Bariatric surgery
Bariatric surgery marketing for private-pay clinics
Bariatric marketing is a long-cycle, high-value business: months between first search and surgery, a seminar or consultation in the middle, and a decision that involves financing. It works when the funnel is measured stage by stage and only privacy-safe identifiers reach the ad platforms.
You work with me, directly, one-on-one. No account managers, no juniors, no handoff.
Who this is for
- Private-pay surgical weight-loss clinics in the US and Canada.
- Clinics running seminars, webinars or information sessions as a step before consultation.
- Practices where the decision takes weeks and the current reporting only covers days.
What usually goes wrong
A 30-day attribution window on a 90-day decision
Most of the outcomes land outside the window, so the channels that produced them look like they produced nothing.
Counting seminar registrations as success
Registration is cheap and attendance is not. Bidding on registrations finds people who register.
Sending patient details to ad platforms
Understandable, and avoidable. A click identifier, a stage name and a time carry the same lesson to bidding.
What I run
- Funnel measured stage by stage
- Enquiry, seminar attended, consultation attended, surgery booked, each defined once.
- Search campaigns on procedure intent
- Sleeve, bypass and revision as separate campaigns, with insurance-led searches handled deliberately.
- Financing answered up front
- Monthly cost is the deciding factor for a large share of private-pay patients.
- Click-ID-only conversion feed
- Privacy-compliant: no patient data leaves your systems.
- Long-window reporting
- Cost per surgery, measured from first contact rather than from the month of the operation.
How it starts
- Week 1 Audit: the account, the tracking and the path from enquiry to patient, with a written 90-day plan.
- Weeks 2 to 4 Capture fixed at every entry point. Campaigns narrowed to the services that justify them.
- Weeks 5 to 8 A verified stage becomes the bidding signal, and form fills drop to secondary.
- Month 3 onward Budget follows cost per patient by service, reviewed monthly with you.
Proof
On my current healthcare programme I inherited an underperforming account and rebuilt it: cost per acquisition came down by about 78% while spend grew.
Talk to the person who will actually do it
The audit is $500 per ad account, comes with a 90-day plan, and is credited toward the first month if you continue with me. Retainers start at $5,000 a month, adjusted to budget and workload. Ad spend is paid by you directly.
Where I am not the right fit. Under roughly $10,000 a month in ad spend a retainer rarely pays for itself. I will say so on the call and suggest the audit plus a fixed project instead.
Common questions
How long is the decision cycle?
Commonly weeks to months. The attribution window and the reporting period both have to be set to match it, or the numbers mislead.
What should we bid toward?
The first stage a human confirms that happens often enough to teach the algorithm, usually seminar or consultation attended rather than surgery.
Can we send outcomes to Google without patient data?
Yes. Click identifier, a neutral stage name and a time. Nothing else needs to leave.
Is ad policy a problem in this category?
Ordinary healthcare rules apply. Prescribing weight-loss medication at a distance is a different category and needs certification first.
Do we advertise in both markets separately?
If you operate in two provinces or states, yes: separate campaigns, separate reporting, one shared definition of a stage.
Who does the work?
I do. Nothing is subcontracted or delegated.