Local Services Ads
The least contested surface on the results page.
What are Local Services Ads for dentists
Google Local Services Ads are pay per lead advertisements that appear at the very top of Google search results, above the traditional paid ads, and they carry a Google Screened badge that a practice earns by passing license verification, insurance verification and a background check.
Most agencies in this category are not running this unit. At least one full arch agency does, so we are not going to tell you it is untouched. What we will tell you is that it is the least contested surface on the page, and that a practice adding it is buying the most prominent position available in an auction with fewer bidders.
Pay per lead is a different purchase than pay per click.
With a standard search ad you buy attention. Somebody taps, arrives, and may read one line and leave. You paid for that. On implant and full arch terms, where cost per click runs far above general dental, a large share of the budget is spent on visits that never become a conversation.
With Local Services Ads you buy a contact. The charge attaches to a call, a message or a booking request rather than to a tap. That does not make the channel automatically cheaper per case, and we are not going to publish a cost per lead figure for it, because we have not measured one across a sample we would be willing to define. It does change what you are buying, and it moves the risk of a wasted click off your budget.
It also changes where the work sits. Because a charged lead is a real contact, response time stops being a nice operational goal and becomes the thing that decides whether the channel pays. A practice that lets contacts sit will pay full price for every one of them.
What Google Screened verification requires.
The badge is not a design element. Google requires license verification, insurance verification and a background check before it appears next to the practice name. That is a trust signal a standard search ad cannot buy at any budget, shown at the exact moment somebody is deciding who to contact about surgery.
License
Professional licensing is verified against the issuing authority.
Insurance
Current coverage is verified before the profile can serve.
Background check
A background check is run as part of the screening process.
We handle that process with you. What we will not do is tell you in advance that your specialty is automatically eligible, because eligibility is Google's decision and stating otherwise would be inventing a rule. Verification is required. That is the honest limit of what we can promise before we start.
Where the ads appear.
The unit sits at the top of the search results page, above the traditional paid ads and above the local map results. On a phone, which is where roughly 90 percent of paid dental traffic comes from, that means it occupies the first screen before anything else is visible.
Top of the results page, in order
- 01Local Services Ads, with the Google Screened badge
- 02Traditional paid search ads
- 03The local map results
- 04Organic results
Local Services Ads versus standard Google Ads.
Row
Local Services Ads
Standard Google Ads
Position on page
Very top of the results, above the traditional paid ads and above the map pack.
Below the Local Services Ads unit when one is present.
Pricing model
Pay per lead. You are charged when somebody contacts the practice.
Pay per click. You are charged when somebody taps, whatever happens next.
Verification required
Yes. License, insurance and a background check, before the ads run.
No verification of license or insurance is required to run.
What you pay for
A contact: a call, a message or a booking request.
A visit to your page. The contact is your job after that.
Competition level
A separate auction. Most agencies in this category are not running it.
The most contested surface in dental marketing on implant terms.
Who this suits, and who it does not.
It suits
- A practice that can answer the phone quickly, because responsiveness affects standing in this unit and an unanswered lead is still a charged lead.
- A practice with license and insurance documentation ready, since verification gates the whole channel.
- A practice with chair time to seat additional consults rather than a backlog it cannot clear.
- A practice that wants prominence in a market where competitors are bidding hard on search but ignoring this unit.
It does not suit
- A practice where new leads wait hours for a first response. You will pay for contacts and lose them.
- A practice unwilling to complete verification, which is not optional and which we cannot shortcut.
- A practice with no capacity to seat more cases this quarter.
- A practice looking for a channel it can judge in the first two weeks. Full arch decisions run 6 to 12 months.
This is one of six services covered by the same flat monthly fee, and it is not the right first move for every practice.
Contact
Start a conversation.
No sales sequence, no seven step funnel, no automated call booking bot. You send this, a person reads it.
90 day money back guarantee
Excludes ad spend, which goes to the platforms and not to us.
What it requiresRather skip the form
Check whether your market is open.
One full arch client per metro. Exclusivity covers full arch marketing only. It is not a general territory lock across every kind of dental marketing. If yours is held, we will tell you it is held.