Ophthalmology converts at 14.0% and costs $30.88 a lead — behind only dermatology among sixteen US healthcare specialties. The gap between routine-exam traffic and surgical-consult traffic is what most accounts get wrong.
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Ophthalmology & Optometry in US search — medians across 3,542 campaigns
Ophthalmology has the second-best economics in healthcare search. The cost is almost always a routine-exam and surgical-consult budget fighting each other.
Someone searching for an annual eye exam and someone comparing cataract surgeons are worth completely different amounts. One campaign means the cheap, high-volume exam searches out-compete the expensive, high-value surgical ones for the same budget.
These are the highest-value conversions in the specialty, and the click costs reflect it. An account sized for routine-exam CPCs gets outbid on exactly the searches worth winning.
Many optometry patients call to check insurance and availability before booking online. If call tracking isn't wired in, the account is optimising against a partial picture of what's actually converting.
The spread here is less about good versus bad terms and more about routine versus high-value intent. Here is roughly how we sort it.
| Search intent | Example terms | Worth bidding on? |
|---|---|---|
| Routine / recurring | eye exam near me annual eye exam optometrist accepting new patients | Yes — volume base |
| Diagnostic / urgent | eye doctor for red eye sudden blurry vision doctor pink eye treatment near me | Yes — high converting |
| Elective surgical, high value | lasik consultation [city] cataract surgery near me best cataract surgeon | Yes — separate campaign, higher bids |
| Contacts and glasses retail | contact lens exam glasses near me | Carefully — retail-intent, lower value |
| Cost shopping | lasik cost cheapest eye exam | No — price shoppers, negative candidate |
| Self-diagnosis research | how to improve eyesight naturally eye floaters causes | No — not booking intent |
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Different budgets, different bids, different landing pages. A $4 routine-exam click and a $40+ LASIK-consult click should never be competing for the same daily budget.
A cataract or LASIK consult is worth many multiples of a routine exam. The bidding is set so the account chases the appointment worth winning, not just the one that's cheapest to get.
So insurance and availability calls — which optometry gets more of than most specialties — count as the conversions they are, instead of vanishing from the account's data.
Routine exam, urgent/diagnostic, and elective surgical each get a page that answers what that specific searcher actually wants to know before booking.
Elective surgical terms move in cost quickly and healthcare ad copy gets disapproved for wording nobody expected. Both are caught the same day, not at a monthly review.
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| Specialty | Cost per click | Conversion rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ophthalmology | $4.32 | 14.0% | $30.88 |
| Dermatology | $4.90 | 25.3% | $18.54 |
| 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 run 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 $30.88 per lead at $4.32 per click and a 14.0% conversion rate — the second most efficient of sixteen healthcare specialties benchmarked, behind only dermatology.
No. They're worth very different amounts and attract different searchers. Running them together usually means the cheaper, higher-volume exam searches consume the budget meant for the far more valuable surgical consults.
Because the value of winning that patient is much higher than a routine exam, so more practices bid harder for it. An account that bids the same across all of ophthalmology will consistently lose the surgical-consult auctions it most wants to win.
At $30.88 per lead, $1,500 a month should produce roughly 48 enquiries in an average market — though a practice pushing elective surgical consults should expect a smaller number of far more valuable leads rather than optimising for lead count alone.
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