Google Ads for Therapists: Search Campaigns Built Around Google’s Health Ad Rules

Updated October 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

Google Ads for therapists is paid search advertising that puts a private practice, group practice or counseling center in front of people who are searching Google for a therapist, counselor or psychologist, built inside the rules Google, Meta and the professional ethics codes set for mental health advertising. It is for solo clinicians, practice owners and the people who market multi-clinician practices, and it is built to bring consultation requests in the specialties, locations and payment types you want more of, measured without sending client health information to an ad platform. Progression Agency is based in New York City and works with clients across the United States and worldwide.

What Google Ads for therapists actually buys

It buys a place in the search results at the moment someone types what they want help with: a concern, an approach, a place or an insurance plan. You pay when someone clicks, and the ad, the landing page and how fast the practice responds decide whether that click becomes a consultation.

Search intent, not interruption

A person who searches for an EMDR therapist in Raleigh or couples counseling that takes Cigna has already decided to look for help and is comparing options. Search ads answer that request directly, which is why most therapy budgets start on Google Search rather than in social feeds. Social platforms reach people before they search; that suits a new office, a new clinician, a workshop or hiring, and it is covered in the Meta section further down.

Practices that get the most from paid search

Paid search pays off fastest for a practice with open hours to fill, a clear specialty, a fee or insurance position it can state plainly, and someone who answers the phone or returns a message the same day. It works less well for a full caseload with a waitlist, a generalist message with no specialty, or a telehealth practice whose clinicians are not licensed where the searcher lives. A group practice can steer budget toward the clinician or specialty with openings and pause it when a calendar fills, which is something a flat directory listing cannot do.

Where paid search sits next to directories and SEO

Most practices already rely on a directory profile, a Google Business Profile and a website. Those belong to the wider therapist marketing program, with SEO for therapists for organic search and therapist website design for the site itself. This page stays on the paid side: Google Ads first, Meta second, and how both are run inside health advertising, ethics and privacy rules.

How do people search Google for a therapist?

They search by problem, approach, person, place and payment, often several at once. A campaign that mirrors those patterns spends on people the practice can help and ignores the rest.

Specialty and modality searches

Searches name a concern (anxiety, grief, OCD, postpartum depression), a method (EMDR, DBT, CBT, exposure therapy) or a person (teens, couples, veterans, new parents, LGBTQ+ adults). These are the highest-intent terms in a therapy account because they match how someone describes what they need. Each deserves its own ad group and its own section of the landing page, rather than one catch-all campaign that sends every searcher to the homepage.

Location, telehealth and near me searches

Many searches add a city, a neighborhood or near me, and many others ask for online therapy in a state. Office-based practices target a realistic travel area around each office. Telehealth practices target only the states where each clinician can lawfully see clients, which the licensure section below covers in detail.

Insurance and cost searches

People search by insurer, by sliding scale, by out of network and by price. If the practice is private pay, say so in the ad and on the page; a click from someone who needs in-network care costs the same as a click from a good-fit client. If you take insurance, name the plans, because an ad that answers the payment question early filters for you before you pay.

Searches you should not pay for

Clinician job searches, salary questions, degree and licensing exam research, free worksheets, definitions and continuing education all contain the word therapist, and none of them is a client. They go on the negative keyword list on day one. Searches that signal an emergency are different: a practice that does not run a crisis service should exclude crisis wording and point people to the 988 Lifeline, which takes calls, texts and chats at 988.

Google’s health advertising rules that shape every therapy campaign

Mental health services are not banned on Google Ads, but Google treats them as a sensitive interest category and restricts some health services unless the advertiser is certified. Knowing which rule applies before launch saves disapprovals, and later a warning or a suspension.

Mental health counseling is a sensitive interest category

Google’s Health in personalized advertising policy lists counseling for mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and addiction among its examples. Under its restricted targeting rules, advertisers in a sensitive interest category cannot use advertiser-curated audiences: Customer Match, your data segments (the lists once called remarketing), audience expansion and lookalike segments. Predefined Google audiences such as in-market, affinity, demographics, life events and location remain available, because Google excludes sensitive signals from them.

Couples, family and grief counseling

Google’s relationship hardships category lists family or relationship counseling services, divorce services and bereavement services. Its abuse and trauma category covers services for people who have been victims of abuse, crime or another traumatic event, such as domestic abuse shelters and victim advocates. The same limits apply, so a couples or grief campaign runs on keywords, location and Google’s predefined audiences, never on audiences built from your own data.

Teens and Demand Gen campaigns

Google does not show personalized ads of any kind to users under 18, including ads based on its predefined audiences, so adolescent therapy campaigns are generally built on keywords and location aimed at parents and guardians. Google also says Demand Gen campaigns use advertiser-curated audiences by default and may be restricted from serving in sensitive interest categories. For most practices, a Search campaign is the cleaner place to start.

When an ad is disapproved

Google’s healthcare and medicines policy is applied to ads, keywords and landing pages. After an edit, Google re-reviews the ad automatically, which it says typically takes 24 to 48 hours, and you can appeal from inside the account if you believe a decision is wrong. For its addiction services and prescription drug services policies, Google says it issues a warning at least seven days before any account suspension.

Substance use counseling: LegitScript and Google certification

Any practice that advertises recovery-oriented drug or alcohol addiction services on Google in the United States must hold LegitScript certification as an addiction services provider and must also be approved through Google’s own healthcare certification. Without both, those ads do not run.

What Google counts as addiction services

Google’s addiction services policy covers clinical addiction treatment providers, recovery support services such as sober living environments and mutual help organizations, lead generators and referral agencies, and crisis hotlines for drug and alcohol addiction. Approved advertisers can run these ads in the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Ireland and New Zealand. Services for impulse control disorders, behavioral addiction and nicotine addiction are outside the policy, although they stay inside the Health sensitive interest category and its targeting limits.

Who LegitScript certifies

LegitScript’s Addiction Treatment Certification is for licensed addiction treatment in the US or Canada, in person or remote, including outpatient counseling and medication-assisted treatment delivered by licensed professionals, and addiction treatment inside a co-occurring program qualifies. Lead generators, call centers and marketers that refer patients to other providers for compensation are explicitly excluded, and so are sober living homes without licensed clinical services.

What certification costs

LegitScript publishes its fees. An individual practitioner tier, for one to three addiction treatment providers at a single location with one website and no affiliation with a larger organization, costs a $535 nonrefundable application fee and $1,070 a year once approved. Standard pricing is per facility: $1,595 to apply and $3,095 a year for one to nine facilities, falling at higher counts, plus an optional $2,500 per application for expedited review. LegitScript says hardship waivers may be available for qualifying nonprofits.

What LegitScript reviews

Its 16 standards cover licensure, any legal or regulatory history over the past ten years, staff qualifications, website disclosures such as the physical address and an accurate description of services, privacy compliance, advertising that clearly identifies the advertiser, no ties to lead generators and no patient incentives such as paid travel. LegitScript also warns that running addiction ads on Google, Bing or Facebook without certification may be grounds for denial.

Where the rest of addiction marketing lives

Admissions, levels of care, insurance verification and referral rules for treatment programs are covered on our rehab marketing agency page and rehab SEO. This section is for a therapy practice that offers substance use counseling alongside its other work and needs to know what that adds to a Google Ads account.

Psychiatry, prescribing and medication names in ads

Google’s prescription rules are written for services that prescribe, dispense or sell medication, so they start to matter when a practice adds a prescriber or a medication-based treatment.

Telehealth that facilitates prescribing

Google’s prescription drug services policy covers the online prescribing, dispensing and sale of prescription drugs and names telemedicine providers among the businesses it applies to. In the United States, Google allows telemedicine providers accredited through LegitScript’s Healthcare Merchant Certification, which certifies services that provide virtual care and facilitate prescribing, and the advertiser must also be certified with Google. Google says it errs on the side of caution with landing pages that appear to facilitate online prescribing.

Drug names in ads and keywords

For campaigns targeting the United States, Canada or New Zealand, Google’s restricted drug terms policy lets advertisers use prescription drug terms in ads and on landing pages without certification, but keyword targeting those terms requires certification. A clinic that offers a medication-based treatment can describe it on its page and bid on the condition and the service, rather than the drug name, until it is certified.

Ethics codes that govern advertising for psychologists, counselors and social workers

Platform approval is not the only test. Each licensed profession has an ethics code with advertising standards, and they apply to paid ads and directory listings; the APA code also makes psychologists responsible for copy that others place on their behalf.

APA Ethics Code, Standard 5

The APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct counts paid or unpaid advertising and directory listings as public statements and bars false, deceptive or fraudulent statements about training, credentials, services, fees and the results of services. It requires a paid advertisement to be identified or clearly recognizable as one, and says psychologists who engage others to create or place public statements keep professional responsibility for them. Psychologists do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients or from others vulnerable to undue influence.

ACA Code of Ethics for counselors

The ACA Code of Ethics of 2014, which ACA says remains the current version while a revision is prepared, requires counselors to identify their credentials accurately when advertising. Counselors who use testimonials do not solicit them from current clients, former clients or anyone vulnerable to undue influence, and they discuss the implications with a client and get permission first. A counselor with a master’s degree should not imply doctoral-level competence, including by using the title Dr. in a counseling context when the doctorate is not in counseling or a closely related field.

NASW Code of Ethics for social workers

Section 4 of the NASW Code of Ethics asks social workers to make sure their representations of credentials, services and expected results are accurate, not to engage in uninvited solicitation of potential clients who are vulnerable to undue influence, and not to solicit testimonial endorsements, including consent to reuse something a client said before, from current clients or others vulnerable to undue influence.

What this means for ad copy

State credentials and license types exactly, leave out promises about outcomes, and keep client reviews out of ads unless your code, your state board and your counsel all allow the specific use. Marriage and family therapists and other license types have their own codes and state rules, so check yours before launch. Nothing on this page is ethics or legal advice.

Writing therapy ads that fit Google’s health rules and earn the right click

Describe the service, the clinician and the next step, not the searcher’s state of mind. Calm, specific ads stay inside the policies and filter for people who fit.

Describe the service, not the person

Meta’s advertising standards forbid ads that assert or imply a person’s physical or mental health, and Google applies its healthcare policies to the ad, the keywords and the landing page together. A headline that reads Anxiety therapy in Austin, evening sessions describes the service. One that asks whether the reader is struggling with anxiety speaks to their condition. The first version is the safer choice under both Google’s and Meta’s rules and still matches what the person typed.

Put the deciding facts in the ad

Specialty, approach, office location or licensed states, in-network plans or private pay, evening or weekend availability and how soon a first session is possible are the facts that decide a click. Ads have little room, so pick the two or three that matter most for each ad group and let the landing page carry the rest.

Assets that earn extra space

Google’s call assets add a call button and can be scheduled to show only on the days and hours someone can answer. Location assets pull the address from a linked Google Business Profile, and a location marked closed there stops showing in ads. Sitelinks can point to fees, insurance, specialties and clinician pages, which answers more of the deciding questions before the click.

Claims to leave out

Leave out guarantees of results, cure language, comparisons you cannot support, urgency built on distress and anything that could read as a crisis service you do not run. Keep credentials exact and use the license type a reader can verify with your state board. If a sentence would make you uneasy in front of your licensing board, it does not belong in a headline.

Keywords, match types and negatives for a counseling practice

Build the account around the specialties you want more of, use tighter match types while the account learns, and review the search terms every week.

One ad group per specialty or approach

Organize keywords by the concern, method or person you treat, with ads and a landing section written for that theme. A practice with three trauma-trained clinicians and one couples specialist should not spend evenly across both; separate ad groups make it easy to move budget to wherever calendars have room.

Match types in plain terms

Google’s keyword matching options are broad, phrase and exact. Broad match is the default and can show ads on related searches that do not contain your words, and Google recommends pairing it with Smart Bidding. Phrase match shows ads on searches that include the meaning of the keyword, and exact match on searches with the same meaning or intent. In a small therapy account, phrase and exact give more control until there is enough conversion data for automation to work with.

Negative keywords from day one

Negative keywords stop ads from showing on searches that contain a term. Start with job, jobs, salary, degree, school, exam, CEU, free, worksheet, definition and the insurers you do not take, then add terms from the search terms report each week. Google’s negative keywords guide notes that negatives do not match close variants, so excluding one form of a word does not exclude its plural; list both.

Read the search terms report weekly

The search terms report shows the actual searches that triggered your ads, and it is where wasted spend shows up first. Our free Google Ads audit takes a pasted Search Terms report after you enter a contact detail and shows non-converting spend, negative keyword candidates ranked by cost and the split between brand and non-brand searches, calculated in your browser; nothing you paste is uploaded or stored.

Location targeting, telehealth and licensure

Advertise only where each clinician can see a client, and only to people who are physically there. That one setting does more for a therapy budget than any bid strategy.

Use Presence, not Presence or interest

Google’s broader setting, Presence or interest, also reaches people who have shown interest in a location without being there. Google’s own location targeting guidance says to consider Presence targeting when a business falls within a sensitive vertical with strict targeting limits, or when you only want people who are in the location. For a therapist licensed in one state, a person in another state researching your city cannot become a client.

Radius targeting for offices

Radius targeting needs at least 1 km around a location, and Google warns that a very small target may show ads only intermittently or not at all. Draw the radius around realistic travel times to each office, and run telehealth as a separate campaign targeted by state, so office and online budgets can move independently.

Counseling Compact and PSYPACT

Interstate compacts change which states a clinician can serve. The Counseling Compact names ten states that have completed the steps to issue and accept privileges to practice (Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming), with Oklahoma going live on October 1, 2026 and 29 more states plus the District of Columbia working toward it. A counselor licensed in and living in one of those states can apply for the privilege in the others. PSYPACT lets a psychologist with a full, unrestricted doctoral-level license in a participating state apply for an Authority to Practice Interjurisdictional Telepsychology. Add a state to a campaign only after the privilege or license is in hand.

Geofencing near health care facilities

Washington’s My Health My Data Act, at RCW 19.373.080, makes it unlawful for any person to set up a geofence within 2,000 feet of a facility that provides in-person health care services in order to identify or track people seeking care, collect their health data or send them ads related to health care services. Tight perimeters drawn around a clinic, a hospital or a competitor’s office belong nowhere in a therapy campaign.

Landing pages built for a private first contact

Send ad clicks to a page written for that specialty, not to the homepage. It should answer the questions that decide the call and offer a first step that does not ask for clinical detail.

What the page needs to answer

Who the page is for and what you treat, who the clinician is, with license type and approach, where sessions happen (an office address or the licensed states), fees or the plans you take, availability, and what happens after someone reaches out. A short paragraph on what a first session looks like lowers the barrier for a nervous reader. Our landing page design work covers the build.

Forms that ask for less

Ask for a name, a way to reach the person and a preferred time. Leave diagnosis, symptom and medication fields off the first-contact form, and say plainly how the message is handled and how soon you reply. The less clinical detail a form collects, the less can leak through a tag, a plugin or an email notification.

Fees and the good faith estimate

CMS says that, usually, when a person is not using health insurance, the provider must give a good faith estimate of expected charges if the person asks for one or schedules at least three business days ahead. A private-pay landing page that states fees and mentions the right to a good faith estimate answers the price question honestly before the first call.

Crisis information on every page

Add a short line saying the practice does not provide crisis services and that anyone in crisis can call, text or chat 988, or call 911. It protects the reader and keeps the ad from setting an expectation the practice cannot meet.

Tracking consultations without sending health data to Google or Meta

Measure the ads by counting contacts and consultations, not by sending what people tell you back to the ad platform. Whether HIPAA applies depends on how the practice bills, but the safe setup is the same either way.

When does HIPAA apply to a private practice?

HIPAA’s definition of a covered entity in 45 CFR 160.103 includes a health care provider who transmits health information electronically in connection with a covered transaction, such as an insurance claim. A practice that bills insurers electronically is generally a covered entity. A private-pay practice that never sends covered transactions may fall outside HIPAA, but the confidentiality duties in its ethics code, state privacy law and the FTC Act still apply.

What HHS says about tracking on booking and intake pages

HHS’s bulletin on online tracking technologies says tracking on an unauthenticated page that lets people schedule appointments can collect protected health information, such as an email address or the reason for seeking care. It also says a privacy policy notice alone does not permit disclosing that information to a tracking vendor; the vendor must sign a business associate agreement, and the disclosure must also be permitted by the Privacy Rule. In June 2024 a federal court vacated one part of the bulletin, the part about connecting an IP address with a visit to a public page about health conditions or providers, and HHS says it is evaluating next steps. The court vacated that part only.

Google says not to tag HIPAA-covered pages

Google says it does not offer business associate agreements for Google Analytics, that HIPAA-regulated entities must not expose protected health information to it, and that they should not place Analytics tags on authenticated pages or on HIPAA-covered unauthenticated pages. Plan Google Ads conversion tags with the same care: fire them on a thank-you page that holds no health detail, never on intake, booking or portal pages.

Count calls without recording them

Call reporting runs on Google forwarding numbers and can count calls from ads as conversions. Google Ads also offers call recording, which you turn on or off in account settings. Google now switches call recording on by default for many accounts, though it stays off for advertisers Google identifies as healthcare unless they enable it, so open Account settings, Call ads, Call recording and confirm it reads Off. In a therapy practice, where callers often describe symptoms in the first minute, leave recording off and count the calls only.

The BetterHelp order

In March 2023 the FTC announced a proposed order banning the online counseling company BetterHelp from sharing consumers’ health data for advertising and requiring it to pay $7.8 million; the FTC finalized the order on July 14, 2023. The FTC said the company used email addresses and the fact that people had been in therapy to have Facebook find similar users and target them with ads. It shows how a regulator views an audience built from therapy client data.

Facebook ads for therapists: what Meta allows and where it helps

Meta reaches people before they search, so it suits a new office, a workshop or a new clinician better than an urgent search for help. Its rules on personal attributes and addiction treatment, and the BetterHelp history, set the limits.

Meta’s personal attributes rule

Meta’s Privacy Violations and Personal Attributes standard says ads must not assert or imply personal attributes, including physical or mental health and medical conditions, and must not imply knowledge of someone’s medical information. An ad can use you and your without naming an attribute, and public service messages about health topics are allowed as long as they do not assert that the viewer or their family has a condition.

Addiction treatment on Meta

Meta’s drug and alcohol addiction treatment policy requires advertisers targeting people in the United States to be certified with LegitScript and to have written permission from Meta. It covers in-person and online treatment, addiction hotlines and mutual support offerings for people in recovery.

Facebook ads for mental health practices: formats that fit

Short videos or images that introduce a clinician and approach, announcements of a workshop or a new office, and recruitment ads for clinicians all fit Meta, because none of them depends on a person already searching. Facebook ads for psychologists, counselors, social workers and marriage and family therapists follow the same rules. Send clicks to a page with a clear next step, and measure with the same clean conversion setup used for Google, with no pixel on intake or booking pages.

Should a practice start with Meta or Google?

Most practices start with Google Search, because it captures people already looking for help, and add Meta when there is something specific to announce. Our Google Ads versus Facebook Ads comparison covers the channels in general, and our Facebook ads agency page covers Meta management.

Psychology Today, directories and paid search together

A directory profile and a search campaign do different jobs, and most practices that advertise keep both. Directories themselves are covered on our marketing agency for therapists page; this section covers only how paid search fits beside them.

What advertising on Psychology Today costs

Psychology Today lists its membership at $29.95 a month with no contract, and members can log in to see how many people viewed their profile and who made contact. That is a flat fee for a listing among nearby clinicians, not a placement you control by specialty, hour or budget.

What search ads add

A search ad sends a person to your own page, written for one specialty, with your fees, availability and next step, and lets you choose the searches and hours you pay for. It also lets you raise spend for a clinician with openings and lower it for one with a waitlist.

How to compare the two

Ask each new client how they found you, record it in your practice records and compare monthly: contacts and new clients from the directory against its flat fee, and from Google Ads against media and management. The numbers decide where the next dollar goes.

Google Ads, AI Overviews and AI assistants

People now ask Google’s AI Overviews and assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot to suggest a therapist. Ads and answers are separate systems, and a practice has to plan for both.

Ads sit above and below AI Overviews, not inside them

Google says ads can show above and below AI Overviews in the markets where AI Overviews appear, and inside AI Overviews in some countries, including the US. It also says it currently does not show ads inside AI Overviews for sensitive verticals, and names healthcare among them. A therapy practice can still appear in the ads around an AI Overview, and no ad buys a place in the answer itself.

How people ask assistants for a therapist

Prompts carry the same details as searches and often more of them: a concern, an approach, a city or state, an insurer, a budget and a preference such as evening sessions or a clinician with a particular background. An assistant can only match those details to a practice whose pages state them plainly.

What assistants can cite

Assistants that browse can only cite what is published and readable: practice pages that state specialties, license types, locations or licensed states, fees and insurance in plain text; directory and business profiles; and articles written by the clinicians. Some assistants show labeled ads beside their answers, and those are bought separately from what the answer says.

What to publish so the practice gets named

A page per specialty with the clinician, approach, fees and location; a clear statement of licensed states for telehealth; a current Google Business Profile; and clinician-written answers to the questions people ask before a first session. Our AEO for therapists page covers this in depth, and AEO for healthcare covers the wider sector.

What do Google Ads for therapists cost?

There are two costs: the media you pay Google, which you set, and the management, landing page and tracking work around it. Clicks in this category are expensive, so the landing page and the speed of the reply matter as much as the bid.

How Google charges against your budget

You set an average daily budget for each campaign. Google may spend up to twice that on a busy day but will not charge more than 30.4 times the average daily budget in a month, so a $304 monthly budget is a $10 daily budget in Google’s own worked example. Ad schedules do not change that monthly pacing. You pay only for clicks and can change the budget at any time.

Published US price bands for management

Published US price bands put Google Ads management at $800 to $2,500 a month, or 10 to 20 percent of spend at scale, with the media you buy on top. Meta management runs about $1,200 to $4,000 a month. A single landing page runs $1,200 to $4,000 and conversion tracking across channels $1,200 to $5,000 as a one-off. These are market figures, not a Progression rate card, and a quote follows a written scope.

Is a Google Ads specialist worth it for a small practice?

It depends on the media budget. When a solo practice spends a few hundred dollars a month, a management fee in the bands above can exceed the media itself, and a well-built account checked weekly by the owner may be the better economics. When several clinicians need full calendars, or the practice offers substance use counseling that needs certification, specialist time is easier to justify, because the cost of waste and policy mistakes grows with spend.

How long does Google Ads take to work for a practice?

Setup and approval take days, Google’s bidding takes one to two weeks to settle, and a reliable read on cost per new client takes longer, because people often contact several clinicians before choosing one.

The first two weeks

Google’s advertiser verification can take up to five business days to show as complete in the account. Ads are reviewed against policy before they run, and an edited ad is re-reviewed, typically within 24 to 48 hours. Google’s conversion measurement guidance says Smart Bidding needs a 7 to 14 day learning phase and that changing budgets, targets or conversion goals during it resets the learning window.

Weeks three to eight

Review search terms weekly, add negatives, move budget toward the specialty ad groups that produce consultations, and fix ads and landing sections that get clicks without contacts. Keep a short change log, so a jump or a dip can be traced to a decision rather than guessed at.

Month three and after

By now there is enough history to compare cost per consultation and cost per new client by specialty and decide what to scale, fix or stop. Judge the account on new clients and what they are worth to the practice, not on clicks or impressions.

Measuring what matters: consultations, new clients and capacity

The useful numbers are cost per consultation request and cost per new client, by specialty and clinician, set against what a new client is worth to the practice.

Count contacts in Google, clients in your own records

Google Ads sees clicks, calls and form submissions. It does not see who booked, who came to a first session or who continued, and it should not. Keep that in your practice management system, or a simple spreadsheet keyed to the campaign, and compare totals each month.

Know what a new client is worth

Estimate the average number of sessions per client, the fee or reimbursement per session and the share of first appointments that go ahead, and you have a ceiling on what a new client can cost. Our ROAS calculator and the cost per lead guide help with the arithmetic.

Spend follows capacity

Ads should run when someone can answer and a clinician can take the client. Use ad schedules to match the hours someone answers the phone, pause ad groups for clinicians who are full, and raise budgets when a new clinician joins. Marketing analytics covers reporting across channels if the practice runs several.

• Cost per consultation request, by specialty and by clinician.
• Cost per new client, reconciled monthly from your own records.
• Share of consultation requests answered the same business day.
• Search terms added as negatives this week, and the spend they had used.
• Open hours per clinician, so budgets follow capacity.
• New clients by source across Google Ads, Meta, directories and referrals.

Doing it yourself or hiring a Google Ads specialist

Many solo clinicians run their own accounts well, because the work is weekly and repetitive rather than difficult. A specialist earns the fee when spend, specialties or compliance get complicated.

What does a Google Ads specialist do?

A specialist structures campaigns by specialty and location, writes and tests ads inside health policies and ethics codes, sets negative keywords, configures conversion tracking that keeps health data out of the platform, reviews search terms and budgets every week, handles disapprovals and certifications, and reports cost per consultation and per new client. The same tasks apply to advertising for therapists, psychologists and counselors alike.

When doing it yourself is reasonable

One location or one licensed state, two or three specialties, a modest budget and an hour a week to read the search terms. Keep to Search campaigns, phrase and exact match, call and location assets, a negative keyword list and one clean thank-you page conversion.

When to bring in help

Several clinicians or offices, telehealth across many states, substance use counseling that needs certification, a disapproval you cannot resolve, or spend high enough that a weekly hour no longer covers the review. Our Google Ads and PPC management page explains how management works across industries.

How to choose a Google Ads provider for a therapy practice

Choose on how a provider handles health policy, privacy and your ethics code, and on whether it reports in consultations and new clients. Platform skill is necessary but not sufficient.

Red flags

Walk away from any of these, whatever the price.

• A guaranteed number of new clients per month.
• Lead selling or pay-per-referral arrangements, which LegitScript excludes outright for addiction treatment.
• Ads run from the provider’s own account instead of yours.
• A pixel on every page, including the intake form.
• A plan to collect testimonials from current clients for ads.
• Remarketing or lookalike audiences proposed for a mental health practice.

How we run Google Ads for therapy practices

We manage Google Ads and Meta campaigns for practices across the United States and worldwide, inside the health policies and ethics rules described on this page.

What every healthcare account gets

On our healthcare advertising work, every campaign is reviewed against Google and Meta health policies and state rules before launch, and tracking is set up so that no protected health information reaches an ad platform. We work inside your accounts and you own them. Where a platform requires certification, we manage it with you, and we sign a business associate agreement where our access to your systems requires one. Each month we report consultations and new clients by source and specialty, with capacity in view. Our healthcare advertising agency page covers the wider healthcare program.

How to start

Send your specialties, offices or licensed states and current spend for a free proposal with a written scope and a same-business-day reply.

Related services

Pages that cover the ground around Google Ads for a therapy practice.

• Therapist marketing agency: directories, local SEO, niches, referrals and the whole program
• Google Ads and PPC management: how paid search management works
• Social media advertising: Meta, Instagram and other paid social
• Lead generation agency: inquiry flow across channels
• Conversion rate optimization: turning more clicks into consultations
• Healthcare advertising agency: paid media for practices and health systems
• Rehab marketing agency: treatment programs and admissions
• SEO for therapists: organic search for a practice
• Therapist website design: the site the ads point to
• AEO for therapists: being named by AI assistants
• Facebook ads agency: Meta campaign management
• Microsoft Advertising agency: search ads on Bing
• Landing page design agency: specialty pages built to convert
• Google Business Profile optimization: the profile behind location assets
• Are Google Ads worth it?: the arithmetic for small businesses
• Physical therapy marketing: for PT clinics rather than talk therapy
• Wellness marketing agency: adjacent wellness services
• Medical marketing agency: physician and clinic practices

Frequently asked questions