Running Competitive Ads: A Real Dental Advertising Strategy

Every year, dental practices set goals, discuss growth, and hope their ads will attract the right patients. Yet most practices are not using a true dental advertising strategy at all. They are guessing. They pick a random budget, hope Google or Meta will magically deliver new patients, and then feel frustrated when the results don’t match their expectations. The truth is that running competitive ads in 2026 requires more structure, more clarity, and more math than most dentists realize. And that is actually good news, because once you understand the numbers, ads become predictable and profitable rather than stressful.

At Gargle, we have helped thousands of dental practices run competitive ad campaigns across Google Ads, Meta Ads, and other platforms. Over the years, we have seen what works, what fails, and what dentists consistently overlook. Today, we will break down the blueprint approach, the five numbers every dentist must know, how to match your budget to your goals, and how to build a dental advertising strategy that actually gets you the patient flow you want.

And yes, we will talk about why guessing is not marketing.

The Five Numbers You Must Know Before Running Any Ads

Before launching a single Google ad or Meta campaign, you must know these five numbers. If you don’t, you are not running a strategy. You are running a hope experiment.

1. New patients per month (goal vs. actual): You cannot plan competitive ads if you have no idea how many new patients you want to attract. A practice aiming for 15 new patients per month has a completely different advertising budget and approach than a practice targeting 40.
2. Lifetime value or average value of a new patient: Many dentists believe all new patients are created equal. They are not. Invisalign patients, implant patients, and emergency patients have different values and conversion patterns. Your strategy should match the cases you want most.
3. Percentage of production spent on marketing: The ADA recommends 4 to 5 percent if you only want to maintain your existing patient base. To achieve growth, the recommended range increases to 6 to 7 percent. If you want aggressive, transformative growth, you will need to spend 8 to 15 percent. Most dentists who say their ads are not working are not actually spending at the growth level they expect.
4. Call answer rate and booking rate: Even the best dental ad campaigns cannot make up for low call performance. If your team answers only 60 to 70 percent of calls and books a small percentage of them, your ads will feel more expensive than they are. A strong ad strategy assumes that your phones are ready to convert opportunities.
5. Treatment acceptance rate: If your ads bring in high-value cases but your case presentation process is inconsistent, the return on ad spend will underperform. Treatment acceptance is one of the hidden levers in revenue growth that dentists forget when evaluating their ads.

Knowing these numbers is the difference between guessing and planning. When you know them, you can reverse engineer the right dental advertising strategy for 2026 with confidence and precision.

The ADA Budget Benchmarks Dentists Ignore (and Why They Matter)

The ADA’s marketing benchmarks are not random percentages. They are calculated ranges based on average market competition, inflation, digital advertising trends, and patient behavior.

Here is how they break down:

• 4 to 5 percent of production: Maintain your current patient base
• 6 to 7 percent of production: Achieve steady, predictable growth
• 8 to 15 percent of production: Accelerate new patient flow and high-value case growth

“The problem is that many dentists want results from the 7 to 12 percent spending tier while budgeting at the 3 to 4 percent level. That gap causes frustration because the expectations and the budget are not aligned,” says Josh Lowe, VP of Digital Products.

A competitive dental advertising strategy accounts for both the desired growth and the cost of reaching the right people. This is where understanding your cost per click and cost per acquisition becomes essential.

Why Dentists Underspend on Digital Advertising

Over the years, we have seen a consistent pattern. Dentists rarely underspend because they do not want growth. They underspend because they do not understand the math behind competitive ads.

Most dentists:

• Underestimate the cost per click in their area
• Do not calculate how many clicks they need for one new patient
• Don’t know their booking or conversion rate
• See the upfront cost, not the downstream revenue
• View ads as a cost instead of an investment

When you understand the math, the fear around ad budgets begins to disappear.

A Simple ROI Example: The Invisalign Scenario

Many practices want to grow high-value procedures through Google Ads for dentists or Meta Ads for dentists. Invisalign is a common example, so let’s run the numbers.

If you want 10 new Invisalign cases per month and the cost per click in your area is $9.50, you must invest enough to generate the required volume.

To reach 10 cases:

• You may need around 350 to 400 clicks
• At $9.50 per click, your spend is around $3,325 to $3,800
• The average Invisalign case is $4,500
• Ten cases equal $45,000 in production

“Spending $3,500 to generate $45,000 is a powerful return. Yet dentists often see only the $3,500 cost, not the $45,000 outcome. When viewed through the correct lens, the investment becomes obvious. This is why you cannot guess your budget. Your goals and numbers determine what competitive spending should look like,” Josh explains.

How to Build a Blueprint-Based Dental Advertising Strategy for 2026

To help dentists understand what competitive advertising looks like at different stages of practice growth, we use three blueprints. These represent the most common categories, allowing us to plan realistic strategies that match each practice’s goals, budget, and capacity.

Blueprint 1: Nurture Mode

Established practice aiming to nurture

Nurture Mode is designed for well-established practices that focus on retention, loyalty, reactivation, and internal referrals. Practices operating near capacity, focused on retention, reactivation, and treatment acceptance rather than large new patient spikes.

Recommended budget: 4-5 percent of production

Priority channels: Email and text campaigns, reviews and reputation management, Google Business Profile optimization, organic social media posting, patient reactivation, patient experience improvements, and light retargeting.

Quarterly focus:

• Q1: Patient experience updates, review automation, recall system optimization
• Q2: Overdue patient reactivation, educational campaigns, and brand consistency
• Q3: Referral program and patient appreciation initiatives
• Q4: End-of-year insurance education, high-value treatment awareness

Gargle’s support: We build and execute custom, retention-focused strategies, track performance through a real-time dashboard, help you manage reviews and social content, run reactivation campaigns, like Gargle Boost, and help you pivot each quarter to maintain a healthy and loyal patient base.

Blueprint 2: Growth Mode

Newer practice or under $1-3 million in production:

A Growth Mode practice needs consistency above all else. The priority should be building a strong foundation and driving new patient flow.

Recommended budget: 6 to 7 percent of production

Priority channels: Google ads, Meta ads, reviews, foundational SEO

Quarterly focus:

• Q1: Website, tracking, call training
• Q2: Local service ads, Google ads, and Meta ads
• Q3: Reviews and retention
• Q4: Case presentation and follow-ups

Gargle’s support: We help Growth Mode practices establish strong tracking, build competitive ads, and create a foundation that supports rapid growth.

Blueprint 3: High-Growth Practice

$2.5 to $5 million, focused on profitability and ideal patients

Mature practices do not need more volume. They need better cases, better retention, and better profitability.

Recommended budget: 7 to 12 percent of production

Priority channels: Google ads for high-value procedures, Meta retargeting, SEO, reviews, phones

Quarterly focus:

• Q1: Brand refinement and patient experience
• Q2: Case-specific and specialty campaigns
• Q3: Review expansion and social proof
• Q4: Optimization and increasing case acceptance

Gargle’s support: We align campaigns with profitability goals, ideal patient types, and advanced case targeting.

How to Reverse Engineer a 2026 Ad Budget That Matches Your Goals

Once you know your numbers, you can build a dental advertising strategy that makes sense financially and operationally.

Here is the simplified formula:

1. Choose your goal
2. Identify the needed new patients per month
3. Determine the cost per lead and the cost per patient in your area
4. Calculate the total spend needed
5. Cross-check with your booking rate
6. Adjust based on treatment acceptance

With this formula, your budget is not arbitrary. It is math-driven. This approach enables you to predict results, adjust more quickly, and alleviate the stress associated with spending decisions.

Why Gargle Gets Results

At Gargle, we achieve results by building and executing customized marketing strategies tailored to your practice. We track and display your results in real-time on a dashboard, and we help you create, execute, and pivot your strategy to achieve your goals.

This approach is why our clients grow predictably and confidently, year after year.

Build a Competitive Advertising Strategy for 2026

Running Google Ads for dentists or Meta Ads for dentists without understanding the numbers is essentially guessing. A strong strategy utilizes data, budget alignment, and targeted campaigns that align with your goals. With the right plan, ads become predictable, sustainable, and profitable.

If you want a dental advertising strategy built around real numbers, clear goals, and competitive execution, the team at Gargle is ready to help you build your 2026 plan with confidence.