Solved: Best Google Ads Setup for Local Pharmacy on $15 Budget

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on your Google Ads setup for your local pharmacy. I understand you're working with a limited budget and want to maximise foot traffic to your physical location.

Let's have a look at your situation in more detail:

We'll need to look at PMax campaigns in more detail...

You're right to be cautious about Performance Max (PMax). While it sounds appealing, especially with the focus on store visits, it can be a bit of a black box, especially with a smaller budget. PMax relies heavily on machine learning, which needs a significant amount of data to optimise effectively. If you don't feed it enough data, it might start spending your budget on things that aren't directly related to driving foot traffic, which can happen quite easily. I remember one instance where PMax started allocating a significant portion of the budget to video ads that weren't effectively converting.

With a daily budget of only $15, every click counts, and you can't afford to waste any spend on irrelevant searches or placements. PMax can be really useful once you have a larger ad spend where you're looking to scale, but with more constrained budgets, like yours, you won't see that much benefit to it.

I'd say you should stick to Search Ads...

A traditional search campaign, focused on high-intent, local keywords, is probably the better way to go, and with that in mind, here's the advice I'd give.

Keyword Research: Start by really drilling down on your keyword research. Think about all the possible search queries that potential customers might use when looking for a pharmacy near them. Think locally, focus on your town, district, and immediate surrounding areas. Some good starting points would be 'pharmacy near me', 'chemist [town]', 'flu jab [town]', or 'prescription refills [town]'

Location Targeting: Make sure you have your location targeting set up correctly in Google Ads. You want to make sure your ads are only showing to people who are physically located near your pharmacy, this will give you the highest chance that they will visit in person.

Ad Copy: Keep your ad copy hyper-local and super relevant. Highlight any unique selling points of your pharmacy, such as your fast prescription refills, your wide selection of over-the-counter medicines, your friendly staff, or any special offers you're running. Something like 'Fast Prescription Refills in [Town]' or '[Pharmacy Name] - Your Local, Friendly Pharmacy' could work. A/B test different ad copy to see what resonates most effectively with your local audience.

Ad Extensions: Utilise all the relevant ad extensions, such as location extensions (to show your address and phone number), call extensions (to allow people to call you directly from the ad), and sitelink extensions (to link to specific pages on your website, such as your online store or your prescription refill page). These extensions can really improve your ad's visibility and click-through rate.

You probably should only focus on Store Visits...

Given your primary goal is to drive foot traffic, I'd say you should just focus on tracking store visits for now. Setting up conversion tracking for online purchases is all well and good, but it can be a distraction and dilute your limited budget. You can always add the online purchase tracking later on once you're happy with how things are going and have more of a budget available.

You'll need to consider these optimisation tips...

Even with a smaller budget, there are still plenty of optimisation things that you can do to improve your campaign's performance. Make sure you're regularly monitoring your key metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), and store visits. Look for trends and patterns that will help you to identify areas for improvement. Here are a few things to look at:

Keyword Refinement: Regularly review your search terms report to identify any irrelevant search queries that are triggering your ads. Add these as negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for those searches in the future. This will help you to improve your campaign's targeting and reduce wasted spend.

Bidding Strategy: Consider using a manual bidding strategy to give you more control over your costs. Start by setting a maximum CPC bid that you're comfortable with, and then gradually adjust your bids based on performance. This will help you to maximise your budget and get the most clicks for your money.

A/B Testing: Continuously test different ad copy and ad extensions to see what resonates best with your target audience. Try testing different headlines, descriptions, and calls to action. This will help you to improve your ad's CTR and drive more relevant traffic to your pharmacy.

Website Critique...

While your primary goal is to drive foot traffic, your online presence will still play an important role in your overall marketing efforts. As people do go on your website before deciding whether or not they visit you, you should make sure the website is professional looking and gives the user all of the information they need.

Therefore I have some small suggestions for your online presence:

Website Usability: Make sure your website is easy to navigate and user-friendly. People should be able to quickly find the information they're looking for, such as your opening hours, your address, your phone number, and the services you offer.

Mobile Optimisation: Make sure your website is fully optimised for mobile devices. A lot of people will be searching for a pharmacy on their smartphones, so it's important that your website looks great and functions properly on smaller screens.

Local SEO: Optimise your website for local SEO by including relevant keywords and location information throughout your site. This will help you to improve your website's visibility in local search results.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

I hope this initial assessment is helpful! Paid advertising can feel like a minefield, and I'm happy to help navigate you through it. Given your budget constraints, it's particularly important to make every penny count.

While I've provided some actionable advice here, implementing it effectively and consistently can be tricky. You might consider working with an expert, especially if you're not seeing the results you're hoping for. We've run plenty of successful local campaigns, including for other consumer services. For example, we're running a campaign for an HVAC company currently that's seeing good results. Also, I recall a software client where we saw 3,543 users at £0.96 cost per user with Google Ads. That said, I understand your industry will require a completely different strategy - but it does show that a proper strategy and focus on CPA can drive real results.

We offer a free initial consultation where we review your current strategy and Google Ads account, which could be beneficial in identifying further areas for improvement. Feel free to book in a call if you're interested.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh