Google Ads for medical practices: policies and campaign structure

Yes, medical practices can advertise on Google Ads, but healthcare is a restricted category. Some services need certification before ads can run, some treatments can’t be advertised at all, and Google doesn’t let you target or remarket to people based on their health. Within those limits, a simple structure built around services, locations and phone calls is what usually works.

Which healthcare ads does Google restrict?

Google’s Healthcare and medicines policy sorts health advertising into what is allowed, what needs certification and what is not allowed. As of October 2026, these are the categories a typical practice runs into:

Online prescribing and pharmacies: telemedicine providers that prescribe online and online pharmacies need Google certification. In the US, telemedicine providers must first be accredited by LegitScript; pharmacies can qualify through LegitScript, NABP or the .pharmacy program.
Addiction treatment: recovery-oriented drug and alcohol addiction services in the US must be certified by LegitScript and then by Google.
Experimental treatments: speculative and experimental treatments, and cell and gene therapies, are prohibited. Google’s examples include stem cell therapy and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapies. The US exception is narrow: FDA-licensed or approved cell or gene therapies, promoted by the license holder.
Unapproved substances: never allowed, whatever their claimed legality. Google’s list includes hCG for weight loss.

Other topics, such as abortion, clinical trial recruitment and health insurance, have their own rules. Check the policy for every service you plan to promote before you build the campaign.

Can you use drug names like Botox or semaglutide in ads?

In the US, in ad text and on landing pages, yes. Bidding on them as keywords is a different matter. Under an update Google began enforcing on October 29, 2025, advertisers targeting the United States, Canada or New Zealand may use prescription drug terms for promotion, following local laws, without certification. Certification is still required to use those terms as keywords, and for online pharmacies, telemedicine providers and drug manufacturers.

Google’s monitored list includes terms such as botox, dysport, xeomin and semaglutide. Ads that use them also fall into a sensitive category, which brings the audience limits described below.

Why can’t you remarket to patients?

Because health is a sensitive interest category under Google’s personalized advertising policy. It covers health conditions, treatments and invasive procedures, including cosmetic surgery and injections. Ads in this category can’t use audiences you build yourself: Customer Match, “your data segments” (what Google used to call remarketing), audience expansion and lookalike segments.

Google’s predefined audiences, such as in-market and affinity segments, and location targeting remain available. In practice, healthcare campaigns win on search intent, not on following people around the web. And never upload your patient list to Google.

What campaign structure works for a medical practice?

Build the account the way patients search: one service and one area at a time. This is the checklist we start from:

One campaign per service line, such as knee replacement or pediatric urgent care, with tightly related keywords in each ad group and each ad sending people to the matching service page.
Location targeting by office, set to “Presence” (people in or regularly in your area). Google’s default, “Presence or Interest,” can also reach people who have only shown interest in the area.
Call assets scheduled for the hours your front desk actually answers, so a tap on “Call” reaches a person.
Negative keywords from day one: jobs, salaries, schools, “free,” and services you don’t offer. Negative keywords don’t match close variants, so add plurals and synonyms yourself.
Landing pages that match the ad, with the phone number, insurance information and a booking button visible on a phone screen.

Paid search works best on top of a strong local presence. Our local SEO checklist covers the organic side.

How do you track calls and bookings without sending patient data to Google?

Count the conversion, not the patient. Google Ads can count calls from your ads through call assets and Google forwarding numbers, and calls to the number on your website by showing a forwarding number to visitors who clicked an ad. You set a minimum call length, and every call that lasts that long counts as a conversion. Review the call recording settings with your compliance advisor, because a recorded call can contain health information.

For online bookings, record a conversion when the appointment is confirmed, without passing names, emails, phone numbers or the reason for the visit. Google’s customer data policies treat health and medical information, including purchases of medical services, as a sensitive category: those conversions can’t be used for measurement in enhanced conversions, and you may not upload conversion information related to sensitive categories.

Keep tags off patient portals and any page where patients enter health information. HHS guidance on tracking technologies says tracking on logged-in pages such as patient portals generally has access to protected health information, and that tracking vendors that receive it need a business associate agreement. A federal court vacated one part of that guidance in June 2024, about public pages, not the part about patient portals. Google states that it does not offer business associate agreements for Google Analytics.

If you run a med spa or aesthetics practice, our guide to what you can and can’t say in med spa ads covers the claims side.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Google updates its healthcare policies often, so check the current policy pages before you launch a campaign.

Related service: Google and Meta ads

Want a second opinion on your Google Ads account?

Our free marketing diagnosis looks at your campaigns, tracking and landing pages, and gives you a short list of priorities.