Facebook Ads for Chiropractors: Stop the Discounts

We have a confession.

We get all the “feels” when we see agencies running discount Facebook ads for chiropractors.

There is an old saying…

“In the absence of a value, all that matters is the price.”

For some unknown reason, chiropractors worldwide have been duped into thinking the only way to attract new patients is…

Are you ready for this?

By dramatically discounting their services.

The Truth About Discount Facebook Ads for Chiropractors

Facebook ads for chiropractors have helped a lot of docs race to the bottom with low cost fees and “crazy deals.”

We’ve even started seeing bait and switch ads.

These discount Facebook ads for chiropractors promise a free product (ie. come get your free pillow) only to try to convince their people to get chiropractic care when they come to claim it.

While this type of advertising can produce tons of leads…

At the end of the day, you’re left with few new patients and a massive amount of frustration, not to mention wasted time/money.

It’s pretty embarrassing, but most of the docs mean well.

Most likely, they just didn’t know there is a different – and better – way.

A way that provides more consistent and predictable results.

Too many chiropractors confuse the two.

Some have gone so far to make paid advertising campaigns their entire marketing budget and strategy.

Bad idea.

Paid advertising done well amplifies your over-performing organic content to your already warm traffic.

If that sounds like a bunch of crazy jargon, don’t worry.

We’ll break it all down in this article.

Most digital advertising is based on either a PPC model (pay per click) or CPM (cost per thousand impressions).

In a PPC model, you get to choose to show ads to only a specific segment of people you want.

On top of that, you only have to pay when people click on the ad and take action.

That’s the power of PPC.

The amount you pay per click depends on the audience size and keywords.

Using the same example with a CPM model, you would pay for the 10,000 views or impressions.

It sounds like this could get expensive quickly, but the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is typically REALLY low for chiropractors.

Depending on your audience size and keywords, it may be as low as a few bucks per thousand impressions.

The bottom line is that many chiropractic ad agencies create a single ad (usually with a discount) and then copy/paste this ad across all of their client’s pages while charging a monthly management fee of hundreds of dollars for their copy/paste work.

Yikes.

But, there is a plan and strategy to create Facebook ads for chiropractors without discounts.

It’s just not as easy as copy/paste.

As you get started, don’t get discouraged or panic.

Facebook is Interest-Focused

Facebook has an entirely different advertising approach than Google.

They have gathered a ton of data on their users, and here is the real magic, you can create custom audiences from your email list and post engagement.

With Facebook Ads, you can choose exactly who to show your ads to and focus on retention and patient activation instead of “advertising” to cold traffic.

Map Your Campaign to Your Sales Funnel

One mistake docs, and ad agencies, make all the time is they think they can create an ad, point to a sales page, and voila!

You have a new patient machine!

If you do this, you’ll miss over 90% of the potential benefits of digital advertising.

A better way to structure your digital advertising strategy is to focus on retargeting your ads through your sales funnel.

The best way to do this is to design campaigns (and goals) for each of the following…

By launching campaigns with these clear goals, you can optimize your targeting, budget, and messaging accordingly.

Top of Funnel Campaigns

These campaigns are designed to attract relevant traffic.

You may choose to boost or put money behind a social post, blog, or video performing well organically.

Your goal is to create awareness for your practice by sharing an engaging and exciting piece of content.

Middle of Funnel Campaigns

These campaigns are designed to acquire email addresses or followers.

Ideally, these campaigns are using warm traffic (people who engaged with your top-of-funnel campaign) who are then driven towards a lead magnet, video series, etc., in exchange for their email address.

Bottom of Funnel Campaigns

The bottom of funnel campaigns is designed to activate patients.

These ads should have a direct call to action.

You’ll notice that our bottom-of-the-funnel campaign, with the strong call to action, is NOT at the top of the funnel.

Lazy advertisers do this incorrectly every day.

They run discount ads at the top of the funnel and sell you on the “leads” they generate.

Don’t be fooled!

Retention

Retention is all about increasing your customer’s lifetime value, reducing your churn rate, and getting referrals.

Upsells, cross-sells, and referral programs fit into this category.

So how do you get your campaigns in front of the right audience?

Let’s find out next.

Campaign Targeting

Targeting is the most important step when launching ads- probably even more than the Facebook ads for chiropractors themselves.

The only way you’ll see results from your ads is if you can get them in front of the right people.

There are two primary ways to target…

Retargeting is the best way to activate patients.

Ironically, most chiropractors focus on prospecting and spend a ton of money promoting discount Facebook ads for chiropractors to cold audiences.

It’s just plain ineffective!

Facebook Ad Targeting

Facebook Ads let you target prospects in three ways…

Each of these works in a different way.

Core audiences are built manually using Facebook’s data to choose locations, demographics, interests, etc.

This type of targeting is used by docs when they just get started and haven’t yet built a custom audience.

With custom audiences (our favorite), you can run Facebook ads for chiropractors to people who already know you.

This may include people who have visited your website, subscribed to your email list, or engaged with your content organically.

This is the most powerful way to connect and activate patients.

To do this effectively, we recommend setting up three custom audiences…

The Website audience is populated automatically after you place the Facebook Pixel on your website.

The pixel is a small piece of code that puts everyone who visits your website into a custom audience on Facebook.

The Email audience is created by uploading your email list to Facebook.

Facebook will then search for the profiles attached to the email addresses and build a custom audience.

The engaged audience is based upon engaged people (comment, like, share) on your organic content.

This audience is significant and influential, but you need to consistently publish great material to make it work.

Writing Conversion Driven Copy

Most ads only contain a few words, so choose them carefully.

Facebook has a strong desire not to “single out” people.

Be general enough to encompass an array of people but specific enough to encourage action.

Hey, we didn’t say it was easy!

Including your keyword in the headline of the ads is a good practice.

Also, be sure to focus on the benefits of chiropractic rather than the features.

Don’t forget about including a solid and straightforward call to action.

Don’t be timid.

Make Sure Your Landing Pages Match Your Ads

This sounds basic but can crush an ad campaign if not done well.

Your landing page needs to match your ads.

If your ad is for low back issues, make sure your landing page has a low back-related picture.

You’re likely to have an incredibly high bounce rate (people leaving without acting) if your ads don’t match your landing pages.

Don’t have a landing page built yet?

No worries, direct the ad to land on the most relevant page on your website.

This could be a blog article related to the ad topic, your online scheduler, or the front page of your website.

Stats: Facebook Ad Metrics

To make the right decisions with your budget, you’ll need to know sous of the most common metrics and definitions.

If you’re new to Facebook Ads, here are some of the most important:

Cost Per Click (CPC): your cost per click is the most basic digital advertising metric.

It is the amount of money you spend every time someone clicks one of your ads.

You can use this to estimate your budgets and get a general idea if your campaign is profitable or not.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): click-through rate is the percentage of people who click your ads relative to the number of people who saw them.

A high click-through rate indicates that your target is solid, your creativity is engaging, and people are taking action!

Cost Per Acquisition (CAC): your cost per acquisition, or cost per activation, is the average amount of money you spend to get a single new patient.

Avoid these Traps

Advertising isn’t easy, and you’ll likely lose money when you get started (that’s why we prefer content marketing!).

But here are sous beginner traps to avoid.

Violating policies

Please get familiar with the platforms and their policies.

If you violate, then too often, you risk having your ad accounts shut down or your pages de-activated.

Getting too cute

Stick to the basics when you get started.

Don’t worry about 11 steps, multi-channel story branded journeys until you at least have success retargeting and activating your warm audiences!

Forgetting to set budgets

Be careful.

Don’t forget to set your budget.

We’ve spoken with many docs who mistakenly ran an ad to the entire world with a $10,000 budget—spoiler: the $10,000 disappeared instantly.

Starting too broad

When it comes to digital advertising unless you have a lot of experience, it’s better to start small.

Launch a single campaign, target a single audience, focus on a single goal, and stick to a small budget.

Does My Practice Need to Advertise on Facebook?

Many chiropractic practices can benefit from digital advertising on Facebook.

It’s not a necessity, but when done right- it can generate fantastic results.

Be careful of ad agencies who copy/paste one discount ad across hundreds of chiropractors’ accounts.

It places your practice in a race to the bottom.

The scary part is that you might win!

We recommend retargeting Facebook ads for chiropractors based upon custom audiences.

It’s more work to get started, but it’s worth it.

A Word About Patient Pilot by The Smart Chiropractor

Looking for more guidance, tools, retention tips, chiropractic marketing ideas, and an email marketing strategy for chiropractors created to help you start attracting new chiropractic patients and help your practice grow?

We’re here to help.

Over the past year, our team of chiropractic marketing geeks at The Smart Chiropractor has worked with over 300 practices and sent over 10 million emails.

There’s one BIG thing we learned from working with practice after practice after practice that we’ve kept in mind as we crafted this handy guide breaking down the do’s and dont’s of Facebook ads for chiropractors…

Too many chiropractors with holes in their schedule form their marketing strategy around the notion that they have a new patient problem.

However, that’s often NOT the case.

Think of it this way…

That’s where Patient Pilot comes in.

Our email marketing strategy for chiropractors and automated chiropractic email marketing system was designed to help provide patients with a fantastic experience that, in turn, can help fill the holes in your practice’s patient bucket.

Click here to schedule a demo and see how Patient Pilot can transform email marketing in 2024 in your practice.