Google Ads for Medical Practices: What You Can and Cannot Say
Running Google Ads for a medical practice is not like running ads for a café. Google has a layered policy system for healthcare advertisers: some things require certification before you can advertise, some things are restricted without being prohibited, and some things get your ad disapproved outright regardless of what certification you hold. Understanding which category your situation falls into is the starting point.
This post covers Google's healthcare and medicines policy as it applies to medical practices, clinics, and allied health services. It is based on how we structure search campaigns for health clients and what we have learned navigating policy review.
What Requires Certification vs What Is Just Restricted
Google requires certification for specific categories of healthcare advertising. Pharmacies selling prescription medications need Google's pharmacy certification before they can run ads. Fertility clinics in certain markets need certification. Abortion-related services need certification. Clinical trial recruitment requires certification.
If you are a GP, physiotherapist, dentist, psychologist, or specialist practice advertising consultation services, you generally do not need Google certification to run ads. You fall into the broader "healthcare and medicines" sensitive category, which restricts what you can say but does not require formal certification to access.
Being in a sensitive ad category means Google applies additional scrutiny to your ad copy, landing pages, and keyword targeting. Ads in sensitive healthcare categories cannot make claims that Google's systems flag as potentially misleading or exploitative. The review process takes longer, disapproval rates are higher, and the appeals process exists but is slow.
The practical implication is that your ad copy needs to be cleaner than a standard advertiser's copy. Phrases that would pass without a second look in retail or hospitality will get a healthcare ad flagged.
The Claims That Get Healthcare Ads Disapproved
Guaranteed outcomes are the fastest path to disapproval. "Guaranteed results," "100% success rate," or "permanent cure" will get an ad rejected at the review stage. Google's policy on misleading claims in healthcare is explicit: you cannot promise a medical result you cannot universally deliver.
Before/after framing in ad copy triggers flags even without accompanying images. The phrase "see the difference" or "transform your health" in healthcare context reads as an implied before/after claim. It is enough to get an ad into a review queue where a human reviewer with a conservative standard is making the call.
Unproven treatment claims are a significant category. If your practice offers a treatment that lacks established clinical evidence, advertising it on Google carries real disapproval risk. This is particularly relevant for alternative and complementary therapies, certain aesthetic treatments, and wellness services that overlap with medical claims. The bar is not that the treatment is ineffective. The bar is whether a reasonable person could be misled about its clinical basis.
Personalised health recommendations in ad copy are restricted. An ad that says "find out if this treatment is right for you" is generally fine. An ad that implies the treatment is right for most people based on a general symptom is not.
Sensitive health conditions require extra care. Ads targeting keywords related to mental health conditions, addiction, sexual health, fertility, and terminal illness face heightened policy scrutiny. The copy standard in these categories is higher because the potential for harm from misleading advertising is greater.
How We Structure Search Campaigns for Medical Clients
The approach that works for medical practice Google Ads starts with keyword architecture. We separate branded terms, service terms, and condition terms into distinct ad groups with distinct copy strategies.
Branded keywords, searches for the practice name, convert well and carry low policy risk. The ad copy can describe the practice, the team, and the booking process without making clinical claims.
Service keywords like "physiotherapy Adelaide" or "GP clinic North Adelaide" are the core traffic source. Ad copy for these terms focuses on access: location, availability, qualifications, and the booking process. "Book your physio appointment online today" is direct, clear, and policy-compliant. It does not promise an outcome. It describes an action.
Condition keywords like "lower back pain treatment" carry the highest policy sensitivity. These are valuable keywords because the searcher intent is specific. But the ad copy for a condition keyword search cannot imply that your treatment definitively resolves that condition. "Our physio team works with lower back pain. Book an assessment." That structure describes the service without making a clinical claim about the result.
Landing pages matter as much as ad copy. Google reviews the destination page as part of the ad approval process. If your landing page contains testimonials, before/after images, or outcome claims that your ad copy avoids, the ad can still be disapproved because the page is the context for the ad's claims.
Passing Policy Review Without Losing Conversion Intent
The mistake most practices make when they have ads disapproved is to strip all specificity from the copy to make it policy-safe. That produces compliant ads that nobody clicks. The goal is copy that passes review and still tells the searcher why they should choose you.
Specificity that is safe: team credentials ("experienced physiotherapists"), treatment approaches ("evidence-based treatment programs"), access factors ("same-day appointments available"), and practice environment ("modern facilities with private treatment rooms").
Specificity that is unsafe: outcome percentages ("80% of patients see improvement"), recovery timeframes ("back to work in two weeks"), and comparison claims ("better results than other clinics").
The copy structure that works: headline states the service and location, second headline states an access or credential point, description line describes the process of engaging with the practice, and the call to action is booking or enquiry focused. "Adelaide CBD Physiotherapy | Experienced Sports Physio Team | Book Online Today."
For extensions, sitelinks can point to specific service pages, the team page, and the booking page. Call extensions and location extensions add contact information without adding claim risk. Review extensions from platforms like Google's own review aggregation can appear without violating the no-testimonial principle because they are sourced through Google's own system, though we generally avoid these for healthcare clients in Australia because of AHPRA's position on testimonials in advertising.
Managing Disapprovals and Account Health
Healthcare practice accounts that run into repeated disapprovals accumulate a policy violation history that can affect account standing. One disapproval from a bad ad draft is recoverable. Five disapprovals across a campaign from repeated attempts to run restricted copy creates an account health problem that is harder to clear.
When an ad is disapproved, the options are to fix the copy and resubmit, or to appeal if you believe the disapproval is incorrect. Appeals for healthcare ads are reviewed by humans. They take three to five business days. In our experience, a well-reasoned appeal for a borderline case has about a 40% success rate. For clear-cut policy violations, appealing wastes time better spent revising the copy.
The smarter approach is to build copy that passes review on the first submission. That requires knowing the policy before you write, not learning it from disapprovals.
If you are running Google Ads for a medical practice in Australia and you are struggling with disapprovals or navigating what you can say, we work with healthcare clients on exactly this. Or get in touch directly to discuss your situation.