The problem
Lots of people visit a clinic's website or open the booking page, then leave without booking. That doesn't mean they aren't interested. Usually they just need a reminder.
The campaign
We showed ads only to the most interested visitors: people who had started filling out the booking form but left before finishing. The ads reminded them they had already started booking, and made it easy to finish.
We ran it for 30 days at $35 a day, $1,050 in total. 22 people came back and finished the form, and 14 of them booked in.
Why pricier leads can be the best leads
At $47.73 each, these leads cost more than leads from people who have never heard of the clinic. But these people already knew they had a problem and already trusted the clinic enough to start booking. That's why 64% of them booked, against roughly 9% for leads from people who have never heard of the clinic.
What the first visits brought in
This clinic's new-patient visit is $120.
14 patients × $120 = $1,680 from first visits.
On first visits alone, the campaign looks like a small win: $1.60 back for every $1 spent.
Revenue over time
This is exactly why we look at revenue over time. The average patient at this clinic brings in $600 in revenue.
14 patients × $600 = $8,400 in revenue from $1,050 in ads.
The return
That's an 8.0× return: $8 back for every $1 spent, from people who would otherwise have slipped away.
What the numbers mean for your clinic
This is the campaign owners misjudge most often, because it looks expensive and small.
- Each lead cost $47.73, about ten times what a cold Facebook lead costs.
- 64% of them booked, about seven times the rate of a cold lead.
- Each new patient cost $75.00 and brought in $600.
Those two distortions cancel each other out, and then some. Expensive leads that book are cheaper per patient than cheap leads that don't, which is why cost per lead is such a poor way to judge a campaign.
The size is the other thing to understand. Retargeting can only reach people who have already been to your website, so the audience is capped by your traffic. $35 a day was the right budget for this clinic's traffic, not a limitation we worked around. Spending triple would not have produced triple the patients; it would have shown the same people the same ad more often.
For your own clinic, the question to ask is how many people start your booking form each month and don't finish. Whatever that number is, a share of them are reachable, and they are the warmest people you will ever advertise to.
Questions clinic owners ask
Why are these leads so expensive?
Because the audience is tiny and specific. You are paying to reach a few hundred people who already know you, not tens of thousands who don't. Price per person goes up; price per patient goes down.
Do I need a lot of traffic for this to work?
You need enough people visiting and starting to book that there's an audience to retarget. A clinic with very little website traffic should fix that first, with ads or search, and add retargeting on top.
Isn't 64% booking unusually high?
For this audience, no. These people had already chosen the clinic and started the form. The ad didn't sell them on care; it reminded them to finish something they had already begun.
Why not spend more if the return is 8×?
Because the audience runs out. Once everyone who started your form has seen the ad a few times, extra budget buys repetition, not patients. Retargeting is a layer on top of other marketing, never the whole plan.
Is this just following people around the internet?
It's a reminder shown to people who were on your booking page recently. We keep the frequency sane, because the goal is to be helpful rather than inescapable.
What if my first visit is cheaper than $120?
Then your return per patient is lower, but so is the hesitation that made them abandon the form, and usually more of them book. The structure of the campaign doesn't change.
How we count revenue
Revenue counts what new patients spend over time, not just the first visit. Each study multiplies its new patients by that clinic’s own average revenue per patient. First visit revenue is shown separately.