses, contact lens buy, lens price online, eye drops.
2. Free and camps: free, camp, government, scheme, trust hospital, if those patients will not book with you.
3. Careers: optometry course, job, vacancy, salary, training, college.
4. Wrong intent: meaning, diagram, images, home remedy.

Then open the search terms report every week. Bad searches become negatives, good ones become keywords. This boring habit saves more money than any clever bidding.

When should the ads run?

When someone can answer. Match the ad schedule to your front desk hours. Many Surat families, especially trading families, call in the late evening after work. If your clinic can answer then, keep ads running and staff the phones. If not, pause them or set up an instant WhatsApp reply that promises a call at a fixed time the next morning.

Add call buttons, location and links to key pages to every ad. Run a small campaign on your own clinic and doctor names, so a competitor cannot sit above you when someone searches for you directly.

What should the ad and the page say?

Answer the search. For "cataract operation cost Surat", explain that you offer clear all-inclusive plans and that the final cost depends on the lens the surgeon recommends. For "best eye surgeon in Surat", lead with experience, the procedures you do every week and your proof. Never promise guaranteed results, never promote prescription drugs, and never advertise unproven treatments.

Send every ad to the condition page that matches the search. Never the homepage. A good page answers, in plain words, who it is for, the options, what happens step by step, the risks, how pricing works, and the questions patients ask. For an eye clinic in Surat, add how long the visit takes, whether someone should come with the patient, and how families from nearby towns can plan the trip. We build these in websites and search, including for eye care.

Why can't you follow visitors around with ads?

Because Google restricts personalised advertising based on health. You cannot show ads to people just because they visited your cataract page last week. That surprises a lot of doctors who have seen remarketing work for shops.

It means you win this channel on three boring things: a strong negative keyword list, a dedicated page for every treatment, and someone picking up the phone within a few rings. In most accounts we take over, those three bring bigger gains than any bidding trick. And do not change everything every few days. Let each change run long enough to show you something.

How do you judge the budget?

By cost per treated patient. Here is a worked example. Two campaigns each spend ₹75,000 in a month.

• Campaign A brings 150 leads at ₹500 each, and 5 start treatment: ₹15,000 per treated patient.
• Campaign B brings 75 leads at ₹1,000 each, and 12 start treatment: ₹6,250 per treated patient.

Campaign B looks expensive on a lead report and is far cheaper where it counts. Count calls, forms and WhatsApp clicks as conversions, log every lead in your CRM with its source, and send back which leads booked and started treatment so Google learns what a real patient looks like. Keep automated bidding off until you have a steady flow of tracked conversions.

Aim to keep cost per treated patient under 10 to 20% of first-year value. We run accounts this way in patient acquisition for clinics across India, including in Surat.

The short version

• One campaign per treatment, ad groups by intent, areas handled in location settings.
• Target the towns your CRM shows patients really come from.
• Block shop, product, camp and course searches, and review search terms weekly.
• Run ads when someone answers, send each one to a matching page, and judge by cost per treated patient.