The Client
Insight Northwest Counseling is a counseling practice in Oregon serving Portland and Eugene & Springfield. We built and ran Search campaigns for their Google Ads that produced 1,238 phone calls in two years.
We launched our campaigns in August 2021 and ran them until August 2023.
31 calls in the launch month. 50 to 72 a month from then on.
The Challenge
Google Ads for therapists is a hard category for a private practice:
- Teletherapy giants. National online-therapy platforms spend heavily on the same "therapist near me" searches a local practice needs.
- Directories everywhere. Therapist directories outrank individual practices for almost every counseling search.
- Strict healthcare ad policies. Ads have to be careful about how they reference sensitive conditions.
- Mixed intent. Self-help, career counseling and information-only searches look like therapy searches and waste the budget.
What We Built
1. Search Campaigns by Market
We built separate Search campaigns for general counseling services and for the Eugene & Springfield market, so each area had its own budget, ads and keywords.
2. Built for the Phone
People looking for a therapist usually call. Every call from our ads was tracked as a conversion, so the campaigns were judged on calls, not clicks.
3. Negative Keywords Against Non-Therapy Searches
Non-therapy searches were blocked continuously with negative keywords so the budget went to people ready to reach out.
4. Daily Optimization via Ad Campaign Concierge™
Every campaign was reviewed daily through our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ system: search-term mining, bid and budget adjustments, and budget moved to the market producing calls.
The Results
- 2021 (August to December): 259 calls
- 2022: 677 calls
- 2023 (January to August): 302 calls
- Calls a month: 31 in the launch month, 54 in the first full month, then a steady 50 to 72 a month through April 2023
Every Call from Our Campaigns
1,238 calls from August 2021 to August 2023, at an average of $63.97 per call. For a counseling practice, one new client usually means many sessions, not one.
Key Takeaways
- In counseling, the call is the conversion. Tracking and bidding on calls, not clicks, is what keeps the budget on people ready to book.
- Separate your markets. Each office area gets its own campaign, budget and ads.
- Block the look-alike searches. Self-help and career searches look like therapy searches. Negative keywords are what keep the cost per call predictable.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should a counseling practice spend on Google Ads?
The campaigns we built for Insight Northwest Counseling launched at about $2,400 a month and ran at about $4,000 a month from February 2022 to April 2023. That budget produced 50 to 72 calls a month across Portland and Eugene & Springfield.
What does a call from Google Ads cost a counseling practice?
Across 1,238 calls from August 2021 to August 2023, the average was $63.97 per call from our campaigns.
How fast can Google Ads produce calls for a therapy practice?
Our campaigns launched in August 2021 and produced 31 calls that month. The first full month, September 2021, brought 54, and October brought 67.
About This Campaign
These campaigns were managed daily through Ad Campaign Concierge™, our proprietary optimization system for lead generation.
Industry: Mental Health Counseling Platforms: Google Ads (Search) Location: Oregon (Portland, Eugene & Springfield) Account Duration: August 2021 to August 2023
Figures cover only the campaigns we built and ran; other campaigns in the account are excluded. Leads are phone calls from ads as tracked in Google Ads. Map clicks and direction requests are excluded. Amounts in US dollars.