How can Facebook and Instagram ads bring more patients to a dental practice?

Google Ads reaches people already searching for a dentist. Meta ads reach people in your area before they search.

Google catches demand that already exists: someone types a search, sees your ad and clicks through when they are ready to book. Meta creates demand: your practice appears while people near you scroll Facebook or Instagram, which suits new-patient offers and awareness in a defined area.

Neither is better, and the two work together. Both are judged on cost per enquiry against the target we agree with you. We recommend a split between them after reading your accounts. See Google Ads for dentists for the search side.

Meta ads are included in Always On, $498 a month per location. Your ad spend is paid directly to Meta, with no markup from us.

Always On also includes AI Overviews visibility, Google Maps profile care and blog posts for your website, on top of the Google Ads and SEO.

• Plans are month to month, with 30 days notice.
• Plans are charged to a card, monthly in advance.
• One named account lead looks after your practice and replies within 1 business day.

The ad spend is a separate bill between your practice and Meta. There is no minimum. We advise a monthly amount for your clinic's goals. We agree the budget with you, and our agents can raise ad spend by up to 10% a day when the data shows it will help; a bigger rise waits for your OK in the dashboard, and every rise shows there with its reason. The full plan list is on pricing.

Our agents are live within the first week.

The week starts when three things are in: partner access to your Meta ad account, a cost-per-enquiry target we agree with you, and a starting monthly budget. Your practice keeps ownership of the account the whole time.

After that first week, a new campaign goes live the same day it is agreed. Every change, from a new ad set to a held line, goes into your change log with its reason, so you can see what moved and why. Agents make changes inside hard limits. Every change is logged with before, after and why, and checked about 4 weeks later.

We agree the starting budget with you, and it is paid directly to Meta. We agree the exact budget with you on the strategy session, and the agents can raise ad spend by up to 10% a day when the data shows it will help; a bigger rise waits for your OK in the dashboard, and every rise shows there with its reason.

The budget is set around your area, the treatments you want more bookings for and the cost-per-enquiry target we agree. It is paid directly to Meta, separate from our management fee, with no markup from us.

Once it is agreed, the budget is ours to run: our team and our agents move spend between ad sets inside it, 24/7. An ad spend rise over 10% a day waits for your OK in the dashboard. Every rise shows its reason.

Your practice owns it. Our access is a partner link that you can remove at any time.

If you switch to us from another agency, we handle the handover. Your ads keep running, and you do not pay two agencies for an overlap.

If you leave, plans are month to month with 30 days notice. You keep:

• your Meta ad account and its campaigns,
• your landing pages,
• your change log.

We remove our access within 5 business days. Every change made while we ran the account stays in that change log with its reason, so the history of the account stays with you too.

The agents watch and check the account 24/7 and make changes inside hard limits. People at Shoutout set the rules, answer you and own the result.

What the agents do on their own:

• read spend and enquiries against your cost-per-enquiry target,
• hold lines and settings that break Meta's or Ahpra's rules,
• keep treatment names out of Meta's tools and check cosmetic ads are 18+,
• propose a pause when an ad set runs past the target.

What waits for your OK: a campaign you asked for and an ad spend rise over 10% a day. The agents can raise ad spend by up to 10% a day when the data shows it will help; a bigger rise waits for your OK in the dashboard, and every rise shows there with its reason. Every change is logged with before, after and why, and checked about 4 weeks later.

Yes. An ad can name a treatment. It cannot tell the reader they have a condition.

"Implant consultations with our dentists" can run. "Have you been told you need implants?" cannot: it tells the reader something about their health, which Meta's rule on personal attributes and the health-advertising rules both refuse. One check covers both.

For cosmetic treatments such as veneers or whitening, Meta requires the ad to be aimed at people 18 or older. The agent checks the age setting before the ad runs, and holds it until the range starts at 18. Ahpra's rules apply to the ad and to its landing page. This is not legal advice.

No. We do not use before-and-after clinical photos or patient reviews in ads.

The health-advertising rules do not allow testimonials about clinical care, and a patient's comment about a treatment or its result counts as one. A before-and-after image shows a clinical result, so it is held too, along with lines such as "best" or "cheapest".

What runs instead:

• photos of your real team and your practice,
• information about a service, without assuming anything about the reader,
• an offer, with its terms in the ad.

No, and we never ask for one.

A list of people who had a treatment is health information. Meta does not allow health information in its tools: not in custom audiences, not in event names and not in web addresses.

So the agent also holds a tracking name that carries a treatment, such as implant_consult_lead, and suggests a neutral one, such as consult_lead, inside the rules, with the change logged. Audiences are built from where people are and, for cosmetic ads, their age, never from your patient records. We do not need access to your practice management system.

Only with its terms in the ad.

An offer in health advertising has to carry its terms. A "free consult" with no terms is not allowed, so it does not run until the terms sit beside the offer.

Only a campaign you asked for and an ad spend rise over 10% a day wait for your OK in the dashboard. Agents apply the rules to every ad and log each change, and the agent holds any line that breaks Meta's or Ahpra's rules. This is not legal advice.

To your front desk, by email and SMS. Your team calls the enquiry back.

An ad can lead to a page built for that treatment, to a Meta lead form, or to a message to the practice. Wherever the person enquires, the enquiry reaches your front desk the same way. An enquiry that arrives at night waits until the practice opens, and your team calls it back then.

We count an enquiry as an answered call, a form or an online booking from the ads. Spam, existing patients and calls under 30 seconds do not count. That is the number the cost-per-enquiry target is measured on. The agents read those enquiries against your target 24/7, and the monthly report shows them beside ad spend and the new patients your practice reports.

Every change is in your change log with its reason, and you get a written report every month.

The monthly report leads with four numbers:

• enquiries,
• cost per enquiry against your target,
• ad spend against your budget,
• the new patients your practice reports.

The change log is live, so you do not have to wait for the report to see what moved. Each entry shows what changed, when and why.

At day 90 we check the cost-per-enquiry target. If it is missed, we work for free until we hit it. The conditions are on pricing.