Facebook Ads for Podiatry Clinics

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

So welcome back to this week's episode of Podiatry Marketing. And with me is my cohost, as usual, partner in crime, Big Jim. How are doing?

Tyson, I'm good. I'm I'm never gonna stop laughing when you call me Big Jim, but 5'9" 150lbs. I'm not I'm not the biggest man on the planet, but I appreciate the compliments. How how are things in your world?

Good. You're only a hundred and fifty pounds, are you?

Yeah. I'm a runner, cyclist, you know, I'm a I'm a tiny little man, so what can I say?

Yeah. I'm about more than a hundred and fifty at the moment. I'm way more than a hundred and fifty. I reckon, I don't know if I really start to get into exercise a bit more, stop eating because I love food, I could probably get down to maybe one seventy five would be in pound pounds wise. But I think at the moment, I'm probably a bit two zero five.

I'm a light heavyweight.

Yeah. What I'm gonna do. Like, that's just

I love life.

I was born with good genetics.

I had good genetics until I hit 50. And then my genetics sort of just disappeared one day. My mom used to always say, I can't fatten a thoroughbred. I'm here to prove her wrong.

Well, I've got I've got five years. I'll see how I end up at age 50. So we'll see.

Yeah. You'd be a 51. So what are we talking about today, Jim?

So today, we're gonna talk about Facebook ads for podiatry clinics. That's gonna be the the topic we dive deep into.

Okay. I've had a lot of people ask about Facebook ads in general. So where where do you start? If somebody wants to know more about ads, what do they do?

Yeah. So I guess it starts off with just kinda understanding that platform. Obviously, with Facebook ads, there's different types of channels where where if you put up a Facebook ad where it can show up. So first and foremost, like, Facebook advertising platform controls Instagram as well. So when you're doing Facebook ads, you'll have an option to do Instagram ads at the same time.

So just being aware of that. Do you pay double? And then you'll basically no. Well, you have a certain budget. Right?

So if you spread your ads on Facebook and Instagram, and then Instagram feed versus Instagram search. You know, there's all these other places they wanna put your ads. But, generally, I I recommend people kinda stick to the feeds. It's sort of with just Facebook to begin with. I think, it's kind of the the platform where people maybe, like, 35 and over are at, and those are kind of most of the people that are making, you know, medical decisions Mhmm.

Or maybe use you know, someone's got a kid with an ingrown toenail or something, it's probably the parent that's gonna see the ad, not the kid. So, you know, obviously, the younger generation isn't on this platform as much, but I think for the time being, that that's kind of where it should where this should live at. I mean, Instagram, if you wanna put on the the Instagram feed as well, but I would keep it to the main feeds. And then, really, the next step after that, besides kind of where it should live within those platforms, is knowing the rules and regulations around medical advertising on those platforms.

So when you're talking about the main feed, there's just yeah. When we're normally scrolling through Facebook and you look at your friends and photos and hamburger pictures and all that, it's just they're they're the ads that you see come through, and it'll say sponsored underneath.

That %, that's where it's at. But if you also see, like, on the if you're on desktop, you'll you maybe see some ads in the upper right hand corner as well. If you, like, search for something or if you look on Facebook Marketplace or there's different other areas kinda within Facebook where you might be served an ad, maybe you're on, like, the mobile app and they have, like, the stories as well with that kind of like mobile phone image format. There are definitely other places to be at, but think when you're first getting started, it's good just to kinda keep it pretty basic.

So what works well in an ad? So if somebody a lot of text or a photo, what what is the best way to get your message across?

Sure. So I think the first thing to start off is like understanding the like the regulations and the rules around what you can and can't

do on the platform. Yes. Yes. You don't wanna get your ass kicked.

Well, you don't get your ass kicked, just what happens is that, like, they just won't serve your ads Yeah. Because, you know and this includes, you know, before and after photos are generally not allowed on Facebook. Also, anything that's, like, very kind of body body part specific, specific. Not that it has you know, if if it's you can talk about, like, an ingrown toenail or you can say the words, but any kind of graphic or images that show a body part, it it's usually gonna get flagged, and it won't allow that ad to run. So it's important to kinda know these distinctions.

And as you're getting started, it's not always clear. There's not like, the guidelines are a little bit fuzzy as far as what Facebook will and won't, put out there. For example, like I've done Facebook ads for ingrown toenails. Let's say it's a video ad. Yeah.

But so what the if I if I run an ad that shows even a drawing of an ingrown toenail, like in, like, maybe, like, red pulsations where the pain of the ingrown toenail is happening, that will get flagged and they won't show it. But if I have a patient doing a testimonial about how they had an ingrown toenail and, like, if it's like, one of podiatrists took care of it, generally, that will go through. So it's important to, like you know, if you are doing a campaign, to make sure you have different types of creative to run, to make sure that, like, at least one of them will go through. Because sometimes you think you wanna test two or three things, but only one will actually make it through Facebook's filters.

It was funny. I ran an ad years ago, and it was about something saying, do you suffer from heel pain? Had a photo there of a foot. Wasn't wasn't a really bad looking foot. It was a good looking foot, actually.

All of sudden, get this message from Facebook, and they said, sorry, but your ad is offensive to anybody who has heel pain. It was I was discriminating against people with heel pain. And I Yeah. Went, okay. So I had I I changed the wording, got knocked back again, and I kept having to tweak it until I was sort of saying, do you have heel pain?

But not saying, do you suffer? So that I wasn't discriminating against people with heel pain, which is really odd.

No. There are these kind of ways you phrase things. Right? If you like, if you pose a question that implies something or implies a diagnosis, like, if that's if there are these little, like it it seems if you wanna help someone with a certain thing, you think you have to say that thing. But they're trying to, like, have you say it in a way that, like yeah.

Obviously, like, I think it's it's more towards those types of things are more about, like, cosmetic surgery or things that maybe, like, are body shaming, and then they just kinda, like, extract those down to levels that maybe don't need to be extracted down to, but just to protect it, like kind of to have like a hard guideline, they will sometimes do those things like you said.

Because it's not really a bunch of people in the room specifically looking at your ad, is it? There'd be algorithms and that flag certain words that automatically, it just gets knocked back without someone actually looking

at it. Right. Like we're talking about, like, that as we set up a campaign, there's all kinds of, like, targeting and different types of options about who we're gonna show these ads to. Right? Kinda like when you like, whether you do it yourself or you have someone do it for you, there's these different parameters you're gonna set up to churn about who sees this advertisement.

Right? So is it people from 18 to 65? Is it are you going after like like, let's say it's, like, you're treating some people with high heel pain. Right? So that's probably a woman women, you know, professional working age, you know, between, like, 30 and 60.

Like, you're gonna run that ad, and you can actually have only those people have it show up on their profile. You can also put, you know, a geolocation around where these advertisements are shown on Facebook as well. So if you're a clinic in a suburban area and you wanna do your town and, like, the five surrounding towns, you can kinda control it there, and that will help you not only make sure it's super relevant to your local community, but also help, you know, as far as budget goes. So you're not just you know, you're not you're not advertising around the world or even in in your country. You're keeping it to that, like, local targeted advertising campaign for the type of patients or people you wanna treat.

Yeah. And I've seen people do that poorly, where an ad or something will come through, and I look at it and I go, whatever whatever is selling, it's a physical product, but they're not even and you click on it, and it's, like, nowhere near Cairns. It could be in another country, and it's just you know that, obviously, that someone's done the the targeting wrong, and it's not it's not where it should be.

I yeah. That happens all the time. Especially for people I would say, like, my my perfect example is people in Manhattan, New York versus Manhattan, Kansas. Right? So, like, if you happen to make one small mistake in setting up just let's go after the keyword Manhattan or we're just you typed in Manhattan and, like, somehow selected Kansas instead of New York, and now you're advertising there.

Like, that's, you know, that's hundreds of or thousands of dollars of ad spend that, you know, you can check it. But, like, if you're just not used to those tools, it can be a bit confusing. And Facebook and these other platforms want you to spend your money. So like, they're not they're

not gonna They're gonna tell you.

They're gonna tell you, they're not gonna give you a refund. Right? If you make a mistake, it's on you.

Yes. They're not gonna say, hey, Jim, did you mean Cairns Australia or Cairns in Canada? And you go, oh, okay. Yeah. Sorry.

I grew up near Sydney, Illinois. Right? Yes. So so like that's a little bit different than Sydney, Australia. So like you definitely have to keep your eyes on those things.

So what what budget When you're talking Facebook ads, because I know it's it's not overly expensive, what type of budget would you recommend someone needs to spend to get a good result?

Yeah. This kinda gets into like how to like like, how should you approach it? Like, what should the time frame be? Like, how do like, now that you you know how to set like, maybe you know how to set it up Yeah. From, like, the tooling aspect of things.

But, like, what is that, like, plan of action you're gonna take with this tool in order to get some positive results for your clinic? And that's kind of you know, what I'd the best place to start in my mind is, like, a a monthly campaign focused on, like, a specific topic. Right? So and and, like, generally, what I say for most people just getting started, depending on what location you're at, like, generally, like, a $500 a month budget is, like, a decent place to start from an ad spends perspective. Obviously, if you do DIY it, you can just only spend $500, but you're probably gonna spend an additional maybe 3 you know, 250 to $300 on someone to set these things up for you as well.

But yeah. So, like, you're somewhere in the ballpark of, you know, 8 like, 500 to $800 per month, but it's really focused on these kind of iterative campaigns. Because, like, we talked about someone it's coming up in somebody's feed, and, like, it has to be something that's relatively, you know, fresh. If you're just showing them the same thing for if we try to run the same Facebook ads for a year, like, it's gonna just be fading into the background, not engaging. They've seen it 5,000 times.

Like, they're not gonna click it click on it the 5,001 time. So having it be a month is kind of like a good place to to see if that campaign is working. And then maybe, like you talked about in some of the other things, some of our other podcasts, like, keep that in your back pocket and maybe bring it out next quarter or in six months from now. It worked. It was great, but, like, we can't just, like, just kinda beat a dead horse with, like, with this campaign.

So so that's kind of the way to approach it. And there's there's different ways as far as, like, so what should I, like, you know so that that being said, we know the budget. We know, like, the time frame. Like, what do we even, like, what do we even do? And I think, you know, really, like, the main focus for that I've seen the best results with is not only from, like, people making appointments perspective, but also awareness about the clinic, are video related advertisements.

Moose moving pictures are just more engaging to us humans, like colors and people talking, other human faces talking to other humans. It's just it's just more of an engaging environment as opposed to, like, a bunch of text or just a a photo of a foot, like, that's definitely a stock image. Like, those things don't connect as much. I will also mention that you have to be careful with, the amount of text you have in a photo or even a video sometimes that that will get flagged if it's over a certain percentage and may not be shown. They want they really want more photos and videos, like, in that window and the text to be what you supply, like like on that kind of text section of the Facebook ad, not on that ad as far as the video or the or the photo goes.

Yeah. I've been I've been smashed a few times on that.

Yep. It definitely is a problem, because like I think it's over like 30%. I'd have to look at the they they always change these things. Right? They're always changing, like, what percentage of the surface you know, the area of the image or the video can be text, and it's always it's always changing.

So I usually like, a lot of practice these days when getting started will create some type of video content. Maybe it's like like a one or two minute testimonial what the patient is either professionally done or done by, like you know, we all have these HD cameras in our pockets now. You know, if you do have it on a tripod and you get a good testimonial that can be cut together by somebody, there are ways of creating workflows like that, but a lot of clinics now have these one minute or two minute videos that can be utilized for Facebook ads and kind of repurposed in a way where you're not having to go spend thousands of dollars additionally to make more videos. So, like, that's that's one thing I've used with clients in the past that have that have previously invested, whether it be five years or ten years ago, if it's still really good content, a video is you know, as long as it's not too it doesn't look too dated from a design perspective, it can still be better than than just a plain photo or any kind of text based advertising.

How does this relate with Facebook pixels?

Yeah. We'll we'll get into that a little bit. I think before we jump to the that specific as far as, like, the attribution and how do we know it's working, I would say that there's, like, there's really three type of campaigns that I think people should consider. You know, when jump know, when kind of, like, considering Facebook ads. Number one is, like, I would call, like, the the general, you know, video advertisement, basically talking about who you are, what your practice is, where you're located, kinda like you're that member of the community, you're that local expert, and it positions you that way.

I think that's one great one, whether you're new at practice or you're trying to reintroduce yourself to the area or the local patients or maybe you're experimenting around other local suburbs or other local places is a good place to to that's the type of creative or the type of video that's good to use. The second thing is really appealing to a specific, like, patient demographic. If you're really wanting to be the marathon podiatrist or the running podiatrist, having an ad that has that flavor that shows you as the expert in that niche or that subspecialty, you're working at the medical tent if you can do that, or you're at you know, there's some interaction with you and runners that makes you look author you know, authoritative. That's hugely important. And then the third option is more kind of, say, like, the procedure of the diagnosis stuff, like, kinda touched on there.

Like, if you want more ingrown toenails, like like I talked about, you may not be able to show a toe or, you know, or like even a, you know, like a drawing of a toe with an ingrown toenail, you have a testimonial with someone talking about how they were in pain. They did a, you know, an an office procedure and they felt so much better. You provided amazing care. Like, that that's another another option, I think. Those three types of campaigns that can be good places for people to start with Facebook ads.

Yeah. And also, your branding with any photographs or videos you do, trying to make sure you've got your logo in that picture somewhere or a consistent color so that it sort of ties them with your business release. Because I've seen some people where they'll post something on Facebook, and it's not me talking just podiatry, just the business in general. I'll see the photo, and the the photo looks so out of brand to what they normally do. And and you might know that company, and all of sudden, it feels a little bit rushed or just inconsistent with what the the normal brand is?

Yeah. That can be a huge problem. Right? Like, it's if there's kind of that disconnect. Right?

Like, they're on Facebook, they see something, and then they go to your web page, and it feels like completely different. That kind of difference in branding or that just kind of that gut reaction that people will have, they feel like people don't wanna be like feel like it's a bait and switch. Right? Like, they don't wanna feel like Oh, yeah. Yeah.

They were promised one thing. It looked like this, and then they clicked a button, and they went somewhere else that looks like a completely different world. That's exactly I I definitely agree. That's kind of like the biggest there could be huge disconnect there. So there has to be you know, if that if that five year old video is a completely different logo, you had a beard, but you no longer have a beard, you gained You had hair.

Well, you know, everyone's gonna like, you know, everyone's everyone's got their own hair issues, but it is that that kind of connection that that is super important. I think I would also say that, like, there is you know, whether whether when you're making those videos, you really want it to be you showing, you doing things in, you know, your clinic, your staff, maybe you interacting with a mock patient. If you're using any kind of stock image images or or videos that stock, like, you're gonna have to whether it's the filter or the lighting, it's gonna have to match somehow. Otherwise, like you talked about, it'll like, it might feel like you're saving maybe $200 or $300 by splicing in some of this kind of, like, stock these stock photos or stock videos, but, like, that that it it really erodes trust in my mind. If you don't have something that's coherent and consistent, you know, with the lighting and everything that really tells your story visually, can be a huge huge problem.

Yeah. I have noticed that on people's websites. I know we've mentioned websites a lot with different things, but when it comes to photographs where they'll be using a photo in ad, and as soon as you look at it, you know it's a stock photo. It's just it's so stock. It's terrible.

So I think it's I think it's really important. And I know when I've seen ads on Facebook and I go, oh, that's interesting. I've clicked on it, and like you said, you click on it and it goes to a website. It goes to someone you go, no. That's that doesn't seem right.

Then whenever you see their ad again, you you won't click on it because you've already been burnt by it. So I think it's really important if you give what you're promising in that particular ad.

Yeah. You just have to, like, follow through with, like, a a genuine offer and build trust. Otherwise, that that click was just wasted money. And not only is it wasted money, but then you set up bad feelings where the person's never gonna come back again.

Oh, yeah. And that and that happens a lot. And I've seen podiatry ads that are promoting different things that have come through, and I have a I click on them and I go, oh, well, that was a bad experience. When I see that person promoting something again, I go, oh, to make I don't have any trust with you anymore because that didn't make any sense the the first time. Yep.

I mentioned about the pixels. How's that relate with your Facebook advertising?

Yeah. I'd say there's like two major challenges associated with Facebook advertising. The first is that unlike Google search ads or things where people are searching actively for something

Yeah.

These Facebook ads are just showing up in the feed based off of that demographic information you put into the campaign and what you're kind of hoping to get out of the campaign. So it is important to note that, like, this is not the, like, the highest, I would say, return on investment. It can be very lucrative if you're doing it the right way. I'm not saying it can't work, but, like, if you're expecting it to work as well as Google search ads, you're prob unless you have amazing content, you're probably gonna be a little bit disappointed. So it is important to note that, like, this is a kind of an awareness play along with kind of a a way to try to get patient appointments for certain things, but just know that going in.

Because no one goes to Facebook looking for an ingrown toenail specialist. Right? Or No. No one is looking for that running podiatrist when they're scrolling through Facebook. So just keep that in mind, number one.

Number two, like you mentioned, Tyson, like, you know, there are ways that on on your website, you can put in a small piece of code, as Tyson referred to as it, like, the Facebook pixel or maybe it's called the Metapixel now that Yeah. You know, it's they changed their name and they wanna be part of the metaverse now. So this piece of code, basically, what it tells is that when someone clicks on one of your advertisements, on Facebook itself and they they land onto your website, it helps Meta or Facebook kind of connect those dots. And it used to be very clear back in the day and when web browsers, like, had less had less ad blocking and kind of, like, would like, without your permission, kind of share all this data back and forth. But those things have changed now.

There's a lot of, like, ad blocking in browsers, especially

Yeah.

I o iOS, Apple, Safari. There's different types of Internet browsers now that just will not allow that communication to happen now. So it makes this kind of like, how do I know it's working? Or how can I like, the Facebook used to tell you, like, kind of clear attribution statistics? Right?

20 people clicked, five people made schedule, and it was very clear of the data. It's no longer like that. So there's there are definitely ways now you can, address this lack of attribution. Number one is that, you know, some of it's you know, there's different there's a range of it. Number one, it's kind of like, you can kind of, like, do some internal tracking, by yourself.

So whether it's an online form, a peach when patients make an appointment or whether it's, if you're still doing, you know, paper, patient intake forms. If you have a box there that says, how did you find out about us? Or you have your staff ask, you know, how did you know, why did you come in today for that ingrown toenail? Like, how did you hear about us? That's one way of trying to, you know, if they say, you know, I found you on Facebook.

I clicked on a Facebook ad. You know, if they said they found you on Facebook, most likely, and that's what you're advertising that month, there's probably a clear correlation there. You know, if you do feel that there can be sometimes, you know, I just feel like I saw more ingrown toenails this month after advertising.

Well, it would definitely work that way because if you were promoting a particular service for example, it could be Shockwave. You've just bought yourself a new Shockwave, you're promoting that. And if the only place you were promoting it was Facebook and all of sudden you saw the numbers go up for that particular service, then you go, oh, that must be working.

No. No. A %. But just like, I think, you know, especially when people are investing in marketing or investing in Facebook ads, they wanna see that return on investment, which is Yeah. Completely understandable.

But just know that, like, it's not as clear as it used to be. So, you know, finding some ways either in the clinic or on your online forms to have those to like you talked about, like, asking just asking the patient, you know, how did you hear about us? Those are ways for you to kind of create that data and that attribution, which is a little bit more time consuming than just like pulling up a dashboard online. But that's kind of where we're at as far as that type of that type of online advertising when it comes to Facebook.

So with back to the pixels just for a sec, because you mentioned Sure. You get some code and you put it on your website. Is it a different code you need to put on different pages or is it the same code and it knows where to go? How does like, if someone's listening to this and they go, okay. Well, how do I put a pixel code on my website?

Do they just talk to the website developer to actually get them to do it?

Yeah. So they would have the website developer do it, they would probably talk to the Facebook advertising. They have you have to basically set up these what they call kind of custom conversions

Yeah.

Like, within within the meta or the Facebook platform just to make sure that, you know, like, we want so, like, for example, a lot of patient a lot of patients or sorry. A lot of clinics when they when someone submits, like, a request for an appointment, they'll have they'll land on what they call, like, a like a thank you page. Yeah. So, like, every time every time that thank you page is triggered and it's linked back to Facebook, like, you know, like and if there's been a kind of a conversion, a custom conversion setup on the Facebook side, but that that pixel kinda lives on every page on the website. You just tell, like, Facebook where to look for that specific type of conversion within their kind of software or their dashboard.

Okay. And just one final question, when people are marketing something through Facebook and they are clicking on it, are you setting up yeah. Why are you laughing at me?

Well, not even like with the podiatrist clicking on their own ads, I'm like, that's probably not a good idea.

No. I think you've got an ad going and it might be a heel problem, for example, or shock wave therapy. Someone clicks on that and they go, yep. That's great. You don't wanna take them just to your homepage.

You wanna take them to a specific page that talks about that. You don't want them going to your website and then having to hunt through it to try and find that particular thing that they were they clicked on that interested them in the first place.

No. That's a perfect example. And and the kind of the terminology for that type of page that we call a landing page Yes. So, like, that landing page, like we talked about, should it should match kind of what the ad shows. Right?

Like, it needs to have that a similar look and feel to what the ad did. It can't be that complete disconnect. And it also really needs to kind of, you know, have, like, clear calls to action and be, obviously, super topically relevant about what that ad was about. Right? If we're doing shockwave one month and ingrown toenails the next month, we're not gonna send them to that same landing page.

Right? We're gonna send it to a landing page with ingrow with an ingrowing toenail campaign. It's gonna say, you know, like, Ken's, you know, ingrown toenail specialist. Doctor Tyson Franklin, you know, make an appointment. Leg podiatry legend.

Right? And then there's maybe, like, three reviews saying, you know, like, you know, Tyson did an alright job on my toe. Like, I didn't have to get amputated. No. Like, just no.

Just like, you know, those those testimonials and those reviews for you that say, like, that are specific to that procedure as well if you have those. Right? You don't wanna have, like, a review on there that says, like, he's really good at in he's really good at heel pain or I mean, that's fine if you're doing the shockwave thing, but Yeah. If you can make all of those testimonials and reviews, like, dialed in on ingrown toenail and, you know, the contents about ingrown toenail, a little bit of information, but all these kind of calls to action. That position is the expert, and they know why they're there.

Because, basically, like, the call to action on Facebook was probably either book now, learn more, You know, those types of call to actions are super important both on Facebook and on the landing page. And like you said, the landing page and the ad really need to have be in lockstep as far as the feeling, the branding. So there's not that kind of feeling of a bait and switch.

Yeah. No. That makes sense. So to wrap up, have you got a final point about Facebook people need to know before we finish up?

Yeah. I think it's can still be highly effective when used in the right way. Right? There's definitely things to set up. There's definitely you know, it's it's a little bit different, from a return on investment perspective than, than your Google Ads and some of those other things.

But, definitely, the type of targeting that can be done, the visual component, of of the ads can be very appealing. And if you if you build these campaigns in a way that you know kind of what that deliverables you wanna provide or the the awareness or the expertise you wanna provide, you can set up some ways to, you know, know, correlate that or create attribution to make sure that you are getting that return on investment. I think it can be when you have a rotation of really good Facebook video ads, it can still be a a very powerful way to build your practice.

Okay. Well, on that note, Jim, I think we've covered Facebook pretty well. I think anyone that listened to this, if they were thinking about Facebook ads, have, I think, taken away some great information. So thanks for sharing that.

My pleasure, Tyson.

Talk to you next week.

Sounds great. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDaniel. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.