Physical therapy converts at 15.4% and costs $32.79 a lead — third best of sixteen US healthcare specialties. Almost all of that advantage comes from bidding on what hurts, not on what you're called.
It's the obvious keyword, which is why it's the expensive one. Meanwhile the person searching 'lower back pain won't go away' is further from a decision but far cheaper to reach, and will convert once the page addresses their actual problem.
Direct access rules vary by state, and the first thing a prospective patient wonders is whether they need a doctor's note. If the ad and landing page don't answer that in the first screen, a meaningful share of clicks leave to go find out.
A post-surgical rehab course is worth many times a single assessment, but most accounts count both as one conversion. The bidding then optimises toward whatever converts most often rather than whatever is worth most.
In physical therapy the gap between a good keyword and a wasteful one is unusually wide, because so many searches are people trying to avoid a clinic rather than find one.
| Search intent | Example terms | Worth bidding on? |
|---|---|---|
| Condition + persistence | lower back pain treatment shoulder pain won't go away sciatica relief near me | Yes — core budget |
| Post-surgical / post-injury | acl rehab near me physical therapy after knee replacement rotator cuff rehab | Yes — highest value |
| Sports and activity specific | running injury clinic sports physio [city] tennis elbow treatment | Yes — strong intent |
| Clinic / specialty terms | physical therapy near me physiotherapist [city] | Yes, but capped — expensive |
| Insurance and coverage | does medicare cover physical therapy free physical therapy | No — researching, not booking |
| Self-treatment | back stretches for pain exercises for sciatica at home | No — avoiding the clinic |
Back, knee, shoulder, post-surgical. Each with its own budget and landing page, so a person with shoulder pain reads about shoulders rather than about your facilities.
If your state allows direct access, say so in the headline. It removes the single biggest reason people click away before booking.
Assessment bookings and post-surgical enquiries get different conversion values, so the bidding chases the higher-value patient instead of the more frequent one.
Most PT enquiries start with a call about availability and insurance. If those aren't tracked, the account is optimising on a fraction of the real data.
| Specialty | Cost per click | Conversion rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical therapy | $4.95 | 15.4% | $32.79 |
| Dermatology | $4.90 | 25.3% | $18.54 |
| Ophthalmology | $4.32 | 14.0% | $30.88 |
| 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 $32.79 per lead at $4.95 per click and a 15.4% conversion rate. That makes physical therapy the third most efficient of sixteen healthcare specialties benchmarked, behind dermatology and ophthalmology.
Condition-level terms consistently beat clinic-level terms. Searches like 'lower back pain treatment' or 'ACL rehab near me' cost less per click than 'physical therapy near me' and convert better, because the searcher has already identified their problem.
Some form of direct access is permitted in all fifty states, though the limits differ by state and by insurer. Because so many prospective patients assume they need a referral, saying otherwise in the ad copy measurably improves click-to-booking rates where it applies.
At $32.79 per lead, $1,500 a month produces roughly 45 enquiries in an average market. Set the number against how many new evaluation slots you can realistically fill each week rather than against a target spend.
$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 account stays 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.