What are Google Local Service Ads?

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

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome back to this week's episode of Podiatry Marketing. With me, as usual, every week is my partner in crime, big Jim Mac. How are doing today, Jim?

I'm good. We're only, like, two days out from Christmas. I got some last minute shopping I gotta get in before Santa Claus comes to town. So, yeah, things are good here.

It's gone fast. This whole year has just absolutely flown past. And yeah. I yeah. You know, my my my Christmas shopping's done.

I think I haven't done it because it was two days out. Anything that I've forgotten or anyone I've forgotten, bad luck. You're

getting there. You're a you're a better man than I.

Yeah. I just I hate going to the shops. I hate going I don't like going to shops at the best time this time of the year to be avoided.

Absolutely. I'm with you there. I get claustrophobic with the the amount of people and the parking is just a nightmare.

The big thing they have in Australia, it's not like, leading up to Christmas, yes, really busy, but the day after Christmas is we have a public holiday called Boxing Day. Mhmm. And all of sudden, it's Boxing Day sales, and it is mayhem. Like, they have absolutely makes, you know, your Cyber Monday and what's what's the other one happened in November?

Black Friday.

Yeah. Black Friday, Cyber Monday. It makes them look like nothing. Boxing Day specials are just incredibly nutty. And then you've got other people who are bringing back things that didn't fit at Christmas time, and it's just, yeah, craziness.

So, anyway, hope hope you have a great Christmas, Jim.

Yeah. You too, Tyson.

And anyone that's listening to this, if you're listening to this before Christmas, I hope you have a great Christmas. If you're listening to this after Christmas, I hope you had a great Christmas. And if you're listening to this a year later, we had an awesome Christmas. So just to let you know.

Absolutely.

Okay. What are you talking about today? Yeah. So in the past, we've talked a

lot about Google search ads, even we discussed a little bit about Facebook and display ads, but there's a newer form of Google advertising that's available for podiatrists, at least in The States. I'm not sure if it's available yet in The UK or Australia, but these are what's called local service ads. So the short term of this form is LSAs. And we'll talk a little bit about today kind of what these LSAs are, you know, when to use them, when not to use them, and just kind of jump into all things podiatry, you know, patient recruitment or kind of finding patients through these local service ads.

Okay. So explain what an LSA is.

Yeah. So this is something that's completely separate from Google search ads. So there you basically have to go through a a certification process. Not only do have to send them, like, your medical degree, but also, like, your business, you know, paperwork. It can be a long drawn out process where, basically, you know, you're you're you're kind of bidding for leads as opposed to just kinda showing up for a search term.

So, you know, if someone is looking for podiatrist, like, there's a certain section of Google now that will show these local service ads, and it has to be kind of a qualified person in order to show up here that's gone through this Google verification process. But there's certain keywords that will trigger these LSAs, but it's a different section within that kind of Google search area.

Okay. So are you saying, so podiatrist, they've got to prove to Google that they are a podiatrist? It's to stop just some corporate company stuffing keywords just to try and pretend they're a podiatrist to try and steal patients. They want the podiatrist to actually see the patients.

Right, exactly. A lot of times you'll see now, even with foot surgery or foot surgeons or certain things, like some of the medical equipment providers like lapoplasty or other I'm not trying to pick on them but other medical devices will try to send people to their directory of maybe preferred providers. Right? So what this is trying to do is a little bit eliminate some of that. And also, instead of paying per click, you're actually paying Google depending on the local area you're in, you're paying them, you know, a little bit more for like a qualified lead.

Like, basically, that person will call your clinic directly and make an appointment, and Google has some software on there, and they can tell whether the patient whether they made an appointment or not. So it's one of these things where, like, you get kind of a guaranteed patient, but there's some there's some pros and cons to this model, and we'll get into those. But it's something that should lead a little bit more directly, to someone booking in your clinic, which is kinda like, which kind of Google's kinda been trending this way for a while because they just rather you do this kind of stuff and then let them decide when to show up ads than, you know, they they're trying to make their search ads less intuitive or more of a black box for people. So they just really rather, like, pay you pay them for leads as opposed to kind of, like, doing search ads in the future. And it may transition that way, or would they get rid of search ads at some point in time?

You never know.

Yeah. I have no idea whether this is available in Australia yet. Yeah. If anyone in Australia is listening to this, please let me know. But as soon as we finish doing this recording, I will be diving on and having a because it's sometimes because it is just one of those things sometimes that you may hear about always it's just been mentioned in a different way.

Because I don't need to use it myself, I haven't sort of dove into it, but I'm definitely gonna check this out. And I think anyone listening to this, dive on and and do more research on this.

And it's definitely something that got rolled out a little bit more quickly for, like, air conditioning, heating heating companies, plumbers, more kind of those service trades were the kind of first professions that were kind of brought into this local service advertising. But, you know, the health care providers, dentists, podiatrists have been kinda brought in. Like I said, you really have to kinda go through a a long process, to set up a profile, the details, the type of care you wanna provide. You know, do you do surgery? Do you not do surgery?

You know, what are your hours? What are your locations? And then, you know, it takes sometimes it's some back and forth with Google, you know, making sure that you have that license verification. There's a background check associated with it. You know, they're reviewing this stuff.

So it can take I think it you know, some of

the podiatrists that work, it takes six to ten weeks

to go,

like, this verification. So it's not just, like, you you you know, you fill this thing out, and tomorrow it's gonna happen. But like I said, business are gonna pay for these they're only gonna pay for these qualified leads, you know, meaning that, like, in with Google search ads, you might you're gonna pay for every click where the patient that person becomes a patient or not. But the thought behind the local service ads, you're only gonna pay for these people that make an appointment with your practice.

Yeah. It's funny you say that because it it is one thing about Google I have noticed in a lot of the services they provide even with YouTube that like, my YouTube channel's now at a point now where it's monetized and I get paid, which is great. But to get paid, I had to verify your bank account details, all this other information, business accounts, but then a physical address. And then I had to wait till they actually posted something to me three or four weeks before something arrived in my letterbox that I could type in a code. And once I did that, it was like, oh, finally, then they can actually pay me.

And then I had to jump through some other hoops. So I do like this. I do like it that they they go to that extent to make sure you really are who you are because I remember back in the day when Yellow Pages was around that you could go be a podiatrist, be in a podiatry clinic, and I would put ads in the physiotherapist section just saying I want to put an ad in there about heel pain. And I would advertise in the physio thing, and they wouldn't stop me doing it. As long as I paid, they didn't care.

Technically, shouldn't have been there. So and that's no different to what you're saying the medical companies are doing by putting their own ads in our space.

Yeah. Exactly. And it could be a medical equipment provider. Like I said, it could be like kinda sending you to a place that you didn't necessarily want to be. So, you know, inside these local service ads as well, there's a a Google guarantee like thing that also kinda, like, builds trust with people.

Is that that little blue badge that you normally see in other places?

Yeah. There'll be a little badge, and then it just says Google Guaranteed on it. So and they when you click on it, they it'll kinda outline the process that the podiatrist or the clinic had to go through in order to be in that position in the ad. So, you know, the fact they have this, like, special badge is kind of a visual cue to people that it's much more trustworthy than even the search ads themselves. So it's something that differentiates those local service ads from the the search ads.

Yeah. I'm gonna have to look around a few websites, see if I can actually find the little little badge. So what are so what are the pros of using local service ads?

Yeah. So like we talked about, you know, it there it's gonna increase your visibility. It's like one more place on a Google search page for your your business to show up, and you do have that kind of badge of trust since it's Google guaranteed. You know, they they've since you've filled out a ton of paperwork, they know you're a real business and you're a real provider.

Yeah.

That can sometimes lead to people to click on it more, than, you know, they would on just a general search ad. You know, it's gonna be the very top of the results. It's gonna be above, you know, traditional PPC ads, even above the organic ads in the map. So, you know, it's gonna really increase that local reach. You're gonna get more of those more, you know, surface area on that landing page or on that search results page to make sure that you're showing up there.

And, also, the the thought behind the pay per lead model too is it's, you know, the you know, you would think that it'd be kind of like, you know, you're only paying for these verified leads. You're not it's not just random clicks. You should have more control over your ad spend if it is this pay per lead model. So that's something to consider. It it should be more cost effective than just the pay per click because, you know, maybe someone you're you know, someone just accidentally clicked on your ad that didn't mean to go on it.

You know, those things happen. So those are the kind of the the first two pros, I'd say.

Yeah. And I have done that myself where I was I'm looking for something and something pops up and just because they've got the right wording, I've clicked on it all of and got, oh, that was an ad. Right. But it was a pay per click ad. And as soon as it's opened, know I'm the wrong spot and I've got straight back out of it.

But they would have been charged for that.

No. Absolutely. The third thing third area I would say as well is that, you know, it's a real trust factor to see that Google badge. You know, it's Oh, definitely. You know, it when you're searching for things, I think people kinda go in with a skeptical eye a lot of times when I'm looking for things online.

You know? Like we talked about in the previous podcast, when I'm you know, if I'm looking for a new microphone or if I'm looking for something like, what is the bias? You know, where are the biases here? What, you know, what is it shady? Like, if it's something is $200 less expensive than the next place, like, why is that happening?

Are they trying to rip me off the shipping? You know, you kind of have to, like, earn the trust by spending a lot of time online. But if you see, you know, Google Guaranteed Badge, it's kind of almost a shortcut to, well, if Google has done this due diligence on this podiatrist and company, then maybe, you know, I don't have to spend all that time as much. So since you do go that through that verification process, you know, it is targeted to local patients. This is something that shows up in a local area.

You decide where it shows up. And I think there's only certain radius around your clinic you're able to show up. So, you know, you can't be you know it's gonna be a rel you know, locally relevant ad these patients will see or

And that and that's part of the verification process as well, which is why Exactly. They they wanna know proof of view, your address, your business, all that information. So they say, great. Well, these local ads are just gonna go to this area outside of there that's for another group of people.

No. Exactly. It's because you'll find people trying to game it. Right? You know, maybe someone Oh, yeah.

You know, 50 miles away, but they know that, like, all the high paying patients are located in this ZIP code or something. They can do ads there, but it may not be, you know, actually, it may not be really good for the advertiser, the clinic advertising as well, but they're trying to, like, get on to those good paying patients or something. But this will has a little bit more control as far as a proximity effect.

Okay. For every pro, there's gotta be a con.

Or a few cons.

Or a few. There's a few cons. Okay. I'm interested to the I'm interested to cons. Not that I I like the negative side of things, but when something sounds really great, like you just described, you sort of go, oh, come on.

There's gotta be something there's gotta be something we gotta watch out for.

We're gonna ramp up here. We're we're gonna start with the kinda like the the smaller cons and work with the big ones for

Oh, okay.

To to kinda work it that way. But, you know, there can be it's not happening yet, but the in the future, this will be a high competition area, which is probably gonna make these leads become more expensive over time. And and whether that's gonna return you know, you can get that return on an investment there. It's gonna be tricky. And you really have to kind of make sure you're analyzing the type of leads that are coming in and making sure, you know, was that an you know, was it for a shock wave?

Or, you know, does it make sense to you know, maybe for orthotics, it makes sense to try to get those patients in the door, but not for other types of care. So you really have to be aware of that, you know, high competition comes potentially high prices for these local service ads when you're trying to

get

leads. Also, you have very limited kinda control over the ad copy. You kind of give it the information where you're located, the business information about you providing that kind of verification process. But beyond that, you don't get to write the copy of the ads themselves that are shown. So it's important to know that there's little control over the messaging.

You will like I said, you will put in the type of care you wanna provide, so it may show up some of those terms, but you don't have kind of finite control. Google's been taking that away over over the last few years.

So therefore, it's one of those things too, like, the early adopters are gonna do better. People who are listening to this now go, oh, okay. I'm gonna check out. Is this my area? Yes, it is.

Getting in early before the masses get hold of it, you could actually do quite well from it.

Well, that's why you haven't heard this talked about in any other marketing podcast or anyone else in the podiatry space right now because people that are using it, they they can get a lot of benefit from these local service ads. So it is something that, you know, is I wouldn't say it's a big secret, but it's definitely something, you know, people don't wanna let let let their competition know about it because it can be a a kind of a way to get more patients in the door for sure.

There you go. You heard it here first on the podiatry marketing podcast. This is why you should tune in every week. Find out what's Yeah. Don't don't be that person that misses an episode and go, two years later, damn it.

I should listen to that. That one particular episode could have changed my life. So what else? What what's another con?

Also, like, the lead quality can vary. You know, if you're you know, I would say that it has to be a pretty narrow, you know, determining what what you don't you don't wanna put in services you know that you won't get ROI from. So, you know, if you know that you get you make a lot of money from orthotics or from Shockwave, just keep it to those things. Don't try to, like, spread the the the net too wide. Because if you bring things in and you're paying, you know, 50 to a hundred dollars per lead, you know, and you're doing nail care or something where you don't get paid very well, it's just not worth it.

So you wanna make sure you kinda, like, keep it narrow as far as the services that you when you're doing the onboarding that you say you provide. So that's really, really important.

Is that the cost?

What's that?

How much is the cost to actually

It's gonna vary between like, that's the thing about Google. It's a black box. Right? Sometimes in a area that's hyper competitive, maybe it's a couple hundred dollars per lead.

But Oh, right. Okay.

I've it with some of the smaller locations and some of you know, it's still new where, you know, it's in the 30 to $50 range, but it's gonna really vary widely between the type of competition you have and the type of patients you wanna bring in the door.

But I suppose too, if you're bringing in the right patient, like you said, if you bring the right patient in for $50, well, people will spend thousands of dollars in other areas and not get the right patient.

Yeah. Absolutely.

So so it's definitely worthwhile. Okay. What's next? Or what's the next con?

Yeah. So the last one and the biggest one is the risk of cannibalization. So what do I mean by this?

Yeah. What do you

mean by this? We're not talking about we're not talking about humans eating other humans, but

I know.

It's unclear whether Google can determine that you have and they they don't do anything from on there and that I'm aware of to stop this from happening. But maybe through Google Analytics, they might be able to do this. But, you know, some people are gonna, you know, search your name or search for podiatrist, and maybe they're already a patient in your practice.

Yeah.

Once they click on this and make an appointment through their software, it's very likely you could be charged $50 to $60 for one of your own patients trying to make an appointment to come back into your practice.

Oh, yeah.

I'm not totally sure if Google has all of the technology in line to be able to sift through and filter out those patients that are already your patients. So that's my biggest concern. And one of my friends, Don Pelto, mentioned this on one of his podcasts recently is that, you know, they're using these ads, but they're also writing down, you know, when the person calls in. And then, you know, Google will tell you, you know, like, the phone number that called to make that appointment. And so you can cross cross reference these things to see if you're paying for your own patients or not.

You definitely don't wanna be doing that. It makes no sense to do that. So something to be really, really aware of, and it's something that, you know, will kinda lead into, you know, what type of strategy is good to use with these types of ads because the risk of, you know, kind of, you know, paying for one of your own patients is not you know, that could potentially happen.

Yeah. And like you said earlier on about if you're getting the wrong patients coming in from this, you have someone who's just come in for routine foot care, and they've clicked through that, and you've been charged $50 or $60 for the spot, and you're only charging them a hundred for the visit they're booking in for you, what the point when they could have just phoned your clinic?

No, absolutely. So you have to really assess that percentage of those LSA leads that are turning into truly new patients. So it's something you just don't want to set these ads and let them run. You definitely have to have a strategy around how you're using them.

When might it make sense for podiatrists to actually use this?

I would say it makes sense for podiatrists that starting a new practice, number one. Right? You don't have a huge roster of returning patients. So if you're just trying to spread the net super wide, you know, it's great for new practices. You can quickly build visibility in a competitive market.

You're gonna establish maybe, you know, that get those new patients in the door while you're waiting for kind of your organic efforts. You know, like we talked about previously, SEO and having a great website is fantastic, but sometimes a little bit of paid either search ads or in this case, local service ads can be a way to to bring more patients in more quickly. Yep. So then the second one would be specialized services. Right?

So if you're targeting high margin or, like, a very specific niche service, that might be a great place to use it. You know, for shockwave or orthotics or something more your high dollar items, it can be a great way to bring patients in the door potentially.

Well, that makes sense too. But like you said, new a new practice, they got no patients. So every patient coming through is gonna be a bonus. It was exactly what you need, especially if you're getting the right ones. But if you've got an existing practice, all of sudden, you might have got a swift machine, and you're the only person in your area with it, or there might be a couple in there, and you wanna stand out from everybody else, is promoting that high paying service is definitely worthwhile.

Yeah. Absolutely.

So what what else? When's another good time to use it?

Yeah. The last the last time to potentially use it if you're opening like a satellite practice or, you know, a practice further away, kind of cold. Maybe you have like ten or fifteen percent of your patients were from that area previously. I've heard some people talking about, Oh, we know we had 20% of the patients in that local market, so we opened up there. It can be a great way to bring new patients in from that new expansion or that area where you have that satellite practice because there's maybe not a lot of kind of brand recognition, you know, or they may not know who you are.

Maybe a few patients do, but not everybody does. It can be a great way to get that visibility and patients in the door. Like we said previously, though, you really wanna make sure that you're you're kinda tracking the costs of these local service ads, and you're really delivering kind of a positive return on investment. You're not getting you know, you're returning patients to the practice, which would probably happen as often in a satellite practice, but it's definitely something you want to be tracking and writing down.

Yeah. This this whole idea of this is like, it sounds fantastic, but like I said, you get your pros, you get your cons. This is something you really need to be actively watching. It's not something you just said it and walk away from, but they go, oh, that should be fine. Yeah.

I find this a lot

of people that, you know, they think like with when you're doing kind of any kind of advertising or especially in the the case of these local service ads, well, you know, I just give Google my money and they'll send me patients, and I just kinda like, that's just the way it works. But it has you have to have a very clear strategy going into what are you trying to achieve with this. Right? If you just give Google your money, you're not really sure what they're gonna give you in return. So, you know, having some analytics to back things up to know exactly, you know, especially these local service ads, who's calling in.

Are they were they a returning patient? Are they a new patient? Just seeing what the ROI is because if, like I said, there's certain scenarios where these things can be very powerful. People adjusted to practice the new practice. Those kind of things, whether starting a satellite practice, you have some high dollar initiatives and procedures you wanna do in your your practice, those can be great.

But, you know, you have to use those very, you know, precisely. Otherwise, you know, you might be spending your your ad budget or marketing budget in ways that actually aren't helping move your practice forward.

So if you went back a couple of thousand years and you were Julius Caesar, would you be giving this a thumbs up or a thumbs down on what's your overall summary or thoughts? What's your what's your overall opinion on this particular service?

Yeah. I think it's a great service, honestly, for the right clinic. Like, I like those three scenarios I said. I think for everybody else, if you have, you know, an established practice, maybe if you see other people are using it, maybe it's something to try. But make sure you're really writing down whether, you know, you're getting you're paying for your your kind of previous clientele.

Right? I think that's the biggest potential, like, issue here that people would run into that are already you know, maybe they a single location. They've been in practice for ten, fifteen years. Just, you know, use these things to, you know, contest them. You know, if you work with someone in marketing, have them test them and see how they're doing, but you definitely don't wanna just set it and forget it because that's a a recipe for disaster when it comes to these LSAs.

Yeah. I I could see this working really, really well for a new practice that has a specialized service that's moving into an area where there's already a lot of big competitors that think they already own the market and can't be touched. You coming in and doing this as a new practice with a with a high paying service, I think that can actually work really well.

And I think this is the way that Google really wants, like like podiatrist ads to to to be. To be honest, like, I don't know if they'll ever get let rid of the real, like, Google search ads or not. It's unclear to me. But they just prefer just to, like, you pay them money for, like, a specific thing. They don't want they don't want you to have any kind of finite control about search terms or, you know, keywords.

They'll be too generic where they're just doing all these keywords to try and cover all the bases. I think they'd rather know that, hey, you specialize in toenail surgery. Hey, I work really well with orthotics. So I want that. You want the toenail surgery.

And Google says, okay, I wanna make sure this goes to the right clinic who is actually requesting that.

Yeah. And I can see whether I don't think they'll ever phase out the search ads cause there is some, you know, interesting things you can do there. But definitely, it it kinda feels like it's moving to this more, you know, black box or competitive market for for leads as opposed to clicks. So so we'll see what happens.

It sounds like they they want podiatrists or professions in general to think about niching a little bit.

Yeah. That definitely I think it's something that, you know, they wanna make sure I think it kinda lends itself to what Google wants in the first place for the most part. They wanna make sure that when people search for a very specific thing, that they get the answer that makes them happy. Mhmm. So they keep using the service.

It's like a it's a, you know, kind of a loop that just keeps people wanting to go back to Google. If you, you know, search if you have a bad experience either through a search ad or through an organic result, like, maybe you're gonna consider at some point in time, you know, chat searching on SearchGPT or a new search engine, something in the future. So they they're trying to find ways to make the people that search for the information happy with the results they get. And maybe this is one way that they think they can do that.

Mhmm. And keep them coming back. Okay. But Jim, that has been really interesting. And like I said, anyone who's this the first time you've heard of it, do as I'm going to do, dive in and do a little bit more research and see if it's available in your your area.

So thank you very much for that, Jim.

No problem. Thanks for the conversation, Tyson, and we'll talk to you soon.

Yep. Talk to you next week. Okay. Bye.

Bye now. 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.