Dr James, 2m 28s:

Smart Money Members Club also includes multiple money courses and webinar stories with finance for dentists, including part of the content tax as well as on family investing. All this content coins has a verifiable CPD, and you can download your certificates there and then on the PC lesson. In addition to this, we also include a whopping 10% discount on the dental identity and a 5% discount on lab builds for dental principles, amongst other parts and discoints for members. Please use the link in the description to claim your verifiable CPD for this episode. Paid ads. Let's talk about paid ads because you haven't done that in a long time, especially what's new in 2026. Because the game has done change, hasn't it, Rahil? But we'll come on to that in just a second. This is another episode co-hosted uh by myself and Dr. Dan Shaffer. Hello. Uh partner in the Business of Dentistry conferences that we were talking about uh on the previous few episodes uh that we filmed, that we filmed. And as I say, we're actually filming a hat trick podcast episode today, which is really cool. We're still in the venue for the business of dentistry event yesterday, which we're super pleased with, how that went, which is really cool. But anyway, that's not the purpose of today's podcast. That is not the main purpose of today's podcast. The main purpose is to discuss paid ads, how dental practices can leverage them, how they can use them, how they can get the max out of it as well, because some people will be doing it but not doing it that well. And then also, number three, what has changed in 2026? Because what is that update called on Meta, Rahil? What's it called? Oh man, that's gonna annoy the absolute heck out of me. Uh but I'm sure it'll come I'm sure it'll come to us. I'm sure it'll come to us. But in essence, what has changed uh when it comes to advertising on Meta is that there's a lot more of a focus on creatives that are bespoke to the exact person who is viewing the ad. You're getting profiled on that level by the algorithm. There might be a baseline creative, and then the creative is adapted for you as a unique individual who is on the platform to encourage you to click. And that is why the game has changed. More on that in just a minute. But anyway, it might be a good place to start. Uh Ragha, what might be a good place to start is is just to talk about what is still the meta uh in uh 2026 by way of what seems to be working the most effectively. Yeah, most effective. What is what does meta stand for again? I remember Elton said it at the last event. It was most most effective. Most effective tactic tactical advantage. Something like that was it actually is it actually is a um it's an acronym, yeah, apparently, which I didn't know. I just thought it meant the most supreme tactic, most effective tactic available. It's just come to me. It's just come to me. So there we go. So what is now that we've defined that, what is the meta in 2026?

Speaker 1, 5m 18s:

What is the meta for paid advertising? Um for dental practice, the first time. Yeah, yeah. Of course. When it comes to advertising on either Facebook or Instagram, when it comes to paid ads, the creative is key. I think you you covered it before. Um and the reason is, and the name of the update is gonna is still escaping me, but it will come to me at some point. But the targeting system that it does now is so advanced that it will show your ad to the right people if the creative is right. You can obviously set a lot of stuff in terms of like you know, your targeting and of, you know, we we can go we can go into stuff like that, but if the creative isn't right, it doesn't matter how good you set your, you know, your targeting or what clusters the meta actually groups it into, nothing will nothing will be as effective as if the creative is actually right. Um that's more on the obviously on the meta side. Um what we kind of you know, we do both Google and we do meta paid advertising. We actually are of the opinion that you maximize Google, which is I'd actually say not what majority of agencies will do, they will look to optimise meta first. Um our logic for optimizing Google is that you capture them at a more kind of warm stage in the buying journey. If they're actively searching for be it implants or invisaline or whatever, whatever treatment it may be, there's already a base level of interest that is there compared to Meta when someone gets shown an ad. Obviously, there's a lot of retargeting that's done, but primarily if they're shown an ad for the first time, it's a lot harder to gauge that that level of interest of where they are. They could be ready to go, or they could be literally barely interested. Whereas with Google, we kind of, you know, the barrier or the the bar is higher in terms of you're actively searching. On Google, you're not just doing it for a hobby, like no one searches invisible near me or you know, cosmetic bonding burning them or whatever it may be, like you know, just because they're bored, but you know, they actively have an interest, it's you know something that uh they're looking to pursue. So we actually optimise for Google first, which does mean a higher cost per lead, granted, but in terms of higher quality leads, which eventually leads to more bums and chairs, as we talked about earlier, it's uh it's a more effective strategy for us.

Speaker, 8m 1s:

It's interesting, isn't it? Because I mean, with let's say implants or clear aligners or competent bonding, or you know, whatever else it is. Um the cost per lead on Google, let's say, you know, it's a really expensive case, it's an all-on-for you're doing, it's gonna you're gonna generate 10 to 15,000 pounds. Your cost per lead might be what, £100, something like that, you know, in a competitive area?

Speaker 1, 8m 27s:

Yeah, so let's say it honestly depends on the treatment. Yeah. Um let's say for something for something like that, yeah, you are gonna look at a high cost per lead on Google.

Speaker, 8m 37s:

Or or for uh a filling or an emergency appointment, it might end up being £10 or £5. You know, a low cost per lead. And it's difficult for me as a practitioner, as a dentist, and a clinic owner, or a clinic owner, to be able to assess um properly, right? Well, I've got to budget a marketing spend, an advertising spend, I've got to look at all of these things as part of a cost of running the practice. Yes. And I'm laying out these hundred pound tokens to generate these patients, and I need to see it translate into the cases to get the payoff. Yeah. And and that's really difficult for me to get my head around.

Speaker 1, 9m 20s:

I get what you mean, and it's it's why some practices will feel like they're throwing hundreds, if not thousands, every month on paid ads, and you know, they're not seeing bums on chairs. Um because there's there is a very, you know, it's it's it's a very complicated game, paid ads. Like, you know, there's a whole and it comes back to the funnel of what we were talking about earlier. Like, you know, you may you might be excellent at generating awareness, but when it comes down to actually getting patients that are, you know, potential patients that are ready and getting the bums in the chairs, you know, your your journey might not be optimized for that, and you're gonna have a massive drop-off. So it comes back to what we were saying earlier. We were we were backwards. Typically, what we'll find is we will do paid advertising for the higher, higher value treatments, be that clear liners, be that implants and be that cosmetic bonding, that you know, those are the sorts of sorts of treatments that you'll typically find a practice we'll do paid advertising for, and we'll work backwards. We'll say, right, if we want to do 10 cases, and you know, if we want to do 10 cases this month, a case could be of clear liners, we could say a case could be one an implant, it could be cosmetic, but we'll cast it, we'll class it all as a case. We want to do 10 of these this month, and then we work backwards to work out, okay, this is how many leads we're gonna have to bring in. And then we you know we create an average. So we're like, right, if the cost per lead average that we're looking for is around 50-60 pounds, that sets what is going to be essentially our paid advertising budget. So we don't like to just pull a figure out of the air just because the practice has been like, well, you know, we spend this much on paid ads because this is what we've always done. We just target base everything. We look at what your, you know, what you want to do, what your conversion rate is from this point to this point to this point, and we basically get to a point where like, right, we need to generate this many leads. Your average cost per lead is gonna be this, this is gonna be our budget, and then we see what we, you know, we see what comes out from it. But there is always, as with anything, there is always a lot of there's a there is a learning period with paid outs as well, which is what I think a lot of practices don't like. And obviously, like it feels like you're throwing money away. Um, but that learning period is crucial to be able to like refine, test, learn what works, what doesn't, and it eventually makes everything a lot more efficient as you do more and more of it.

Speaker, 11m 55s:

And it is fascinating hearing you analyze the financials like that, which is exactly what we find in the business of dentistry organization, is that we meet so many dentists who haven't got the experience or the confidence to know the questions to ask, let alone get the information. I mean, you know, what questions should I be asking a marketeer about paid ads? I I don't really know how the system works. I I didn't know till recently about quantifying the cost of an implant lead to a certain number of pounds. And and it's fascinating really to hear you break down the finance, uh the finances, the analysis there.

Speaker 1, 12m 36s:

So the way you know the way that we the way that we look at things is like, you know, let's say implant or you know, clear aligners, should we set up you know, around £4,000, should we say it will cost like our patient will pay the practice? Obviously, each practice has their own kind of you know individual systems in terms of how much profit is going to be seen from that. But let's say for clear aligners, you'll assume that let's say one third of it will go to the practice owner and to minus their running costs and everything like that. And then it comes down to the practice owner, and it's like, okay, how much would you be comfortable to pay to get one of these patients in the seat? And for a lot of for a lot of practice owners, even they haven't thought about this and they don't have the metrics to actually show what they have been paying beforehand, and it turns out when you look into it, that they're losing money on every case that they do. Because even though they're cost per lead, which is what a lot of agencies and what a lot of marketers will ask you to focus on, because like you know, it's like you know, the it's the first metric that everyone sees that oh yeah, our cost per lead is great, everything must be going well. But actually, when you drill down into it, it's like, yeah, cost per lead is great, it means you're getting a lot of like you know, interested eyeballs on your stuff that are inquiring. But how many of them can you actually get in contact with and get them scheduled in for bookings? How many of those bookings are actually turning up? How many of those ones that turn up are actually the right people that are converting? So there's so many other metrics, not just this cost per lead that it feels like every uh every agency hangs its hat on in a sense that oh yeah, we can deliver, like, you know, a cost per lead, like you know, we can deliver a £30 cost per lead, a £20 cost per bag, you know, that's great. Like, you know, there's many ways to make your cost per lead cheaper, but it for us it's more about we want to give you the bang for your buck, and bang for your buck isn't necessarily that you know so many leads, it's high quality ones that are actually going to translate into buns on seats, yeah. And eventually money for the practice.

Speaker, 14m 41s:

And this really needs to be taken into account if we look at in the backdrop of how the profession has changed over the past couple of decades to now be a consumer-driven model rather than patients are there, they come to practice, you don't need to attract them because uh you know that's how it used to be. But now consumer-driven, we've got the competition and marketing authority, um uh you know, just looking at pricing and dentistry. And are they going to be taking into account this cost to generate leads in a consumer-driven dental market? It's a really interesting question.

Speaker 1, 15m 12s:

Well, it used to be that you know you open up a dental practice and you know you'd have people walk in. And I'm pretty sure that you know a lot of practice owners who are listening can probably attest to this, it's not the case anymore. Like, you know, you have to you have to show why people should be coming to you over the other dental practice, like probably even across the street from you. It's getting to that stage now where like you know, there are so many practices, and it is you know, just like anything, it is a competitive, you know, it is a competitive world out there, and it is going into uh near enough a race to the bottom on a lot of treatments. Like, you know, people are just constantly undercutting each other, which means that profitability for the practice owner especially is getting dwindled down and dwindled down, and then it's like your marketing has to work even harder because what you were paying beforehand that you used to make money on and you were comfortable paying this much to get a bum in a seat, suddenly because you've lowered this down cost you know, you've lowered the price down by 250 pounds, suddenly I'm not making I'm barely making any money at the end of it. So it's you know, it's it's a really interesting landscape at the minute. Um one that I think everyone is kind of navigating their their their way through one way or another. Some people are, you know, they feel like they have no choice other than to engage with this race to the bottom. Some people are, you know, standing out on other things, you know, and that's where what we were talking about earlier with the organic strategy and actually making sure that these things don't just operate in their own silo. Like, you know, make yeah, your paid ad could say one thing, but as we've discussed, if they come in and then your practice looks and feels like something completely different, it's like, well, I feel like I've been missold to here. Or if they click on a paid ad, and as you know, it's not just as simple as now paid ad, you know, lead consultation, booking, treatment. You know, the paid ad is only one piece of that puzzle. They might go for your paid ad and they might look at your social media that you're organic social media, they might look at your website, and if the paid ad and that journey is the most polished thing ever, but everything else around it just doesn't speak the same way that that does, there's a massive disconnect there. So it might seem like, oh my god, I'm getting so many clicks on my paid ads, everything's looking great, but the bums aren't in the chairs, because there's a disconnect between that and the way that the rest of the marketing kind of funnel, in a sense, that we were talking about earlier, is is operating.

Dr James, 17m 42s:

Interesting. Let's go back to that creative that we talked about a second ago, because the creative is king, right? And this is obviously more relevant to med ads, I get. Yeah, um, but we and we do definitely want to talk about uh Google in just a second. The creative is king. How can we make our creativists engaging as dentists? What about I think a lot of people default to video creatives, so there's a lot to be said for still creativists, right? UK dentists, Dentists Who Invest now has an official platform where you can learn about finance and obtain UK compliant, verifiable DVD at the same time. The only platform that exists on which you can do both. The Smart Money Members Club has hundreds of hours of mini courses, webinar series, and live day recordings on all things finance slash tax efficiency for UK dentists. This includes complete courses on how tax works for UK dentists, finance so that you can invest and grow your own money, business so you can improve your profitability as an associate or principal, and for those out there that want it, there's also a mini course and how you can responsibly enter the crypto space using measured amounts of capital. I've gathered this content from the best to the best I could find in each respective area so that you know that this is how people at the forefront of each field advise their clients. The Smart Money Members Club also contains discounts on common things that UK dentists need to pay for on a regular basis. This includes a whopping 10% discount on dental indemnity, the offer to beat your income protection deal no matter what you're paying, and for the principals out there, 5% discount on lab bills and 10% discount on practice insurance. These are designed to offer hundreds, if not thousands, in annual savings. The purpose of this members club is to not only boost your monthly income but also manage your outgoings as much as possible and therefore create more profit. To celebrate the launch of the Smart Money Members Club, and given that the CPD deadline is coming up soon, I've decided to offer the first month for this platform entirely for free. This offer will end in the coming weeks as soon as the current CPD cycle is up. To collect your CPD for this podcast episode using the Smart Money Members Club, feel free to use the link in the description of this podcast.

Speaker 1, 19m 58s:

There is a lot to be said. So we've done we literally last month we did a really big analysis on a lot of on all of the ads that we're kind of managing for for all of our practices, and it was nearly a dead-even split.

Speaker 2, 20m 12s:

Really?

Speaker 1, 20m 13s:

So 52% of our top ads were video, but that meant 48 of them were actually 58%.

Dr James, 20m 21s:

And can I comment on that briefly, right? Static ad ads to create are way much less effort. Right. So this actually knowing this makes ads so much more accessible.

Speaker 1, 20m 33s:

100%, 100% video video ads, look, that they they are you know they're brilliant. You can you can explain so much. Like I'm not I'm not gonna diminish the value of a video ad, but they are a lot of work. Not only for you guys, like even for even for us like from the agency side to you know come up with the script to edit it in the right way, to make sure that you know we've got the B run, everything that we need, like it's a lot more work, but a static, genuinely in terms of the way the feed is, can actually feel a lot more natural if it's done right. If it feels off, you know those ads that you look at and you can tell it's an ad, those as a static won't do well. But if it's something that's actually pretty native to the to the platform, what I mean by that is like it looks like it should be part of the feed. Those do really well as statics.

Speaker, 21m 23s:

So what about just words on a coloured background? I mean, those are part of my feed and my socials all the time. And I I do read them, I mean, but I've never thought of putting something like that as a paid ads.

Speaker 1, 21m 36s:

The thing is, what people what people don't like with with meta and with paid advertising generals, it comes back to this testing point earlier. There are certain things that we know that will drive links, like it's just the way it is. But let's say with something like that, what people don't want to do is put a small little bit of either what they don't want to do is put a little bit of money behind it to test it. And that could be something that it doesn't work, and we're like, okay, at least we know it doesn't work now, but it could work. And then we could drive more, we could drive more from it than we do with like a high performance, like a high like you know, edited video ad. We have to be able to test all of these, all these different things. And something we do on the regular is if we find a winning static for an ad, we will change so many little things on it. We'll change the colour, we'll change the colours, like you know, because different colours people respond to it in different ways. We'll change the like you know, where like you know, the position of the logo, even like the the style of the well, we will change so many different things, and from one winning ad, we then now have like 10 variations of something that you know we don't know whether this is working, but we just need to keep finding what people are responding to. We've realized that they respond to the colour blue over the colour green. We have to be able to test, like we have to be able to test that. It doesn't just there's no formula of right, put the money in. This ad is gonna definitely generate you 30 leads if you do it. Like the the algorithm is always changing, so that's why the creative for us is especially on Meta is is so so key.

Dr James, 23m 13s:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I've actually been there for my own ads before, where you have exactly the same text, okay, on uh uh let's say a yellow background, right? And then you swap it to, I remember there was this one time with swap, it was from a yellow sunset background to a red background, and I think the click three rate went up by one percent. And that's actually quite a lot, right? Like that's that's a significant amount. It went from like four percent to five percent, or possibly five to six, which is pretty yeah, I was pretty pleased with that. To be honest with you, and I we literally just changed the colour for the same money, you're getting more people.

Speaker 1, 23m 48s:

Yeah. You're essentially getting more leads for the same money by just editing one color.

Dr James, 23m 54s:

The colour just psychology is crazy, it fascinates me. And I'm sure you've got all sorts of stories like that as well, where you took the logo and or or even when you put spelling mistakes in that sometimes as well. You know, you can you can really go there. I would I've seen some that work reels watch out for reels, okay? They do that intentionally sometimes, and the reason is people engage in the comments like you can't spell the word hello, you're so dumb bad, and then that puts just the engagement. I'm not saying everybody can do this. I just said it's funny that it exists.

Speaker 1, 24m 26s:

We're gonna all thought the spelling mistakes on that.

Speaker, 24m 30s:

Oh, the tental ads on the spelling mistakes. I don't know who's listening to the podcast.

Dr James, 24m 35s:

There we go. There we go. I can always I can understand that I can already see it. I can see that working. Yeah, sure. Um but yeah, so um there's so there's so there's so many different things you can yeah you can test.

Speaker 1, 24m 50s:

Like, you know, it's obviously the you can test on the creator, but you can also like you know, you can test on the captions as well. Like there's um there's a whole kind of debate going on on whether people want to have these, you know, short, snappy captions that kind of tell you um they kind of you know summarise what you need to know and that you like a couple of lines, or some people go for really, really long-winded captions to give meta more information about these are the type of people that we you know that we think this ad should be should be pushed to. Um there's so many things you can test, and the only way one of the things that we one of the tips that people can take like straight away is we will always boost high performing organic videos as a paid ad. Because we already have a sense that you know the people that follow our accounts on social media, for example, they're pretty much our ideal patients, if you think about it. The people that are already following us, that are engaging with our content, we'd love to have more of them as patients, yeah? So if a video or a static that we've done is already performing well with this group of people that already follow us, that are our ideal patient group, why don't we just push it out to more people like that? Don't reinvent the wheel, right? So if we if something performs well organically, we will always push it paid-wise as well. And that means that sometimes it's not the most polished video or it's not the most polished static. It's something quite fun.

Speaker 2, 26m 25s:

Yeah.

Speaker 1, 26m 26s:

But those sometimes do very well from a paid point of view. So it's one of those things that a lot of people will like real life, don't they?

Speaker, 26m 34s:

They like reality.

Dr James, 26m 36s:

Yeah, it's one of those things. I think one of the greatest mistakes people make in marketing is they automatically assume it has to be really polished, right? Like they they think they think to themselves, hey, I'm doing marketing now. This is what marketing looks like, and it's super it, you know, they spend lots of time crafting and refining something that just looks a bit artificial, and that actually turns people off, right? Listen, there's there's there's an art to it, right? Because you can't just go completely uh you know lazy with the post at the same time, right? But there's there's there's there's a line. There is a line. That's what I'm getting at. And you know, sorry, were you gonna say something on that?

Speaker 1, 27m 11s:

I was just I was just gonna ask, like, think about the type of content that you engage with on on a bit on social media. That's exactly it's not always the most, you know, the one that has the most like you know production value behind it that shows this absolutely perfect life. There is a case that you need these high-quality videos, be it of your patient journey, like when a patient got, you know, you need to, there's videos that you need to invest in. But there are there is a massive case for real, authentic, in the moment content, because that's what people on the platforms are used to. The stuff that we found really interesting with ads was 88% of our top performing ads were they had a native feeling to them. It felt like they belonged in either the the Reels tab or on your on your like you know, on your home, like on your on your feed. It felt like they weren't actually as obvious that this was an app. Those were our best, like a lot of our best performers felt native to the platform as opposed to, oh, I can instantly tell this is an app. There's exceptions to it, obviously, if you're running an open day, if you're running a sale, if you're running an event, you need to make it obvious that you know this is you know this is what we're doing. But when it comes to like you know, general inquiries or like you know, booking for like you know, clear aligners or implants, sometimes the best thing isn't to just be bold and like you know, high quality, is actually to blend something in with their feed that looks like something that they engage in normally.

Speaker, 28m 39s:

Exactly. And it's weird, isn't it? Because when when you watch something on Netflix or you know, you're watching a film or a series, you you kind of get forced into watching adverts. Um and and you know, like for I don't know, uh a new mop or you know, with this family that's very manufactured in the advert and they do this song and dance routine, and you know it's manufactured, and you don't really want to watch it, it's a bit cringe, but you end up watching it because you're forced to watch it. It's very different on social because you can choose whether to scroll past, you can choose whether to click on, you can choose what you want to do, and if you don't like it now, you can even do it later. You know, so it's very much more under your control. It's just shoved in front of your face and you choose whether to interact.

Speaker 1, 29m 22s:

And that's why that's you know, that's the whole meta versus Google debate summed up because you know you advertise on on Facebook and Instagram because of what you've just said, like you know, it's just gonna come in your feed, you are gonna get a lot more eyeballs on this stuff. Like it's only natural there's more people on the platform, like you are gonna get more eyeballs on it, and more eyeballs, you can generate a lower cost police. It's just like it's just facts. That's just the way that it is. But we don't know where that person, like you know, that person that it's being shown to, it is so much harder to look at where they are in terms of their interest level in the treatment. They could be ready to buy tomorrow and get into a consultation, or they could literally just be finding out about it for the first time. It's so much harder. Whereas, you know, it comes back to the Google that you know, Meta versus Google, when someone searches something on Google, you have at least a sense that, okay, I'm interested in this thing. Exactly. There's an intention to what they're doing. With Meta, it is harder to judge that intention, so you know you get more eyeballs, but which means like a lower cost per lead, but then you'll hear a lot of people say, Oh, but I couldn't get a hold of the lead, or like you know, you know, they they were a no-show or this, that, and the other. So they it can be a lower quality.

Speaker, 30m 37s:

So then, in the example we were using before, maybe uh let's assign the arbitrary £100 for this £10,000 implant case. For a meta lead for a similar kind of treatment, you'd expect to pay a lot less, maybe £10, £20, you know, whatever it might be. But then you're saying that that lead doesn't quite have the intention that the Google league would have. So you couldn't have you might get five times the number of leads.

Speaker 1, 31m 1s:

But that'll be five times harder to contact, or they'll get more Notion, or you know, whatever it is, like you know, of course, there's there's different ways of looking at this. Like that there are going to be, you probably heard like you know, some agency owners or some people in marketing tell you that meta, like you know, meta is the way to go. Like, you know, there's arguments for both. Like, you know, we do things this way because, in terms of if someone's giving us uh you know a kind of paid marketing budget to work with, what's our priority for that practice? Bums on seats. It's not it's not number of leads and all, like in the van, like in a great like in the vanity matrix that a lot of people like to look at. What is our priority is to make sure you get bums on seats that are actually interested in what we were what we were advertising at.

Dr James, 31m 45s:

You know, one quick question on Meta before we move on to Google, because I I do think it's super important we talk about Google today as well. I wanted to ask what your stance was on let's say you have a really good ad, really good creative, everything along those lines. Let's say that's going really well. Where should that traffic be sent to? As in, where should the CTA go to? Should it should it go to a meta leads capture form or should it go to a landing page? Or should it go to book a consultation or just to the website? Or or is it just straight up to the homepage on your website? Let's there's throw all the options out there.

Speaker 1, 32m 21s:

So well, I wouldn't send it, I wouldn't send it to the website um because that ad is going to be for something specific and that home and your home page is for everything. So instantly they're gonna let's say if they're inquiring about like a clear alignment as well. We've used this example before, your homepage isn't gonna be clear aligner focused, it's gonna be everything about like the practice as a whole, and then that journey that they were on becomes like it's got becomes great. So I wouldn't send them directly to the website. Landing pages is something that we use a lot of because it you know it keeps them, it keeps that journey going. Like, you know, if they click on a clear aligner ad, we have a landing page that's conversion focused based on clear aligners. The advantage with lead forms is that it keeps them it's very slick, it's slick, it keeps them in the platform. And what Instagram, what Instagram and Facebook both have is like the autofill feature on lead forms where you know you've got your details saved, you just click it in, it's very slick, it's very easy. There's there's advantages to both. The disadvantage with lead forms is and it comes, it's and it's the biggest advantage is how easy it is. The amount of people that because it's so easy, they'll be like, Yeah, like you should. I'll learn a bit. Like I'll learn more, I'll give my details, but then when it comes down to it, they're either hard to contact or whatever it may be. Like it's ease can sometimes be it's undoing, whereas you know, sending them to a landing page, and then there's like you know, specific call to action on there, they're actually having to you know take a little bit more time, read through that landing page, click on you know wherever that call to action is gonna go, but it's more specific action, and if they are interested, that you know it's a good way to like improve that quality of lead. Um, but they both have their they both have their advantages. I would definitely do one of the two as opposed to either um sending them to like the homepage of the website or something like that. I would definitely, yeah, I would definitely send them to either a a lead form or or an optimized kind of landing page based on that.

Speaker, 34m 26s:

Or you can get them directly to phone you. I mean direct contact, I mean WhatsApp or whatever else.

Speaker 1, 34m 32s:

Well, yeah, so what we yeah, it there's this it's again it comes down to there's you know there's things that work good on the whole, but like we have noticed discrepancies among practices where we thought like you know we would have two practices in you know pretty similar areas, not like you know, geographically competing, but it's pretty similar areas where we'd be like, no, this should work. It's working for this one, it should work for this one. And that would be our first point of call would be to like you know try it this way. But it wouldn't work for them, and you know, potentially something like you know, getting into getting into calling straight away would. So it is kind of again having that ability and having that willingness to test things out and understand that it's not gonna be perfect from day one, like nothing like you can't just no matter how much time you spend on the creative and how much time you spend on making sure this journey is the most optimized it can be, there are gonna be things that we need to learn and we need to test as we go on, and just having that you know kind of willingness to do that.

Dr James, 35m 37s:

Nice. All right, we really should talk about Google. Yes. And tell me this. I mean, I've always been a med-ads guy. Yeah, it depends what you're trying to do as well, right? Like for good for dental practices, uh, Google can also work as well as medads because people are obviously searching uh for your well, they'll have a problem, and they're searching for uh perhaps a cosmetic treatment or pain or something along those lines, right? Um so I can see how that would work in principle for dental practices because people are Googling, they're already problem aware and they know about the solution, they just want to find it. So it's very intentional, right? Whereas sometimes people aren't even aware they have how can someone Google something and they're not even aware they have a problem. Exactly. Like, so it depends on your niche, right? If that's actually going to work for you. But yeah, tell me, tell me this. Do you feel that Google has had a little bit of a resurgence recently versus Meta? Or is it just or or was it always the case that they've been about the same or maybe Google had an edge?

Speaker 1, 36m 36s:

Those are the big two. Like, you know, regardless of whether you put Meta first or Google first, like those are the two, you know, for nearly every dental practice like out there, those are the big two that you should be optimizing. Google and Meta, whether you do Goop, whether you do Google more, great. If you do Meta if you do Google more, if you do Meta more, it's up to you. Like we've noticed that Google was a Google definitely a couple of years ago was a really, really good place to advertise. It was just after, it was in and around and just after that COVID period. Google was really good. Like the cost per leads were really cheap and the leads were still really good quality. But now that you know, more business like that, everyone started to over the past couple of years, everyone started up again, they got more cash flow, they're putting more money into Google. Like, you know, the cost per leads have gone up again. People are like, you know, spending very aggressively on Google, and like the cost per leads have gone higher, and it's you know, it is pretty much uh a case around the board that they are gonna be higher than Meta. Um we do it because of that intention piece that you both mentioned earlier. Um but I'm not gonna pin my hat on oh yeah, like you know, it's not a case of oh yeah, one over the other. It's ideally like you should be doing both. Nice. You should be capturing these ones with higher intention from Google, but also giving yourself the ability to have more eyeballs from Meta. Like our strategy is usually like you know, we have a Google and we have a Meta spend, it's very rare we have just one. Yeah but in terms of one that we would look to maximize, we look to maximize Google first because it's all about guns and suits.

Dr James, 38m 25s:

Okay, tell me this, because I've I ran ads over the years, found I completely get how they work, but Google doesn't actually work in the same way that Meta does, right? It's it's uh pay-per-click, I believe, isn't it? And it's all about keywords. Can you give give us a little bit of a rundown how Google works for those who are in a similar place to me? Because I I'm not actually it's actually not something I really know a great deal about.

Speaker 1, 38m 47s:

Yeah, and I want to avoid getting too technical with it. Sure, yeah. Oh yeah, even just the hand level. I'm gonna I'm I'm not gonna get too technical, but yeah, it's it's Google ads also called like in the paper click, as you said.

Dr James, 39m 0s:

Yeah.

Speaker 1, 39m 0s:

So let's say it's you know you bid on keywords or search terms, um, be that you know a treatment name and then the city name or best dentist near me for like whatever whatever those keywords and those terms may be, you can't guarantee unless you're putting in huge amounts of money, you are not gonna be the person that if every single person searches up this term that your ad is gonna feature. So the more money you put in, the more percentage of times your ad is gonna come up. And then every time someone clicks on it, you basically pay a fee. And it's that's what that's where like you know the pay-per-click comes from. We always find it's better to obviously have landing pages there, they're more conversion focused, but you'll often find people are always bidding for the same kind of keywords or search terms, um, which is where it can get really competitive, and this is where in essence AI is kind of changing the way that that Google paid ads is working for us, because what used to be the trend of people is they used to search very short questions on Google or very short keywords on Google. Now you'll actually find that the average kind of search length has gone up. People are asking more specific questions, which means from a dental practice point of view, the keywords that yes, are still you know very popular, but are the most expensive. There's a more variety of things that you can actually be bidding on now, and even more specific ones that will be nearly untapped because a lot of practices and a lot of ACs won't realise that AI is affecting the way that you know people are people are asking questions in completely different ways than we were before.

Speaker, 40m 54s:

Do you mean like let's say teeth whitening? Yeah, people used to put into Google um cheap teeth whitening, let's say. Yeah, and then you used to bid on that term, and now people in ChatGPT or whatever AI search, they're putting in I want to whiten my teeth near Rochester.

Speaker 1, 41m 11s:

There will be a lot more specific with. I think I think you know, Dan, you're obviously like you know, you're uh an a you know a big AI user in terms of ChatGPT and on all these other facts, you'll notice yourself being more specific with the questions that you ask AI compared to what you search on Google. I I want white teeth, how do I do it? There's there's just the there's I don't want to get too technical.

Speaker, 41m 35s:

I I want to avoid getting too technical with it, but basically what you're saying because it does vary the the way that people ask questions.

Speaker 1, 41m 41s:

It gives people there's more opportunity now on Google because of AI than you know than there was before, which is why you know we're still, you know, we're still very much very much on the on the optimized Google train.

Dr James, 41m 56s:

Okay, and I'm glad you brought AI in because I was actually just about to ask that as well. Okay, cool. So I'm guessing where someone like you comes in whenever it comes to Google ads, Rahil, is you'll have a big old bank of keywords that Dennis used somewhere, because that's actually really hard to figure out.

Speaker 1, 42m 11s:

So we what we have that what we have that kind of separates us is we have so much data when it comes to the when it comes to paid ads in general. I think we're spending upwards across Google and Meta, we're spending upwards of a quarter of a million every month. So the amount of data that we have on and it's ever it's not as if it's like, oh yeah, one month we have this and what like it's consistently every month, and we can look at the buy with we can look at patterns on what people are clicking on a couple of months ago compared to what they aren't clicking on now, and that's what really sets kind of any you know what sets a lot of agencies apart is like how much data you basically have access to to inform your decisions. Like, you know, you are gonna make a lot of decisions based on like you know, just I think this would work, but for a lot of us, like you know, we back decisions based on data, and what we have is essentially a lot of that. Um, and data always uh informs our previous decisions and our future decisions, whether we like it or not. We are gonna base it on what's worked. So if a new practice comes in, it's not as if we are starting from scratch here. We already know, like, okay, your practice is, you know, this is where your practice, you know, this is what your practice is doing right now, this is what you want to focus on. Let's see if we've worked with another practice, it's probably a similar area, but you know, another practice who was in this position beforehand, what's worked for them. Then we can have a look back at practices like them near you in a geographical area and see what's worked for them. Like we just have a big kind of silo of data that's ever growing that just gives us, you know, gives us more access to to figure out what will work quicker and gives us the ability to test so much more efficiently.

Dr James, 44m 3s:

Yeah. Well, that's cool, isn't it? Because obviously we want data-led decisions, don't we? Um, and I can totally see how when it comes to the keyword side of things, you're trying to put yourself in the shoes of what the other person is asking. But because us dentists are are just too technical ourselves, that's quite hard to guess, you know. Um, so I can I can definitely see that being valuable. And I want to actually circle back to the AI thing that you mentioned just a second ago.

Speaker, 44m 30s:

There's no worry that as soon as we talk about anything, we always have to talk about the uh AI effect on that subject.

Dr James, 44m 37s:

Pretty much, right? Which kind of gives you a little bit of a clue as to how and launch AI is just gonna completely shape everything up, or is shaking everything up, is shaking everything up, rather, um, because it just has so many uh it's so much utility, utility.

Speaker 1, 44m 53s:

Um yes, you see there were ads in ChatGPT now. Oh really? They rolled their their pipe, they've they've started to roll them out in the US. It hasn't cut it hasn't made its way over to the UK. But if you ask a question, let's say, about um when you you're you're asking ChatGPT about an air fryer, it will show you ads for air fryers now. It won't just give you like recommendations, there'll be ads related to your search, like your query and AI.

Dr James, 45m 20s:

Does it say ad?

Speaker 1, 45m 21s:

Yes. Oh, it does funds but it's whatever it's suddenly another channel. With the amount of you know, people that are using AI, it's suddenly another channel. So like the AI is it's it's it's you know, it's changing everything in terms of the the way that we're we're looking at stuff.

Dr James, 45m 36s:

You know what? Just on that, um incidentally, someone was talking on the stage yesterday on business of dentistry. Um And um someone then we had a Q ⁇ A section for that person. And uh I went over with the microphone, I gave it to the individual who wanted to ask a question. And the person who was asking the question, they they literally they took the mic and they were like, hey, I've just chat GPT to you, okay? The person who's on the stage. You know, I and I was just like, like, you know, you know, fair enough. Uh I guess it's a completely reasonable thing to do. I just it just never would have occurred to me to do that. And you know, while you're talking, people are literally chat GPTing, you know. I tried to see what comes up.

Speaker, 46m 14s:

Um, but yeah, I guess um luckily the audience member did confirm that what the speakers were speaking about was actually very true according to chat GPT and the code. Which was a great confirmation. It was a very positive thing.

Dr James, 46m 27s:

Oh, yeah, hopefully I didn't give people the impression that it wasn't a good one. No, you didn't you didn't.

Speaker, 46m 31s:

I just think that was a really nice uh bit of the story.

Dr James, 46m 36s:

Yeah, that was why he actually he was like, guys, look what I've just found in ChatGPT. It's really positive and it confirms what you're saying, basically. That was his message effectively that he then said when I gave him the mic. Uh, but yeah, so uh where I was going on that was uh well to another thing to mention on that is actually our next conference will be focusing on AI as a key component as well, because someone's gotta do it in flipping dentistry, right? Someone someone's got to step up. And you know what? Like I said, there's just so much to tell you there in some of the applications.

Speaker, 47m 5s:

I think that's gonna be interest as well.

Dr James, 47m 7s:

That's that's gonna be part of it for sure. So keep your eyes uh keep your uh yeah, you know, keep your keep uh eyes peeled, keep your eyes peeled is the is the word I'm looking for uh for news on that one. But Rachel, what I wanted to ask you is how much do dental practices have to take this into account as to the strategy? Now, do they have to do anything different? Are you doing anything different as a marketer for dentists and dental practices?

Speaker 1, 47m 28s:

We are like, you know, we are because we have to be. Um I think it's AI is at the stage now where you just you know you can't ignore it. Um so we have to, you know, bear in mind everything. Um we were talking about it earlier when it comes to Google now. There's this thing called um that you know, there's this zero-click searches.

Speaker 2, 47m 53s:

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1, 47m 53s:

And that's because Google's AI is generating you an AI overview before you even see the paid ads, the organic, the organic like um listings, anything, the AI overview will come up first. So if someone has a like a problem, Google will solve it for them in the AI overview, and they won't even need to click anything anymore. They don't even get to see the paid ads. So it's something that we're always constantly looking at is like, you know, how is AI kind of changing like you know the way the platforms are are behaving. Um obviously each platform and you know, everyone's got their own kind of AI as well. Um so we've got to we've got to be wary of it. Um but from let's say an individual dental practices point of view, um it's kind of being I think it's the I think it's kind of being aware that it it's here to stay almost. Like this AI, and I don't know, everyone calls it a bubble, but it's it's not going anywhere now. It is gonna and it probably already has affected the way that we do near enough everything at this point. There's only so much an individual dental practice can do with it from a marketing point of view, is that you know that is more on us as marketeers to actually take the technology and use it in the most efficient way for them. Like, you know, we use it a lot, like I'm not afraid to say it, like as a you know, as a team at Mind Small Media, we use AI a lot when it comes to when it comes to our like daily stuff, uh and that's because it can do things so much better than we can. And the biggest one is probably like interpretation of data and reporting. I'm not gonna tell it to yeah, based on this, going generate me however many like new ads, because you know that's where you need the human element of creativity. But in terms of summarising the results of like the hundreds of thousands of ads that we are running at a time and generating stuff that's common, like commonalities among the winners, it can do that so much better than we can. That's that data analysis, and it saves the team hours where they can then be focusing on the clients and getting creative with what's working and what's not. But we we use AI all the time to you know supplement what we do, and there's obviously a lot of you know AI tools in and around the industry, not just in marketing, but also like you know, in all aspects of dentistry that you know that help out and make things more efficient, like you know, 3D scanners that use you know, this technology is probably the one that's been around for for a lot of years now. People didn't associate it with AI, but it is AI just in you know, just in another just in another form. Um but it's it's something you have to be aware of in this in this day and age.

Speaker, 50m 39s:

And are you are you worried about running a marketing agency and AI coming in and kind of cutting into your business uh so to speak? Oh we I mean I know AI gives you efficiencies and you said it could do jobs differently and it can take snapshots of fast amounts of data and do all kinds of really good stuff. Yes. But do you see AI taking a chunk?

Speaker 1, 51m 2s:

Oh, and I I'm not gonna sit here and lie and say that oh, you can't do a lot of what a marketing agency will do for you with AI. Like you can, but the a AI is only as good as what you feed into it. And I am very confident in saying that the average dental practice will not be able to utilize AI from a marketing standpoint, from a marketing standpoint in terms of like running managing their their meta out or building their website or wherever it may be, as good as let's say if they worked with a with a specialist agency, because we just have so much more data and inputs that we can give it. Yeah, AI is only as good as what you give it. Like, you know, if you ask it to write you a script for an Instagram reel or for an ad, for example, the more detailed you are with that prompt that you give it, the better the output's gonna be. If you give it something generic, it's gonna pull generic stuff. Excuse me. Um but if you're specific with it, it will give you some pretty good output back. And I'm not gonna lie and say we don't use it. We help, we ask it to like you know, we ask it to help with our scripts and like you know, thinking of new ways to like you know present content that we haven't thought of before. But actually the creativity element of like new stuff to try and actually like you know interpreting all of this and making a new plan out of it, that's where I think a lot of dentist practices they did just go with like an AI-led approach, would struggle. Like it just doesn't have unless you feed it an incredible amount of data, that intuition to make the decision that's right for your practice, it will give you something that's generic that could work anywhere. And you know, I'm pretty sure people will have seen it. If you ask it for social media ideas without giving it context, it will just give you stuff that's painfully obvious.

Speaker, 52m 55s:

Hallucinations, yeah.

Speaker 1, 52m 56s:

Yeah, it'll either give you stuff that's painfully obvious or stuff that's just like, well, this definitely won't work. And that's because it's taking stuff from everywhere. Whereas if you're specific with it and you, you know, you use it in a way that is, you know, you need to kind of learn, you know, it's the same with anything, you need to learn these, you know, these new platforms and how it wants to be prompted and the data it needs to be given, and all these, you know, we could do a a whole podcast on it. It's just like you know, it's such a a trendy topic at the minute, but it's um it's one that we're definitely uh trying to be on top of as we can day to day, that all the team are uh are using it, and I think that every dental practice like should be using it. Like I don't think it's something to be shying away from, but over reliance on it when you're not feeding it the right stuff is potentially something I would I would be worrying about. There is