Advertising using Google Adwords can be effective but many massage therapists are nervous as Adwords can become a money pit for the unwary. Because adwords can eat through any advertising budget in no time at all so in my view, it is better to show your ads to too few clients than too many.

These are a few tips based on my experience with Adwords. I’m sure other therapists would have different points of view.

Make sure that you use “Search Network” only for your campaigns. There is no value for us being on the “Display Network” where there is a greater chance of fraudulent clicks.

Start off small with just a few specific keywords (normally something like “massage ******” and “****** massage “where ****** is the geographic location you want to target). If that doesn’t generate enough impressions then maybe use phrase match rather than specific.

Use negative keywords. These are words that your target audience will not be using (eg you don’t want an ad showing for the type of massage we don’t offer so include such words and phrases in your negative keywords (and all misspellings…). I have a hundreds of words included in my negative keywords – use google analytics to see what phrases are used to find you and continually update negative keywords.

Use ad scheduling to only show your ads at times you want your ads to appear.

For male therapists, I would suggest that you make sure that you include the fact you are a male therapist (eg I have my name within the ad somewhere). Again if you ad shows to an audience that would only consider a female therapist then you don’t want them clicking on your ad.

Don’t think that every specific click has to become a lead – therapists get discouraged that they are paying money for each click. You have to think in terms of how much you are prepared to spend per lead and not measure/make changes based on just one click (unless that click includes a naughty word).

And this is probably the most important point is that you need to continually monitor and tweak. If you are spending too much per lead then narrow the focus of your ads…if you ads are not showing enough then consider gradually broadening or increasing your budget (make sure budget is restricted to begin with).

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want any more information.