Shared Practices (Multi-Location Dental Service - B2C)

Role: Digital Marketing Manager (Owned all digital channels for 45+ locations)

Core Metric: Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) for New Patient Appointments

Timeline: Q1 2024 - Ongoing

The Challenge:

Shared Practices, with 45+ dental offices across the U.S., was running fragmented and inefficient digital campaigns. Each location had inconsistent messaging, and campaigns were managed en masse without local nuance. This led to:

• A high overall Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) for a new patient appointment, which was 30% above target.
• Significant wasted ad spend in competitive markets while underspending in high-opportunity areas.
• Inability to track which marketing efforts drove phone calls and bookings at each specific location.

My Role & Responsibilities:

I was solely responsible for the strategy, execution, and analysis of all digital marketing efforts across all 45+ locations. This included:

• Strategy: Developing a localized, data-driven digital strategy.
• Execution: Managing location-specific campaigns in Google Ads (SEM, Local Service Ads), Meta/Instagram, and Bing Ads.
• Analytics: Implementing tracking and building dashboards to measure performance at the national and individual location level.
• Optimization: Continuous A/B testing of ad copy, landing pages, and audience targeting.

The Action: A Localized, Multi-Channel Strategy

I implemented a 'National Brand, Local Execution' framework:

1. Hyper-Local Campaign Structuring:

• Google Ads: I restructured the account from a single national campaign into 45+ individual location campaigns. Each campaign used location-specific keywords (e.g., 'dentist in [City Name],' 'teeth cleaning [Neighborhood]'), ad copy featuring the local doctor's name, and location extensions pointing to the exact office.
• Google Local Service Ads (LSAs): I managed the LSA profiles for each location, ensuring optimized business profiles, up-to-date hours, and a swift response to all quote requests to maintain high Google Guaranteed status.
• Meta/Instagram Ads: I used geo-targeting to run campaigns for each location's surrounding zip codes. Creative featured testimonials from local patients and promoted specific offers (e.g., '$99 New Patient Special in[City]').

2. Advanced Tracking & Attribution:

• Call Tracking: I implemented a unique call tracking number for each location's digital campaigns (Google Ads, Meta Ads, etc.) using a platform like CallRail. This allowed us to attribute phone calls—the primary conversion—directly to the marketing source.
• UTM Parameters: I built a meticulous UTM tracking structure in Google Tag Manager for all links, providing clean data in GA4.
• Dashboard: I built a comprehensive Looker Studio dashboard that aggregated data from GA4, Google Ads, and our call tracking platform. This provided a single-pane-of-glass view of CPA, cost per call, and appointment volume for each location.

3. Landing Page & Conversion Optimization:

• I collaborated with the web team to create dedicated, local landing pages for each office (e.g., sharedpractices.com/austin-dentist). These pages featured local team photos, neighborhood-specific references, and easy-to-complete contact forms.
• I used Hotjar to analyze user behavior on these pages, identifying and fixing points of friction that were causing visitors to bounce without converting.

Tools Used:

• Advertising: Google Ads, Bing Ads, Google Local Service Ads, Meta Ads
• Analytics & Tracking: Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google Tag Manager, Call Tracking (e.g., CallRail), Hotjar
• Reporting & Automation: Looker Studio, Supermetrics
• CRM & Execution: Leadsquared (for lead management and patient follow-up)

The Result:

Within one full quarter of implementing this localized strategy, we achieved:

• 27% Reduction in Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) for a new patient appointment, bringing it well under the target goal.
• 15% Increase in Total Monthly New Patient Appointments across the network.
• Enhanced Local Insight: Gained clear visibility into the ROI of each location's marketing spend, allowing for agile budget reallocation. We could now double down on high-performing locations and diagnose problems in underperforming ones.
• Improved Lead Quality: By targeting users with high local intent, the leads generated were more qualified and had a higher show rate for appointments.

Key Takeaway:

For a multi-location consumer service business, a one-size-fits-all national strategy is inefficient. Success is driven by hyper-local execution, sophisticated call attribution, and the ability to analyze performance at the individual location level. My approach transformed our digital marketing from a cost center into a scalable, predictable, and efficient patient acquisition engine.