Should You Run Google Ads? When Paid Search Beats Waiting on SEO

This is the Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice, one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction. 

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of the Thriving Dentist Show. I'm Gary Takacs, the Thriving Dentist Show podcast founder and co-host. We're very excited to bring a new episode for you today. This episode is titled, Should You Run Google Ads? When Paid Search Beats Waiting for Organic Search Engine Optimization. Well, that was a mouthful of a title, but quite a number of you have sent in a request for this topic. So we have a really great episode for you today, and we're gonna let you know when paid ads may make sense, and when maybe organic SEO might be all you need. But before we get into that episode, I have one announcement to make. Those of you that are a regular Thriving Dentist Show podcast listener know that we regularly put on virtual events. They could be webinars, they could be summits, they could be panels. Discussions, we could be just experts that we want to have on a virtual event sharing their expertise. And we have one coming up at the end of September, shortly after this episode is published, and this is a Thriving Dentist Summit. And the topic is, Do You Know the 3 Numbers That Control Your Dental Practice's Profit? The date of that is September 29th. It's a three-hour summit. You'll get three hours of CE. Oh, the really cool thing about our virtual events, there is no tuition, and we provide CE whenever we can. There are some topics we're not able to provide CE for based on the topic, but in many cases we can provide CE. If we are able to provide CE, you'll get the benefit of that continued education. In this case, it's gonna be 3 hours. You do have to stay start to finish, at no tuition. Hey, how's that for stretching your continued education budget? You do have to register, and to register for that, again, it's coming up on the 29th of September. It starts at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. So go ahead and do the translation based on where you are in the country. And you have to register, go to thrivingdentist.com/events . Look forward to seeing you then.

Gary Takacs: Well, welcome back to the Thriving Dentist Show. This is a topic, as I mentioned in the intro, that many of you have requested, and we're excited to go into a little bit more detail. Should you run Google Ads, when paid search beats waiting on organic search engine optimization. So, Naren, paid search is, in my perspective, one of the most misunderstood tools in dental marketing. I think some practice owners pour money into the paid ads. They fall for the Google trap. Yes, let me be real blunt, Google wants you to buy ads, because that's our business model is you buying ads. The option is to either buy ads or master organic search engine optimization. Organic simply means that you're not paying for it, you're earning it in the performance of your website. Everything Google does sets you up to give up on organic SEO and instead buy ads. So many practice owners just look at that and say, well, I just have to pay Google. I just might as well belly up to the counter and pay for it. It's easy on the doctor's part. It's easy to do, to buy ads, but it has a consequence, and the consequence is that it can be very expensive. So, we're going to unpack this episode. It can be paid ads can be an appropriate strategy or some blend of paid ads versus organic search engine optimization. So hopefully we can clear this up for you and give you some direction that will produce great new patient flow and also be friendly to your budget. Naren, before I get into the questions, any opening comments? 

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I think it's a great topic, Gary. Let me give you my high-level view, right? So, obviously, we all need new patients, and ideally, ideal new patients coming in every single month. And what is your ideal patient would be different depending on what you're trying to do. Some people, it's high value services, others, it's oral health. Others, they are OK getting any patients, especially the ones with PPO plans, for example, even the ones who will only do dentistry as long as it's free. So, once you decide what your ideal patient is, of course, I'm hoping most of our listeners don't want patients who are coming only because it's free, but rather are seeking out ideal patients. So when you start seeking out ideal patients, you can get them to find you without paying money. Two options. One is you become an influencer on social media. 1% of you do that and do that well. The other 99% try, don't get anywhere. That's option one, to get new patients without spending money on ads, ideal new patients. Option two is you dominate Google and you show up again and again, so you get 95% of the free traffic. Google is used literally 500 billion times a month, 500 billion times a month. Just to put this in perspective, it's unheard of usage of anything ever in the history of mankind. So people use it all the time, and if they keep finding you in their local community for all the things you do again and again, they are going to start considering you, and I'm not going to talk about organic, but that's one way. Now that belongs to the top 3%. The only advantage with organic is somebody else can do most of the work, at least 95% of the work, as opposed to you're becoming an influencer, you can't outsource it. You have to do it all. Of course, you can get somebody to do the video editing, but in terms of the content and what you say and being in front of the camera, you have to do it. The other option is ads, right? Of course, you have social media ads and Google Ads. And we're gonna really, really unpack Google Ads today and we're going to get into the details. The only thing I would tell you with social media ads is, it's even worse than Google Ads. And if anyone wants to know, we can do a separate podcast on it. But in a high level, what this is, the reason is, people are watching something they love. Today, the remote that we used to sit in front of the TV with 25 years ago is your Instagram feed on your phone, on your iPad. So we're scrolling through that Instagram feed, spending hours and hours, or TikTok or Facebook, and all of a sudden an ad shows up. So, a lot of times we don't even remember we clicked on an ad. For that reason, people who use social media ads, at least when it comes to healthcare, I'm not saying it doesn't, ads don't work for social media, it does for so many things. But when it comes to healthcare, dentistry, there's a lot of no-shows, right? They don't even remember clicking on the ad because they were watching that video they were into. So today I'm really interested in, like you said, Gary, to delve into Google Ads, find out the good, the bad, the ugly, what to pay attention to, how to think about things. So, let's have some fun.

Gary Takacs: Well, Naren, I've got some questions for you. Actually I have 5 questions for you, and I'm gonna close by asking myself a question. So, how about we start with the ones I have for you? Is that all right? Naren Arulrajah: Sounds like a plan, Gary. 

Gary Takacs: All right, here's question number 1. So Naren, let's settle this for once and for all. Should a dental practice run Google Ads or not? So a very blunt question. I'll be curious to hear your response. 

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, you're throwing the curveball right out of the pitch. 

Gary Takacs: No, no, it's sitting on a tee. It's a 16-inch softball sitting on a tee, and if you can't hit this one, Naren, then we've got to really have a conversation. Naren Arulrajah: Makes sense. I take your challenge for sure. 

Gary Takacs: Yeah. 

Naren Arulrajah: Should a dental practice run Google Ads? Yes or no? Good question. And I'm gonna give you a nuanced answer, and I think the answer is it depends. And I'll tell you when I would run Google Ads. So. The one where it makes total sense in 2026 is for a startup practice, and let me explain why. Because when you buy a practice, what are you buying? You're buying an active patient base. They call it the goodwill, and you write a million-dollar check to acquire, let's say, 1,500 active patients, right? So you're like, OK, each patient, I'm paying this seller $700. I'm making this up, of course, it might depend on where you are. And the quality of the patient, revenue, everything else. But just for simplicity's sake, that's what you're buying. Now imagine you are a dentist, early, young dentist or mid-career dentist, and you want to do it your way, not just do it your way in terms of taking over a practice and improving it, like buying a used home. You want to build a brand new home, you want to hire the contractor, you want to start from scratch, just do it your way. Now, if you're one of those people who want to do it your way, and you've already decided that's the path, and you've already invested, let's say $400,000 doing the leasehold improvements, buying the technology, doing whatever you need to do to build this perfect practice, day one, you have zero new patients, right? Now, you can continue to burn through money every month. Remember, every month you're open, you have to pay your team members, you have to pay your rent, you have to pay the bosses who sold you the leasehold improvements. You have to pay the people who sold you the technology. So you have a monthly check going to the bank, which financed all of this. Let's say 10,000, and you have all the other expenses, the rent, the employee cost. Another 15,000. Again, you're being very stingy and you're being careful with your money, but still, you are in the hole on day one of every month, $25,000. I'm just making up a number, whatever the number is. And now you are bleeding money every month, losing 25. You're not getting paid anything, you're losing 25. Now, what would I do if I was in that situation? I somehow need to start acquiring patients ASAP. Now, we're going to get into the nuances of is Google Ads the best way to get new patients, and the short answer is it's going to be 5 to 10 times more expensive compared to the organic method. So it is not the best, but given the option of losing $25,000 month after month and not getting paid month after month, you know what, I might acquire that new patient for $500. So in those cases, I would say Google Ads, Gary, does make sense because you want to get as many new patients as you can as early as possible, even though it's really, really hard, you want to do that, so Google Ads makes sense. 

Gary Takacs: This is what I'm hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the biggest advantage is speed. Naren Arulrajah: It is speed. 

Gary Takacs: It is kind of like if you just really need a gallon of milk, you go to the convenience store. 

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. 

Gary Takacs: It's on the corner. It's right there. You overpay for it, but you want the gallon of milk in your fridge, instead of going to the grocery store and farther drive, it's not as convenient. It takes you longer. Is that a fair analogy? 

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, one is cost, meaning you're spending a lot more. The other one is quality. When you go to that grocery store, they might have organic, local farm, right? As opposed to convenience store. They don't care. Like, as long as it's milk and nobody's going to die, they're going to sell you that milk. So quality is the other thing that you are giving up on. Why? People are clicking on you by clicking on an ad, which means they're thinking, what's wrong with this guy, I imagine. Sometimes when you walk in a busy city, there are people outside a restaurant dressed as a clown inviting people in. 

Gary Takacs: I've seen that, or people standing on the street inviting people in. Naren Arulrajah: I've seen that in every tourist destination, I was traveling a lot this year in Europe, it's just like people literally calling you in to come into the carnival barkers trying to bring you into the restaurant. 

Gary Takacs: Yeah, so of course. 

Naren Arulrajah: I usually don't walk in, but even if I do, I'm thinking, what's wrong? So the first thing I do is I'm looking at the menu. Is it really the place I want? I might even, by the way, those restaurants probably don't have Michelin stars. 

Gary Takacs: They don't, they don't. 

Naren Arulrajah: And usually you get what you pay for, because somebody, if they have to stand on the street and invite you in, you know what, they may not be the best anyways. Only reason I might go in there is if I'm really, really hungry and I have no other option, then I might walk in. 

Gary Takacs: Well, they've got a table available. 

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, they've got a table available, and they are inviting me in. So I think that's the problem with ads, especially in healthcare. Why? Because people don't trust ads, Gary. Think about it, healthcare is all about trust, trust, trust, trust. So, ads is the opposite of trust. Imagine Apple running an ad saying, I'll give you 50 bucks off, here is an ad, buy my iPhone. Will you ever see an ad from Apple saying, buy my iPhone? They won't, because the minute they do that, the trust people have that it's a premium product that people want to have gets killed. So it's the things you don't do. So from that perspective, it is not a good idea, but if you are losing 25,000 and not making a dime, then, hey, you know what, not a bad idea, right? So you may want to lean into it. 

Gary Takacs: My own perspective on that, I'll answer that question. Should a dental practice run Google Ads or not? And I think you stated it correctly, it depends. It's not a replacement for a comprehensive marketing strategy. It can work as a complement to your marketing, so it's part of a marketing plan. It's not the only thing. Let me go to the second question.

Naren Arulrajah: I want to add one more thing here. There's one other situation where I might run Google Ads. That's, let's say I have a very successful practice. I'm doing excellent, and now all of a sudden, instead of doing 4 Invisalign cases, I want to do 8, right? And SEO takes time for it to start expanding, and I want to get there today, then tomorrow. So I could run ads for Invisalign. I could target the surrounding communities where I'm not doing well organically, and that could be the other case. Now here also the same issue, it's a lot more expensive than organic marketing, 10 times more, but yeah, Invisalign is profitable to me. So if I'm making $2,500 in profit, I might give 1,000 bucks to make that $2,500 in profit. 

Gary Takacs: So you just gave two examples of when paid ads might make sense, startup being one of them, and another is high value services. I'm going to go to question two. Beyond those two, startup and building high value, attracting patients' interest in high value services. What are some other examples where paid search makes sense? 

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I'm going to take this question in a slightly different way, Gary. Where paid ads doesn't make sense, and I think that's a good way to frame this. For example, there are fundamentals, right? Let's go back to fundamentals of marketing. Helping people find you, helping people like you, helping people trust you. Now, we know if they find you through an ad, they don't trust you, so the hurdle is higher, the conversion rate is lower. I'm talking about the phone conversion rate in booking them. Even no-show rates are higher because they have some doubts. The one reason not to show up, they don't show up, they don't know you, they're not your friend, they're not your brother. Even when they come, they're like, oh, they're second-guessing you, they're asking for second opinions. So, one place where it doesn't make sense is if you're not playing an A+ game, you could do it, but you're going to waste a lot of money. There was one particular client I was talking to the other day, they were converting 30% of new patient calls with organic, meaning people were trusting them. They were finding them organically through SEO. They were only converting 30%. Now with the trust issue added, if that patient came from an ad, now that conversion rate dropped to like 10%. So imagine spending, literally, $300 a phone call. And then you're only converting 10%. Now each patient through that ad is costing you $3,000. So, if you're not playing an A+ game when it comes to the way you answer your phone, if you're not playing an A+ game in getting awesome Google reviews, because people will still check you out, even when that guy on the street is inviting me in, I don't walk in, I go to my phone and type in the business name and see if it's a 4.5 stars. I'm not stupid, right? It takes me 10 seconds to go on my phone and check that out, so why not? Why? Why would I just walk in and then find out, I hated that whole thing, right? At least when I checked that Google review, oh, they have 4.5 stars, they have 2,000 reviews. I'm like, OK, maybe, you know what? Even though the guy was calling me, you know what, maybe it's not that bad. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt, right? So I do think those are the cases, Gary, where I would not touch it with a 10-foot pole, because you will waste a ton of money. Your phone conversion is not awesome. If you have Google reviews, if you're not getting 10-plus Google reviews every month, 5-star paragraph, love letter reviews, and you don't have 4.5 stars or higher, I wouldn't touch it. Just because I think you're going to waste a lot of money. And even for a startup, even for the ones who are investing in high value, it just becomes too much of a burden to carry that extra weight, where you are only getting 10 cents on the dollar versus you're optimized and you're getting everything you can.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, I'll add some perspective on that question of when paid search may make sense. You talked about two cases, startup and also attracting patients' interest in high value. I'll add two more. One is if we've got a time-sensitive goal. Like, for example, let's say an office is adding an associate doctor. And they know that, let's say the owner doctor is working 4 days a week and now they're adding a full-time associate doctor working 4 days a week, and they're concerned about whether they have a big enough patient base to support the associate doc. The office might make sense to do some paid ads to feed the associate doctor's schedule, because the #1 reason why an associateship fails is the practice doesn't have enough patients to support the owner dentist and the associate doctor. So there's a 3rd case, and I'm going to add a 4th case, Naren. A 4th case is, and this has to be done as part of an overall marketing strategy, a 4th case would be if an office is going out of network with PPO plans, it might make sense to do some paid ads around attracting people that don't have insurance and specifically maybe attracting seniors, because very often seniors don't have dental insurance. And when we bring in a patient that doesn't have dental insurance, you don't get the question, hey, I have this insurance, do you take it? So that could be another, you have to have some support from your marketing company to know how to reach seniors through paid ads. But there's two other examples. All right, so let me get into. Naren Arulrajah: I had a couple of other ideas, Gary. So, on the last example, I totally agree, and even the goal, I totally agree, but I would recommend make sure your phone conversion is awesome because paid ads are much harder to convert than people finding you organically because they don't trust you, right? So you need to know your call conversion rate. You need to make sure it's at least 70% or higher. So that's one caveat. And the other example I would add is, let's say your SEO is building up, it's taking time, right? Let's say you're dominating your local town, but the neighboring town slowly starting to build up. So you have a gap. So you might use ads as an interim thing to target that neighboring town where you're not dominating yet. So, it could be like an adjunct to, especially, let's say, you have been used to them, I'll give you a practical example, we deal with this with tons of clients. They are spending $15,000 a month on ads. They come to us, we charge $1,250, we do it all organic, but organic takes time. So what do they do in the interim? So we tell them, don't spend $15,000, let's spend 4,000, and let's target the keywords outside of your immediate town because the other towns will take a bit longer to come online and for you to dominate. So it could be an interim strategy while you are strengthening your search-based marketing, but eventually, instead of spending 15000, you can end up spending 2000 or 3000 and get better results. In other words, the ROI is massive, but it takes time. That's the only difference. If you're in a hurry, I think like you said, Gary, ads, like the convenience store analogy you shared upfront, I think it makes a ton of sense.

Gary Takacs: Well, let's get into the weeds here, Naren. Where do dentists waste money on ads? Where is the money leaked? It's a boat with a hole in it, and it's literally sinking. So where do dentists waste money on ads? How does that happen? 

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. I had touched on two. I'll reiterate them and I'll get into much more of the technical answers that are beyond those two. One is the way you answer the phone, right? Today, new patients, 90, 95% of them, usually start the relationship by calling an office, asking questions, making sure they've made the right choice, and then booking an appointment. So when that phone rings, if you are a PPO practice or you are a, most practices, unfortunately, are PPO practices, they know how to take orders. Like, hey, free dentistry, when are you free? Give me all the insurance information, click, I book it. But these people are not those patients. These people are paying out of pocket high value services and or cash pay patients, so you need to know how to win them over. You need to know how to get them to trust you. And Gary does a wonderful job in coaching clients. He has done this for years and years. We track all the calls, we listen to the calls, we provide coaching. So, it's something you need to work on. So, if I were to invest in that, I want to make sure that my phone system, i.e., the people answering the phone and how they are doing it. We know the phone conversion rate, we know the missed call percentage, we know the cost of a new patient phone call. We know what percentage of them are booking or not booking, and we also know how many are showing up or not showing up. So you really have to be, I'm talking, if you don't want to waste $15,000 and get $1,000 worth of benefit, if you don't want to throw money into a fire, right? So that's something I would really, really lean in on, but I have other ideas. Gary, but before I proceed, do you have any tips on the phone piece? 

Gary Takacs: Well, I'm gonna, you said it well. They have to be able to answer the phone well, but I'm gonna challenge you to get in the weeds here, Naren. So get in the weeds about when, how dentists are running ads, but wasting money, because of the way it's happening. 

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. I'll give you 5 different things to watch out for. Number 1, a lot of, ads is the one where you can set it and forget it. So if you're a marketing company and you want to make a lot of money, you tell clients, I'll run ads, I'll do it all, etc. One of the tricks I've seen happen is the marketing company says, give me 15,000. They don't tell you how much of that is going to Google. They'll say, give me 15,000, and sometimes they keep half, sometimes they keep 1/3, sometimes they keep 20%. So you are not really sure how much of your money is going to Google. So. It's a mystery. So the way I would recommend, and this is what we do with our clients, keep it separate. You need to know how much you are paying Google and you need to know how much you're paying the marketing company for the service of running and managing your ads. 

Gary Takacs: And what would be an appropriate, let's bring it down. You're talking $15,000 and that's not gonna register with any of our listeners. Let's make it, let's take a typical listener for the Friday night show, and they're gonna have, let's say, $2,000 for paid ads. What percent of that should go for ad management and what percent should go right to Google? Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, what I find is if it's less than $3,000, 10 to 15% should go to ad management. So let's say if it's 15%, it's $300 should go to ad management out of the $2,000. I'm just giving you some ballpark. Of course, the higher the number, if it's $15,000 it should be like 7%, 8%, right? You're not really doing a lot more work as the manager of the ads, so you can provide a significant savings. 

Gary Takacs: So you're going to pay more proportionally to a marketing company if your ad budget is lower.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. 

Gary Takacs: But in that $2,000 to $3,000 a month, what percent should go to the marketing company? What percent should go straight to Google? 

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I would say you should never pay the marketing company more than 20%. And I think 15% is reasonable in most cases. Now, if you're only spending $700 they might be like, it's not worth it for me to do all of this when I make $50 or so, you know what I mean? So, there is some minimum. So if it's really, really small, it might be a bit higher, but in general, I would say 15% is a good number. And then, the bigger the number it gets, it could move towards 10%. 

Naren Arulrajah: The second thing I think I would watch out for is not knowing, and this is a problem. I don't know why, but we have had many, many, many clients who come to us and before us, only ads is what they're doing. They don't even know how much a new patient phone call is costing. They don't even know how much a new patient is costing. So, when we start doing the math, OK, how much are you spending on ads? It's $3,000. How many new patients are you getting from ads? They don't know, but once you start digging and start finding out with call tracking and whatnot, oh, only 4 new patients. Oh, so you are spending $750 for a new patient call. And then out of that, how many are booking? Only like 1 out of 2. So it's $1,500. So a lot of times, they're throwing money, throwing money, throwing money, and they don't get anything. I may have shared this story before with you personally, Gary. There's one actual client, she was converting 10% on SEO and she wanted to do ads. She wanted to do ads. I'm like, you're going to convert 5%. That means 95% of your ad dollars is going to just be burning on the, 

Gary Takacs: the easy thing to do is write a check to Google. 

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. Exactly.

Naren Arulrajah: So, the other thing I would focus on is we talked about Google reviews, right? You have to have that as part of your core because people will check it out. And now, landing pages, that becomes really, really, really, really, really important. So, when someone goes to that landing page, let's say it's a high-value service, it's Invisalign, right? You're paying a lot of money, $4 a click, and most of the people leave your website after 15 seconds because something triggered them. Do you want to reduce the amount of people who are leaving your website? What can you do? Have a dedicated landing page for Invisalign, if you're running Invisalign ads, that Invisalign landing page should be, well, you make it easier for the consumer. They don't have to land on your homepage and then float around trying to find the information they're looking for. 

Gary Takacs: That's a great point. Landing, yeah, their landing pages are critical. 

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, and then making those pages optimized in every device, whether it's an iPhone or an iPad or a desktop, it should be easy to use, fast loading. There should be a video welcoming them to that page. Why? Today, most people are consuming websites as entertainment, kind of entertainment. So instead of reading a lot of stuff, I would watch a video for 15 seconds or 30 seconds where the owner welcomes me to the Invisalign page, talks about their credentials, and maybe I'm in my bed or on my couch, I'm just relaxing and watching that. And I feel like I like the owner. She's easygoing. She talks in simple language, she's welcoming, she's somebody that I can see being a patient of. Next is cases, Gary. Why? Because if I am going to spend $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 for these high value cases, and I clicked on an ad, giving that maybe they're not good, they're not bad, I want to see proof that they're not bad. So showing those cases and specifically the full face after pictures, right? Why? I'm paying for the transformation. I'm not paying for the close-up, which talks up, is gritty, and I can see the blood, and I don't understand any of this. I'm not a dentist. I want to have that smile that someone who looks like me has, that, if I'm a 50-year-old man, hey, I see another 50-year-old man having this beautiful smile, and I want to look like him. Oh, I see somebody with a broken tooth now have this, grinning ear to ear, I want to look like that person. So you want to have these cases, and this is where a lot of people struggle. So they're throwing money at ads, throwing money at ads, but they're sending people to landing pages that they themselves wouldn't click on and choose to buy. The landing pages don't do enough to encourage the patient to come visit. 

Gary Takacs: Another one, this gets very granular, but one of the areas where dentists waste money on ads is they bid on terms that are way too broad. So they pay for clicks for people that really are not the right patients they want for their practice, and they don't even realize they're doing that. 

Naren Arulrajah: And I want to expand on that. Google is a money-sucking machine. So, it will find people who don't live in the area. It will try to give you people who are not looking for exactly what you want. They'll call it broad match. Even timing's scary. Sometimes the ads is running at 3 in the morning and you didn't turn it off. Who is going to call your office? Who's going to answer that phone at 3 in the morning? Nobody is. So your ad is running. Google is taking your money day in and day out, and it just keeps doing it day in and day out. And they make it so easy, they auto-charge your credit card. They don't ask for your permission or your approval. As long as you have a credit card, ding, ding, ding, it'll keep taking your money, right? So it's so, so, so easy, Gary, like you said, to waste money with Google Ads. 

Gary Takacs: Well, you mentioned one of them, it's the time that your ads are running. If you're running them in prime time, they're going to be more expensive. And so some dentists say, I need to stretch. I don't have a big budget to do on paid ads, so I need to stretch it, so maybe I should be running one from midnight till 6 in the morning, but in fact, it doesn't really work because they're not attracting the kind of patient they want to their practice. 

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, and also even distance, sometimes it's far away, patient is like 40 miles away, and now they're going to just come in, they already doubt you because of the ad. Are they going to drive past 1,000 offices to come see you? 

Gary Takacs: Exactly, exactly.

Gary Takacs: Naren, we'll bring this to a close here. Last question I have for you. So, if a listener is curious whether ads would work for them, I hope we've prompted some interest to bring it back full circle. Ads can be part of your marketing strategy. Yes, absolutely can be part of your marketing strategy. And in some cases it's a nice complement to the other things you're doing. I don't believe it should be any of our listeners' primary source of marketing. 

Naren Arulrajah: Wherever, yeah, the way I look at ads is like Heinz ketchup, you know what I mean? Are you gonna have a breakfast of Heinz ketchup? I don't think so. But is it good, like, with a sandwich or with some eggs or, absolutely, I think. 

Gary Takacs: Yeah. So if a listener is curious whether ads will work for them, what should they do? 

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, that's a great question, Gary. I think I would have someone who you have confidence in give you an objective feedback on your overall marketing strategy. So for example, someone review, how are you showing up online? Are people finding you on ChatGPT AI search or Google AI search, or in regular search, and just give you a full report card. Who are you competing with? How are they doing versus you and how people are discovering you, right? And then in that context, also talk about your needs, your goals, are you dug in for the long term? Then I would focus on making my primary marketing, which is that organic SEO or becoming that one influencer marketing as a foundation, then working on Google reviews, working on call conversion, so getting the foundation right, right? But at the same time, if you are in a hurry, maybe ads can be part of it. So ads could be like we talked about, an adjunct that fills in the gap, right? Whether it's a startup, or whether it's that high value service, or whether it's that SEO is building up and you need a transition. So, you could use ads as a transitional, as an adjunct to your primary strategy. So I would recommend, Gary, booking a marketing strategy meeting. The link is ekwa.com/td. Our team spends 6 hours researching everything, you, your competitors, how well are you doing, what can change, what can you do better? And then, of course, they'll grade you. So, all the components of the foundations of marketing, are you getting an A, B, or C? And then if you're getting an A, why are you getting an A? What are you doing that's working for you? If you're getting a C, what do you need to do to get to an A? So our promise is everybody we take on, we want them at an A level, which means they're dominating organic search, and they're using ads as and when needed, as a filler. So we figured all of that stuff out, we share all of that. And of course, it's all in the context of your competitors. Who are you competing with? What are they doing? How good or bad they are. So, this has to be nuanced. There's no one answer, Gary, for everyone. And again, are you a PPO practice? Are you planning to drop PPO plans? What are your objectives? Are you wanting to work less, or you want to add an associate, or you want to increase profits? So, all of these has to be considered, Gary, when you develop a marketing plan. And then once you have a marketing plan, you execute on it, you work on it, and then you see the results. So, the link again is ekwa.com/td. And that's how you and I met, Gary, almost 8 years ago, because you did a marketing strategy meeting with us.

Not sure whether ads belong in your marketing plan? Book a complimentary Marketing Strategy Meeting at ekwa.com/td and Ekwa's team will spend 6 hours grading your organic search, reviews and call conversion against your competitors.

Gary Takacs: Well, as I come to the finish line here and put a ribbon on this, my perspective on this is, ads aren't the secret weapon, and they're not categorically a waste either. They're a tool. And they need to be evaluated in the context of your overall marketing plan. And, when we look at it that way with clear goals, tracking, so we absolutely know what's happening with our ads in terms of calls that are generated, what the cost of a new patient is to enter the practice, then we can make really clear-headed decisions. And so they can be very useful, and Naren, you've provided a really great perspective for our listeners to sort this and evaluate it. I'll simply add my own comment on that. I would say, before you spend a dime on ads, get a clear plan. And I'd encourage you to book a free coaching strategy meeting with me. We are accepting new clients at Thriving Dentist, and part of what we do is help our clients really determine what their long-term plans are in terms of marketing and where to find the right resources to help you with that. And I would encourage you to set up a marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa as part of that. But if you'd like to set up a coaching strategy meeting with me, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm . And we can help you think about marketing, not in a vacuum, but in the context of how can your practice be as strong as it can be. On that note, Naren, thanks for all of your insights today. I also wanna thank our listeners. We truly appreciate the privilege of your time. And Naren and I look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.