Facebook ads have been an effective chiropractic marketing strategy for many years now. But as with everything in the internet marketing world they are always changing. Over the past few years, diversification of advertising into other social media platforms including TikTok has become even more important for chiropractors. But even though it may be more difficult to do effective Facebook chiropractic ads it is still worth it in most markets.
The average Facebook user in 2022 still clicked on 12 ads per month. There are still a ton of people on Facebook and lots of opportunity to connect with prospective new patients.
So, let’s talk about the do’s and don’ts of chiropractic Facebook ads. Following these guidelines can be the difference between generating consistent new patients from Facebook or having your Facebook ad account completely disabled.
No practice wants to lose the ability to generate new patients with chiropractic Facebook ads. So it's crucial that you follow these do's and don'ts whether you are doing Facebook ads yourself or you are working with an agency like ours.
First, let's start with the don’ts of chiropractor ads. These don'ts will help you stay in compliance with Facebook's advertising policies. Ignoring these warnings can lead to your ads being rejected or your Facebook ad account being completely shut down. So please heed these warnings.
According to Facebook ad policies you cannot use questions that ask about a person’s health status in your chiropractic Facebook ads. For example, “Do you have back pain?” Instead, you need to turn this into a statement. But, you even have to be careful with this as well.
This is how Facebook says it "Ads must not contain content that asserts or implies personal attributes. This includes direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s race, ethnic origin, religion, beliefs, age, sexual orientation or practices, gender identity, disability, medical condition (including physical or mental health), financial status, voting status, membership in a trade union, criminal record, or name."
So the issue lies with the physical medical condition of the person. If your chiropractic ads on Facebook's title or description implies, for instance, a person has back pain then it's violating the personal attributes advertising policy of Facebook.
Here is a screenshot from the personal attributes section with examples.
You will notice that each of the examples that are not allowed use the word "you" or "your". This type of wording will almost always get your chiropractic Facebook ads rejected.
Direct questions cannot be used in Facebook advertising. For the average person, when an ad comments on their life (even accidentally), it hits a little too close to home and will lead to too many complaints about the Facebook platform. So they will likely reject all uses of question marks in chiropractic Facebook ads, especially as it relates to a person's health.
Instead of using questions focus on statements that can still connect with an individual who is sick or suffering. The wording you use can make a significant impact on your target audience if you have an agency that really understands chiropractic Facebook ads.
When you make statements in a Facebook ad as part of your chiropractic marketing you have to be very careful in order to not violate Facebook ad policies. Any statement that could be insinuated as promising a cure will not be accepted.
Facebook may not even tolerate something as innocent as “Chiropractic Helps Back Pain” as they could consider that a truth claim for Facebook Chiropractic ads. Using assumptive language will frequently get your ad rejected. So stay away from using words like "will", "does", and even "has". Instead, you need to use words like "may". So for instance, "chiropractic may help back pain" maybe flag under Facebook's misleading claims policy. I know it's ridiculous but this is Facebook's rules if you want to advertise on their platform you have to play by their rules.
This is how Facebook says it "Ads must not contain deceptive, false, or misleading claims like those relating to the effectiveness or characteristics of a product or service or claims setting unrealistic expectations for users such as misleading health, employment or weight-loss claims." So according to Facebook to imply that chiropractic helps back pain in your chiropractic Facebook ads is misleading because not every person who reads the ad will be helped by chiropractic care.
Another topic you need to be very careful with is anything related to vaccines. Not just ads but also posts or videos that mention vaccines may have negative consequences to your entire Facebook page, ad account, or business manager.
As Facebook states in their advertising policies under section 31 "Ads must not discourage people from vaccination or advocate against vaccines."
So don't insinuate a cure and stay away from even mentioning vaccines to stay within Facebook guidelines.
Another issue with Facebook ad policies for chiropractor ads has to do with pictures. Facebook will generally not accept pictures with people in pain who have red painful areas highlighted.
If you would like to attempt to get a full understanding of Facebook’s ad policies you can read them here. But, be careful! Many things must be learned simply from trial and error.
At Upper Cervical Marketing we do over $300,000 worth of chiropractic Facebook ads for our clients every year. Even our experts have trouble getting ads approved sometimes due to constant algorithm changes. The last thing you want to do is get your entire Facebook page or ad account banned because you the agency you hire doesn't understand the Facebook advertising policies.
For example, you would not want to use the image below for your chiropractic Facebook ads. There are many images that will work effectively but the key to seeing what images, headlines, descriptions will work in your chiropractic Facebook ads is testing. Everything must be tested to determine what is going to work most effectively in your area and for your specific target audience.
As we said earlier, you only have a short amount of time to capture users’ attention, so your paid chiropractic Facebook ads must not confuse or overwhelm your target market. Rather, these should be short and straight to the point – something viewers can comprehend within a few seconds.
Your ads must have a simple headline, a descriptive message, and a clear image that’s consistent with your brand and offerings.
Also, beware of using deceptive ads as clickbait. You don’t want to anger your users or get banned from the platform because your ad misled them. Customers are the heart of your business, so building trust is of utmost importance.
One little typo might affect your practice brand’s credibility. You wouldn’t want users to comment on your mistake instead of asking about your ads, so it’s crucial to review spelling, grammar, and punctuation before posting.
Double and triple check for possible errors and have someone else look at it and read through it to make sure it makes sense and doesn't have any of these types of errors before launching your ad.
It is essential that you monitor your ad campaigns. Keep track of chiropractic Facebook ads performance and make changes accordingly to achieve better results. However, it is not advisable to do so on a daily basis because every time you make a change in the ad, it stops till the time it is under review. And after it resumes, it takes time for it to pick up the pace again.
Our advertising team checks all of our client ads on a weekly basis and makes changes as necessary to optimize performance.
Facebook recommends less than 20% text in all images. This means that if 20% of the image that you are using in your graphic has text on it it will likely not perform as well.
So when creating graphics for your chiropractic Facebook ads it's important to keep your text at a minimum while still having graphics that catch the attention of your audience and communicate to your target market effectively.
Next let's look at the dos of successful chiropractic Facebook ads.
If you are an online marketing do-it-yourselfer, chiropractic Facebook ads are still extremely effective as part of a comprehensive internet marketing strategy. But, keep in mind Facebook's compliance standards when you run chiropractic ads on Facebook.
Many times effective Facebook ads can create an initial exposure to a potential new patient for your practice. The average person will engage with your online presence and properties seven times before coming into your practice so it's crucial to not just run Facebook ads but have your entire Internet marketing strategy firing on all cylinders.
Even within Facebook, ads are just one part of an effective strategy. Your Facebook page should have effective branding, live videos, recorded videos, posts, pictures, graphics, and more. You should also encourage patients to check-in when they visit your practice, leave you reviews on Facebook, and recommend you to friends. You can also encourage your patients to like, comment, and share your posts to give you even more reach.
Your practice Facebook page should be filled with social proof and valuable content to build trust, credibility, and likability with potential and existing patients.
Video content continues to be extremely important for effective Facebook marketing today. Short video content is definitely trending right now and can be used not only on Facebook but on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts.
You can use your videos in chiropractic Facebook ads, boosted posts, and more. Facebook live videos are also an effective strategy for connecting with potential new patients. Successful chiropractic Facebook ads are frequently focused on video.
Good video content for your practice Facebook page and chiropractic Facebook ads includes:
Consistent video content is a must for effective Facebook ads for chiropractic marketing. Our clients have a goal of sending in two videos per month. Once they send us their videos we optimize them to get even more reach including branding, call to actions, captions, and other important video marketing strategies.
It is crucial to an effective chiropractic Facebook ads strategy to understand your target market extensively. In order to effectively communicate and attract potential new patients within your target market, you must understand what's important to them. Facebook allows you to be really specific with your targeting – from demographics and location to hobbies and interests and languages that are spoken. The better you understand your target market the more effectively you can utilize these tools.
In a space full of posts and advertisements, you only have a few seconds to capture people’s attention. And to do that, you must use eye-catching images and videos that will make them stop and make time for you. As I mentioned earlier there are limitations when it comes to the types of images you can use so you have to stay in compliance while using high-quality graphics.
Your graphics should be clean and simple, and easy to understand, yet still fun, vibrant, and creative. Sound difficult? It is! That is why it's crucial to test different images and videos in chiropractic Facebook ads.
It is vital that your target market knows specifically what you want them to do with the ad they are looking at. Your chiropractic Facebook ads should have clear calls to action. Such as click here to download, call to schedule, click the video to watch, etc.
When developing a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy that includes chiropractic Facebook ads it is important to have a realistic budget to accomplish your goals. It's also important to understand your market. As with every marketing initiative your level of commitment, how effective your strategy is, and how your market will respond are the three variables to determine the effectiveness of your campaign.
To determine the size of your market for your chiropractic Facebook ads budget you need to evaluate your practice location with the Facebook ad manager tool.
A small-market will have less than 100,000 people within a 10-mile radius of your practice on Facebook. A medium-sized market will have between 100,000 and 500,000 people within a 10-mile radius. And a large competitive market will have more than 500,000 people within a 10-mile radius.
If you are in a small market you will need at least a $300 Facebook ad budget to attract new patients. If you are in a medium-size market you will need at least a $500 Facebook ad budget to attract new patients.
If you are in a large competitive market or you have a large practice or large goals in your Facebook ad budget can be anywhere $1000-$5000 or more.
Without a doubt, keeping up with Facebook ad policies is extremely challenging and complicated. We have an entire team that handles chiropractor Facebook ads within our company. Attempting to run an upper cervical practice while keeping up with Facebook algorithm changes is not generally feasible. And it’s not just Facebook. Google consistently rolls out huge algorithm changes as well.
Doing internet marketing well is a constantly moving target and it’s important to partner with a company that understands it, keeps up with it, and can help you implement and innovate consistently online.
Facebook ads are one of the most complicated parts of digital marketing. An ad can be running for years and then one day it is banned. Ads that are running without incident in one market are not able to be run in another market.
Another challenge is that Facebook is not good at communicating why ads are rejected. They do not specifically communicate why an ad account is disabled. They will just refer you to their community standards and advertising policies and you have to try to figure out why you are not in compliance. It can be extremely frustrating.
It's important that you work with a company that knows the ins and outs of Facebook and how to utilize the platform most effectively while at the same time not violating Facebook's ever-changing policies. Chiropractic Facebook ads are an art and science that we have used to generate over 50,000 new patients for our clients over the last eight years. If you want to learn how we make chiropractic Facebook ads work for clients in small, medium-sized, and large competitive markets keep reading.
It's important to understand that you cannot rely on Facebook ads alone. Facebook is constantly changing their policies as it relates to Facebook ads. If you put all of your eggs in this one basket you are setting yourself up for failure. This is why we recommend an integrated marketing strategy that combines a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that includes chiropractic Facebook ads with internal and external marketing strategies.
If you would like to talk with us about your upper cervical practice and see if we would be a good partner for you to reach people online through Facebook ads as part of a comprehensive integrated marketing strategy feel free to give us a call at 877-252-1230. We are here to help. Here is an example of one of our many clients who love their marketing with us!
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