Dermatology converts at 25.3% and costs $18.54 a lead — better than any other US healthcare specialty. Which means a badly structured account is leaving an unusual amount on the table.
Someone searching for a mole check and someone searching for laser resurfacing have nothing in common except your building. Same campaign means one budget, one set of ad copy and one landing page trying to speak to both. Neither gets spoken to well.
On terms like botox and laser hair removal you are in an auction with med spas that have far looser margins and will outbid you all day. Your advantage is that you are a physician's practice — the ads have to say so, or the click is wasted.
Dermatology books through calls as often as forms. If call tracking isn't wired in, half the conversions simply don't exist in the account, and the bidding algorithm optimises against a number that's missing its better half.
Dermatology has an unusually wide spread between the terms that book appointments and the terms that just burn budget. Here is roughly how we sort them.
| Search intent | Example terms | Worth bidding on? |
|---|---|---|
| Condition-specific, high intent | acne treatment near me eczema specialist [city] skin cancer screening near me | Yes — core budget |
| Urgent / diagnostic | mole check near me rash that won't go away doctor dermatologist appointment today | Yes — highest converting |
| Cosmetic, physician-led | medical grade chemical peel dermatologist botox [city] prescription acne treatment | Yes — separate campaign |
| Cosmetic, med-spa overlap | botox near me laser hair removal filler prices | Carefully — tight geo, capped |
| Insurance and cost shopping | does insurance cover dermatology cheapest dermatologist | No — price shoppers |
| Self-treatment research | how to get rid of acne at home eczema home remedies | No — not looking for a clinic |
Different budgets, different ad copy, different landing pages, different conversion values. A skin cancer screening and a filler consult are two businesses sharing a waiting room, and the account should reflect that.
Bidding on 'dermatologist' puts you against everyone. Bidding on 'eczema specialist' and 'adult acne treatment' puts you in front of people who already know what they need, at a lower cost and a higher conversion rate.
Numbers that record which campaign produced each call, so the half of your enquiries that arrive by phone stop being invisible to the account.
One page per condition group, each answering the questions that actually precede booking: waiting time, whether it's covered, what happens at the first visit.
| Specialty | Cost per click | Conversion rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dermatology | $4.90 | 25.3% | $18.54 |
| Ophthalmology | $4.32 | 14.0% | $30.88 |
| Physical therapy | $4.95 | 15.4% | $32.79 |
| All healthcare (median) | $5.64 | 8.09% | $66.02 |
| General dentistry | $7.03 | 7.7% | $84.77 |
| Plastic surgery | $8.41 | 8.2% | $102.51 |
LocaliQ healthcare search advertising benchmarks, updated January 2026, based on 3,542 US campaigns running October 2024 to September 2025. Medians, US dollars. Your own numbers will vary with location, competition and how the account is built.
The US median is $18.54 per lead at $4.90 per click and a 25.3% conversion rate, making dermatology the most efficient of sixteen healthcare specialties benchmarked. Cosmetic dermatology terms cost substantially more than medical terms, often 40 to 70 percent higher per click.
No. They attract different patients, convert at different rates and carry very different click costs. Running them together means one budget and one set of ad copy serving two audiences, and the cosmetic terms will usually consume the budget while the medical terms convert better.
Yes, with limits. Google restricts some claims and before-and-after imagery in healthcare advertising, and prescription treatment names carry their own rules. We build the ads within those constraints rather than getting them disapproved and rewriting later.
At $18.54 per lead, a budget of $1,500 a month should produce roughly 80 enquiries in an average market. What matters more is how many new patients you can actually absorb — we'd rather set the budget to your capacity than to a round number.
$497 a month for a single location with one campaign, or $997 a month for unlimited campaigns across up to three locations. Flat, in US dollars, regardless of your ad spend. Month to month, no setup fee, and the Google Ads account is yours.
We open your Google Ads account, work through the search terms, bids and tracking, and send you a plain-English writeup of what's leaking money. Free, and yours to keep whether you hire us or not — and if you go ahead, your first month of management is free too.