Dental Unscripted | Getting into Ownership and Practice Management Insights

Welcome to Dental Unscripted,

where Mike Dinsio and Paula Quinn break

down the practice ownership journey,

one episode at a time.

Starting up, buying,

and running a successful dental practice.

what up what up guys welcome back to

another episode of dental unscripted my

name is mike dincio and we got paula

quinn the co-host of the program uh we're

here kicking off another episode uh about

marketing and uh google ads and um i'm

not sure where the conversation is going

to go it's totally unscripted per usual

but we've got a fantastic guest today

and we're excited to to interview um i'm

just going to get right into it because

this is going to be a pretty rich

conversation and um it's stuff that i

think about all the time it's stuff that

our clients think about all the time and

so i think it makes sense just get

into it so today we're interviewing cisco

owner founder of digital rain uh if you're

watching on youtube he's the one that said

this uh by his grays and his beard

he's been around for a minute

So he has experienced,

he's seen a lot of things over the

years,

and I'm excited to get into that big

brain of his.

So welcome to the show, Cisco.

Tell us a little bit about your company

and what you do and how you do

it for dentists.

Well, thanks, Michael.

I appreciate that.

And I do also see a few grays

in your beer as well.

So Paula, you're good.

So we do specialize in Google Ads as

well as the landing pages that accompany

those and have been working in Google,

specifically working with Google Ads for

about sixteen or seventeen years now.

across several different verticals,

legal and dental,

because go big or go home,

they're two very competitive vertical

markets for Google Ads.

They're expensive because the value that

they bring is tremendous if done properly.

And so that's our goal is to drive

positive ROI for our clients.

Totally.

I love that, man.

So one thing that I'm just kind of

thinking and I'll kick off the first

question.

Paula's probably rolling her eyes over

there, folks,

because she knows that I just jumped into

it.

She's got her questions, too, I promise.

But we'll see if she can get words

in today.

I don't know if she will.

But, you know,

like there's all kinds of ways to spend

money in marketing.

Right.

And then the digital frontier today of

marketing.

SEO and ChatGPT.

I just heard today that you can actually

advertise in ChatGPT,

which is pretty cutting edge stuff,

which I think kind of sucks,

by the way,

because the cool thing about ChatGPT is

it's supposed to be unbiased and all that.

And now they're freaking selling ads,

of course.

So if that was always the plan

we just all fell right into it for

them, right?

But okay, so I'm thinking like people are,

big,

big percentage of people are searching

ChatGPT and Google's kind of like,

what the hell's going on?

is traditional marketing dead is my first

question and what i mean by that is

like digital ads is part of that kind

of old school marketing thinking and and

uh so i want you to like pivot

to that is it dead but can you

just be really easy i'm gonna throw a

softball first and then roll into is it

dead so what exactly is digital ads what

the hell am i talking about right now

right

Just break it down for,

I'm not sure where our audience is.

And then is traditional marketing dead?

Like digital ads, go for it.

Right.

So yes, when we're talking today,

we're talking specifically Google ads.

And we're even going to primarily talk

about a subset of Google ads,

which are search ads.

Search ads are pool marketing.

And when I say pool marketing,

what that means is they show to people

who are actively out seeking that content,

somebody who's literally searched for the

thing that's being put in front of them.

Billboards are a push ad.

TV commercials are a push ad.

They're something that you're interrupting

what you're doing with a message.

Right.

That's different.

That's different.

That's not something you asked for.

It's something that you're is occurring

and happening to you outside of your

control.

So those when I'm on Instagram and those

ads pop up, that's a push ad.

Those are push.

Right.

Because you're not you're not seeking out.

Paul knows what those are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So those have value.

Those have value.

Those have a lot of value.

They just have different goals and

different methodology and a different way

of quantifying whether they're working or

not.

Whereas pool ads are ads that show when

you're seeking something related to that.

So if you're searching for, you know,

the best dentist near me, you know,

just like your organic searches show up,

you know,

there's listings that show up at the top

of Google or show up on the page.

Ads are similar to those, you know,

the Google ads are similar to those.

And we control where they show up based

on a number of factors.

So that's kind of the quick breakdown of

what we're talking about today.

Okay.

So, excuse me.

So is traditional marketing dead with this

whole AI content driven marketing push?

Well, I mean,

there's a part of me that says it

would be kind of great if your people

did advertise with the way that we're

talking about today because Google's an

auction.

These ads are an auction.

And so, you know,

if you're the person that's, you know,

trying to get a good deal at the

auction,

the best thing that can happen is nobody

else shows up, you know,

and you're the only one there in front

of all the people that are looking for

stuff that you have.

That's the best case scenario.

So I kind of hope.

that it lowers the competition not seeing

it now uh you know there's you know

still billions hundreds of billions of

searches you know every day on google um

and certainly you know at this point it's

not like we know no single advertiser can

corner the market so so absolutely no it's

not dead do i hope the competition goes

away a little bit that'd be great

So you're seeing some trends potentially.

You're not seeing trends that point.

Yeah, but you're watching it.

So essentially you're running ads.

So how does it work?

Right.

So like one big pitfall that I get

into with our clients is that

Okay, I don't need a Cisco.

I have a Google account.

Right.

You know, I don't need a Cisco.

I have a Google account.

I'll make my own ads.

And I'll make my own ads.

And I can call Google and folks...

don't do this just because I'm telling you

that this is possible but you can

literally call Google and they will help

you set up an ad and you're thinking

that oh well why wouldn't I hire Google

to do this right because they know Google

they're going to know better than Cisco is

probably what they're thinking yeah why am

I paying five women a thousand a month

whatever that is for them to manage this

when I can

Bingo.

And that's, that's a,

that's a great point.

So,

so are you familiar with the

Dunning-Kruger effect,

which is you basically,

the less you know about something,

the more you think you're an expert in

it.

Like it's because you don't know the

details, right?

Wait, I got to coin this.

Cause what is it again?

Dunning-Kruger.

Right.

So it was a paper.

It was published in like, I think that,

uh,

The reason why sometimes people are like,

oh, I'll just go do it myself.

It's because you don't realize how much

you need to know in order to make

it effective.

It's that fallacy of logic in a sense.

And Google is a huge victim of this

effect.

And AI is a huge victim of this

effect.

And what I mean by that is think

of the Google AI that's making decisions

about advertising.

as a salesperson, you hire,

you're a dental practice and you hire a

salesperson and you tell them,

go to this convention,

go and look in the crowd and find

me as many good leads as you can

find for my practice.

And so this dental assistant goes out or

the salesperson goes out and they go,

okay.

you over there what you know they look

at the crowd and they say okay over

here do you people don't need a dentist

and they're like yeah yeah yeah they're

like how much is it and they go

and they we're looking for free dentists

and the salesperson goes awesome got all

these people okay but that salesperson

never gets feedback from the dental

practice but they just got twenty patients

so now they're like okay next day they

go back out to the same seminar

I know that the people that sat over

there, they came in droves.

And so it looks for the same kind

of people.

More free people.

Awesome.

Come on.

And so this salesperson keeps bringing in

all these leads, all these Medicaid leads,

all these people looking for free stuff,

all these people looking for their current

existing dentist because they need to

schedule an appointment.

But it has no feedback from the dental

office.

So it just keeps getting as many cheap

leads as it can because it knows that

it's happening so easily it's able to

bring in hundreds of people and it thinks

it's doing stellar and that's exactly what

google does it tracks what ads are

generating phone calls what it doesn't

know is that a hundred of those phone

calls out of a hundred and five

were people calling to book an appointment

for their kids and they were looking for

their dentist, not for you.

It also doesn't know that the majority of

those people were on Medicaid,

which you don't accept,

or that they were

they heard on ad or heard somewhere a

scam about free dental implants as part of

a grant study they don't know any of

that google doesn't know any of that

google is fantastic when it has

information when it has results and that's

exactly what google gets from e-commerce

it tracks and knows that it this ad

generated you know

twenty thousand dollars and here's what it

cost what it doesn't know is when there's

an error gap between somebody giving their

information or calling versus a click and

it doesn't know that because there is no

feasible way for most dental practices to

have an integration between their booking

system and what actually turns into a

patient and google's ai engine that makes

decisions because if google knew

that that hundred phone calls that it

drove generated zero business it would

change the algorithm it would change what

it's looking for and it would try to

find those people that spent five thousand

dollars zero because they were turned down

so because google doesn't have that

information it just guesses

So what you're saying, Cisco,

what I'm hearing you say is that you're

the bridge between the way Google works

and the way the client needs results.

Right.

It's like a consultant where, like, sure,

Google could get you a lot of attention,

but

but they aren't on the phone meeting with

you, going through the results,

tweaking it,

asking you if you actually got that

patient,

how much production did that patient give

you?

Did the patient show up?

Were we able to even see them?

What about, this might be premature,

so Michael, you can,

I don't know what's in your head right

now, but what about, for instance,

when I have my dental practice, I paid,

you know,

a reputable company to do some Google ads.

And I'm sure there's a lot that goes

into it.

How much are you spending?

You know, what is your call to action?

But I hear this more than just from

me.

No one really called.

Like I didn't get very many leads from

it.

What usually causes that or like,

You know, it's it's right.

Both are both are not good.

I mean,

if if it's people looking for free stuff

or something,

I guess that's if they have a Medicaid

or an HMO or something that you don't

take.

That's not good because you can't even see

them.

But sometimes a potential someone looking

for something and then being able to have

that time with them, you know,

you can sort of educate them and sway

them in a different way.

So at least that's maybe some opportunity.

But what if you don't get any opportunity

or very much?

And let me and you make a great

point.

Let me address that last thing you just

said,

because as much as that sounds great.

I have yet to work with more than

maybe one percent of practices that their

frontline team is trained and able to do

what you just said.

I've only worked with a very few that

when the phone rings and somebody asks for

something that they don't do.

They're like, no, we don't do it.

Click.

Exactly.

Or they're trying to book an appointment.

I don't see you in our system.

Oh, maybe I have the wrong number.

Okay.

Sorry.

Thanks.

Bye.

Isn't that so sad that any marketing you

do comes down to who's picking it up?

Oh, it's absolutely.

That's eighty percent of it.

I'm the other twenty.

That's terrible.

Yeah.

And in many cases, it's like,

please let's, let's not even do anything.

Let's don't even, don't even start.

If,

if your phone system isn't working the way

it is now,

it's certainly not going to work when we

start sending you people who know nothing

about you.

It's funny.

We,

we do talk about that Cisco before Michael

and I work with our clients on marketing.

We usually say first,

we've got to get them the front, right?

The ability to answer the phone and no

fault of theirs, right?

They, they,

got you know they either learn from

somebody else or they're new and it's like

they didn't go to school for uh you

know patient how to close how to close

you know it's it's it's a big miss

in dental all the way around but um

okay sorry that's okay no no and you're

absolutely right about the number of phone

calls and that that goes back to you

know knowing the

setting expectations.

Like I'm a business owner.

I've been a business owner for a long

time.

You know,

so I know like how I look at

things and how other business owners I

hope look at things,

but I don't necessarily think that they're

always understanding that from, you know,

the conversations they're having either

with Google or Google reps or people,

you know,

helping to manage their campaigns.

So the first thing you have to understand

is you have to look at what's a

reasonable return on investment in my

business.

Like,

You know, and once you have that number,

then like that's your,

like work backwards from that.

And that gives you a reasonable

expectation because I can tell you this,

if I could get you leads,

that made you a hundred thousand dollars

for only a few thousand dollars,

I would be doing it for me,

not for you.

I'd be getting rich off of doing this,

not managing it for other people.

So there's no cheat code.

The way to do it is to do

it correctly,

but also to start with reasonable

expectations.

If you're gonna make thirty thousand

dollars off of doing dental implants,

you're not going to spend five hundred

dollars to get that patient.

Right.

Well, like what else?

Like that is not realistic because why

would you not just why would you not

go get a loan, sell your house,

like your car,

do everything you could take all that cash

and go spend it on Google ads and

make a million dollars off of, you know,

whatever.

So well, Cisco, though,

like you were talking and I I couldn't

agree with you more, by the way.

But we're talking about a lot of

what our clients are doing right and i

couldn't i couldn't agree more they're

they're not picking up the phone they're

not putting the right budgets in place

they're not spending enough money i but i

do want to hear out of cisco why

not all guys like you are created equal

i assume

Can we can we talk about some I'll

give I'll give you permission to digital

rain.

Why?

Yeah.

Why is digital rain?

Or maybe it's not digital rain.

Maybe it's just how do you know if

you have someone that knows what the fuck

they're doing?

Sorry for my language.

So that's a good.

OK,

and I let me I'll go back and

I'll move quick.

So, yes,

the first thing the first way to know

if you know somebody knows what they're

doing is if they set reasonable

expectations.

If they come in and tell you that

you need thirty patients,

if you tell them you need twenty patients

a month and they say, OK,

let's start with a three thousand dollar

budget, that is not realistic.

It's never going to happen.

Phone calls are going to cost between

fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars

each,

and it's going to take probably three to

five phone calls to get it to get

a patient.

So you are looking at a minimum

acquisition cost per patient of at least

two to three hundred dollars.

So at best on a three thousand dollar

budget, you know,

at best you might get ten patients,

fifteen patients, maybe.

And which is by the way,

which is by the way,

the average that I see is about ten

to fifteen from from ad spend.

But those budgets range.

Right.

Depending on complexity of the market and

all that stuff,

which you're probably going to get into.

But and if you have three thousand dollars

and it's one hundred dollars a phone call

and you're advertising twenty days,

twenty days a month,

that's about one point two calls per day.

Like,

you're never going to be able to go

in and be like, hey,

do we get more calls today?

Because of our Google app,

it's one call a day additional.

Now,

hopefully those calls turn into patients.

So it's a great thing.

But it's one call.

Like,

how would you ever be able to capture

whether it feels busy or not?

You could spend a hundred thousand dollars

and barely tell a difference in the actual

number of phone calls you get.

It's on the back end that you experience

the benefit.

But yeah,

so the first thing is just somebody who

knows the reality is that,

Not every,

not every call is going to be good.

You know, and like I said,

one in three, one in five,

it really depends on the practice and the,

you know, what you're advertising.

And it's my brain just started spinning.

Cause like I hear this number a lot,

someone spending five hundred,

they're getting like maybe two calls a

month.

Is that what you're saying?

Maybe, maybe five calls a month.

That's a hundred percent right, Paula,

because people just think that they can do

one mail drop,

five hundred dollars in Google ads.

It's like, bro, that's not how this works.

You got to flood the market, track it,

which we're going to get to.

And back down if you can or not.

because here's because there's what we in

the funnel from google ads to a case

we have a few different metrics one is

the top of the funnel right so let's

say it's dental and it costs you ten

dollars per click everybody who clicks

your ad you pay ten dollars for you

know that's pretty cheap that's like for

general dental it is ten dollars is cheap

okay so every click here's ten bucks yeah

okay right

and average this and we always we do

better than average fortunately but

average conversion rate the number of

people who click versus call average

probably about five percent five percent

call click oh call five percent of the

people who click actually call you

so they accidentally hit it or are they

just checking it out these are people that

actually go that actually click your ad

look at your page and then either and

then call you then they're like you said

five percent five percent's about average

so so try to do math and if

you're getting

i was just doing fractions and percentages

with charlotte last night and now here i

am on a podcast not able to roll

it back so how many costs how many

ten dollars do i have to spend right

to get that call let's and so usually

i would say we usually do it or

you know we're usually north of ten

percent sometimes as high as twenty

percent

so using that's a little bit easier math

so that would be ten clicks would get

you one phone call there you go ten

dollars a click that's a hundred dollars

which is a hundred dollars okay and i

always say i always say a new patient

acquisition cost is around two hundred

dollars so that he said two to three

a minute but he's saying a hundred dollars

i say two hundred which gives you a

buffer with him no no no

One more level.

That's a call.

It takes three calls.

Two of those calls were junk.

They lived outside the area.

They...

Can't afford it.

You know,

they were hoping you were cheaper.

They didn't show up.

Didn't don't have your insurance,

whatever.

So, you know, so things, you know,

it's like you have to go right.

And this is the other thing, too,

is pay per click.

It depending on the market you're in,

because, again,

it's an auction competition, you know,

that drives up the cost per click.

It's not the cheapest way.

Like it's it is not the cheapest way

to get leads.

You know, pay per click is a way.

It's a good way.

It's not always the cheapest way.

I agree.

But nobody knows what the cheapest way is

until you try all the ways.

And that's my whole thing.

Mail, SEO, pay per click.

Another another marketing consultant that

we know is all in the Meta right

now.

Meta was dead a minute ago.

Now he's telling me it's back.

It's like, Jesus,

this stuff's always changing.

But but to that point,

you got to throw my coin phrase.

You got to throw fifteen grand into the

market in three months.

see what works yeah that might be light

but my poor startups don't have a lot

of money so fifteen grand is like what

yeah it's huge dollars and you're

absolutely right like it's it's the it's

everything working together like you know

you look at like look at big companies

i mean there's a reason why they do

everything it's not because one of them

you know it's not because one of them

doesn't work better than the other you

know there's a reason why

you know mcdonald's is online why it's in

ads why it's in radio it's because all

these things work together so whenever i

work with a client who has a strong

brand in the market let's say they've been

you know like in the legal space and

you know tv and more things but but

when they have a strong brand their cost

per acquisition might be a third might be

a quarter of somebody who has no brand

You know, because somebody will Google,

you know,

they'll Google best dentist near me.

And if it's a name that's been in

the market for a while,

when they land on the landing page or

on whatever it is, they're like, oh yeah,

I remember this.

I'll give them a call.

If it's somebody they've never heard of,

then they're less likely to call.

So your cost per acquisition goes way up.

Got it.

Does it matter?

Cause I heard this too.

And this is back from when I did

it.

when someone does your website,

they try to obviously have you do Google

ads.

They said it's better if they do it

than a different company because they know

how your website is written,

your keywords and different things.

Great question.

They have like a better in on how

to make the visibility greater in the

marketplace.

Yeah.

I don't recommend using generally don't

recommend using your website at all for

ads.

Um,

Oh,

there's an unscripted soundbite I'm

liking.

We're going to have to put that one

up on Insta.

Okay.

Say that again, please.

Yeah.

I do not recommend using your website for

ads.

Very rarely.

Like if you're doing e-commerce.

The actual website or the website company?

the website, period.

OK, no, they didn't say that.

They said they should do my Google ads

because they.

Because they're managing the website.

Is there an advantage of managing both?

So I would.

OK, so.

Try not to look at like step away

from what it is,

like step away that it's ads and a

website and look at it more as you

have, you know, you let's say,

just say you have a regular ad,

let's say it's a newspaper ad like old

school.

And now you, you have an ad,

you have a storefront.

And because that ad,

somebody walked into your storefront.

Now what they land on is the person

that they need at your store.

You want that person to be awesome.

You want that person to ask questions

like, what do you need?

How can I help you?

What challenges are you having?

What are you looking for?

Why are you here?

They need to understand what that person's

looking for.

And then they need to then be the

solution to that problem.

And that's what a landing page needs to

be.

That's why I say don't use your website

generally is because a website is written

to appeal to everyone.

It's written for SEO to rank high in

Google.

It's created for a whole bunch of purposes

different than the ad,

the specific few lines of copy that were

there because of what you searched for.

So if you searched for, you know,

Dentist near me.

A whitening special.

You want to land on an internal page

that says whitening special.

Exactly.

I hope our marketing guy is listening

because I've been saying this for three

months now.

So maybe he'll listen to you instead of

me.

But that is like always been the number

one rule.

Don't take people to homepages.

Right.

Take them to what they need to hear

because you just broadcasted what they

were interested in.

It's called message matching, right?

You want, you know,

look at the landing page as an extension

of the ad.

So whatever got them to click,

you now need to deliver very specifically.

And otherwise there's confusion, right?

Right.

Exactly.

The way we do it, you know,

as an example is like if you did

like, let's say whitening,

you land on a page,

it's like whitening specials,

like you said.

But then it also has another level even

that says, you know,

Basically, why are you here?

Like, what are you looking for?

You know, I want to feel more confident.

That might be one choice, you know,

whatever it may be.

And there might be other choices based on

that, that psychographic,

that person that you meet,

but you want to give people an opportunity

to choose.

But all that copy needs to go to

what they're looking for.

You're solving,

you're trying to solve their problem.

This is what gets them to go from

a click,

which we already established is expensive

to a phone call and get that conversion

rate up.

Another soundbite.

We are literally nailing soundbites right

here.

So there is a psychology.

And I always tell my clients,

like when I went to marketing school,

it wasn't about sexy ads and logos.

It was about statistics and psychology.

It was what gets people to actually do

the shit we want them to do.

And that literally feels like a psychology

major and a mathematician scrambled into

one.

But that's literally it.

The technology of a website is not what

gets it to happen.

So can we pivot then to call to

action?

Because it feathers beautifully into what

you're saying right now is, okay,

we got someone to look at our ad

and then we took them to an internal

page that's talking about the ad and now

they're on your website.

So how important is call to action

on that internal page is important is it

not important how aggressive all that

stuff super important i mean ads are

important landing pages are probably even

more important where they land um you know

getting clicks is super easy getting the

right clicks a little harder getting the

people who clicked to do what you want

them to do which is contact you super

hard and that's where you know that's

where the challenge comes into play that's

where all the money gets you know left

on the table is when you don't do

a good job of that

So yeah, that called out.

The question of why a dentist shouldn't do

it themselves.

Yeah.

Kind of this,

because it's like you're throwing money

into Google,

but then

Like you now you get a click,

but then where is that click leading?

And then what is that saying when they

get there?

So you could just be throwing money out

the window.

That's literally you're just buying

clicks,

but it's just going into the toilet.

If I'm getting you a patient for three

hundred dollars,

I bet if you do it yourself,

it's costing you over.

a thousand easy but way over i i

i just based on this conversation of

course it's it's going to be a five

x right there right and you'll never have

it what's that and they'll never know why

they'll never know like whether people

searching why why is it so much well

probably because dentistry is one of the

it has one unique nuance that i have

not seen in any other market

Okay.

So call to action.

Any, any fun tips there?

We are getting,

this is such a great episode.

I love this episode.

So call to action, Paula,

where's your head at?

Well, I think that leads,

I want Cisco to answer this,

but I think it leads right into,

cause what he said is you're clicking,

what are you getting?

I think this leads right into tracking and

I have like a multi-level

tracking brain when dentists say

something's not working right i go like

three layers deep um but i want to

make sure that we we talk a little

bit about on your end what that looks

like as well yeah because those are

similar if you have a call to action

then you probably can track better easier

why don't you tell us a little bit

because it's the same yeah it's kind of

the same thing okay so the first thing

to understand is eighty percent big number

are looking at your site, landing pages,

ads on mobile.

Very few on desktop.

So that's really important.

The ones that are looking at it on

desktop are probably the other dentists

across town checking out what you're

doing.

The real patients,

the real prospects are on mobile.

People on mobile generally.

Or maybe we're just old Cisco.

I like using my computer.

Wait,

we've already identified that me and Cisco

are old and you're not.

So I don't know.

We talk about this, not you.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

So eighty percent on mobile and at least

fifty percent don't want to fill out a

form.

They want to just call you.

Right.

So that's one out of ten people,

you know, or, you know,

that's basically almost nobody is on

desktop that's going to pick up or that's

going to fill out a form.

And that's that's the thing is the call

to action.

should generally usually be a phone call.

That's what you want to drive people

towards.

Plus,

do you really want to be chasing people?

When leads come in,

if they come in by forms or anything

else, you end up chasing people.

And if they book their own appointment,

they don't show.

We need to talk to people.

What about a text?

Because some people just want to say text

or call,

but I'm thinking like I'm a dentist or

I'm thinking about like next level and

they're on an internal page and then a

banner pops up or whatever and says,

why don't you just have a conversation

with us?

Text us to set up an appointment.

like text call whatever it's just kind of

like outbound is what you're saying um but

then there's a lot of theories of like

providing something giving people

something also and kind of warming the

person up so is it better just to

tell them what you want from them or

is it better to just like give them

a resource and

This Gen Z kind of character,

back to psychology, it's like,

what do they want?

Do they want to be pushed or they

don't want to be pushed?

Is there any tidbits on that?

Yeah, that's a great point.

So the higher ticket items lend themselves

more to that.

So if you're talking, you know,

like all on X or something, then yes,

there's a there's a real potential there

that, you know,

somebody is not just going to click on

your ad and call you and be like,

yep,

I'll be in for forty thousand dollars

worth of implants.

That that nurturing all that totally makes

sense in that scenario.

If you're talking about.

know whitening or just general dentistry

not now there's you know we just want

that we want that click we want that

information you know again going back to

cost per click cost per lead all that

google is would be a it's a super

expensive way to build your marketing list

don't do it like unless you're doing

implants don't do it because the numbers

just won't shake out like once you get

down through the funnel and the revenue

that's realized by it it just won't make

sense it it has to be super high

ticket

Thank you.

Well,

then that tees you right up to where

Paula was going on.

Okay, so how,

and I know where she's at because she

takes so many calls from our clients about

the front office and all of their pains

and struggles and systems up front.

I have the other side of it is

looking at ROI on the marketing spend.

And, you know,

Paula's trying to get the front office to

actually track this stuff and ask

questions.

Where did you get it?

Where did you get it?

Just put something in that box.

I just got on someone's the other day

and everything said friends and family,

friends and family.

You have a lot of friends.

Aren't they impatient in the practice?

Yeah.

I'm like, then put their name.

Yeah.

What if Paula referred ten people this

month?

Don't we want to thank her?

Don't we want to acknowledge her?

It's like this office has a lot of

family.

Yeah.

It doesn't even mean combo.

There should be no family.

It should just be the person's name.

But,

but Cisco to that point that like all

of our clients put Google as a referral

source.

And it's like, that tells me apps.

What did I just say?

Did you say Google Woo?

Google is, yeah, you know, Google,

like what it has on this.

That's the referral source.

That tells me nothing.

I want to know,

is it a whitening campaign?

Is it this, that?

But that's me.

That's how I would do it.

Now,

if we could just get our clients to

get away from Google and say,

is it a Google search?

Is it the paid clicks?

Like, I hate when I see...

three, four, five,

ten thousand dollars of spend.

And I can't tell how many patients I

got from SEO, from ChatGPT,

from your stuff, the clicks,

from the mailers, like, sorry,

I took it off.

I mean,

like all the Google stuff that all of

you marketing people are doing SEO,

pay per click.

Yeah.

Like,

how do I know who's responsible here?

Yeah.

It was John Wanamaker out in a few.

He was the retailer in the early

nineteenth century who said,

I know half of my advertising is waste.

I just don't know which half.

It's a famous, you know,

famous quote in the marketing.

Oh, it's my, that's a brilliant quote.

It's a hundred percent.

And yeah, so, you know,

and we already established that,

that Google isn't looking for us for lead

gen is not looking at ROI.

It's looking at, you know,

who called regardless of the quality and,

you know,

Obviously,

zero quality still counts for them.

But you definitely need to be tracking all

your phone calls.

You need to have those trackable numbers.

You need to know where they're coming from

and which ads are coming from.

We use CallRail for everything.

I can't imagine even beginning a campaign

without having that in place to track it

all.

Because you'll just never know otherwise.

You'll have no idea.

So yeah, we track everything.

So, but like...

Cisco get into that just a little bit

because not all of our clients are not

all the listeners are gonna have Cisco so

how or what should we be expecting from

our guys like you

to do to track this stuff because I

hate the conversation.

Oh,

I got you fifteen thousand impressions.

OK, thanks.

But how many patients are like,

how do you do that?

Is there is there hacks there?

Or maybe you can't share your little tips

and tricks,

but it can't be like it can't be

that difficult to track

the forms or, you know,

the landing page activity and like,

what should they be doing for these,

for our, for our phone?

The good news is, and it's a great,

great time to ask this question because

it's gotten so much easier with AI

transcription.

It used to be, you know,

a process like I've listened,

I can't probably tens of thousands of

calls, you know, phone calls intake calls.

Um, and,

you kind of had to, like,

in order to understand, like,

what is the actual value?

What are the real people saying on the

phone?

What are the issues that we can raise

to the clients?

I'm like,

you guys got to stop saying this.

You're losing leads left and right because

your people aren't answering the phones or

whatever.

But yeah,

you've got to have that qualitative data,

you know,

and the way to get that is,

like I said,

you just have to listen to it.

Now you can review the call transcript.

So you can export those out of CallRail

and you can see exactly

what the transcript of a call or all

your calls has been.

And you can see that they all came

from Google Ads.

So if you got that twenty calls for

your, you know,

three thousand dollars or whatever it was,

you should see what those twenty calls

were.

So is that because you're using different

phone numbers for your stuff?

Exactly.

So you know specifically how many people

are calling my ad because of a different

phone number.

OK.

Well, that's solid.

Do you believe in offering something

different in all of your marketing mix so

that, for example,

I'm going to give you a Netflix thirty

dollar gift card on all of Cisco's stuff,

but I'm going to give a thirty dollar

Amazon card for my print mail and I'm

going to get like,

do you believe in mixing up the promo

so that when someone walks in,

it's fail safe also?

Is there is there any methodology there

other than just the phone stuff?

I guess,

is there anything else other than CallRail

that can help you track this?

That's what my question is.

Right.

That's a good question.

Yeah,

I think that's a fantastic idea when

you're talking about promos.

You know,

it's not something that we typically do in

our Google ads, but, you know.

But the promo can also just be the

call to action, right?

Like a fifty nine dollar whitening,

a free whitening.

Right.

Just making sure that.

when you're tracking, do you do different,

when you do a separate promo,

so like let's say you run an ad

for me and today we decide to do

whitening.

I don't know why we keep talking about

whitening.

I'll tell you why.

No, I don't want to know why.

You want to know this.

MVP Mail said their number one promo was

stupid whitening out of ten million

mailers.

So dumb.

Just FYI.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

I don't even know what I was going

to say now.

Yes, you do.

What were you going to say?

I don't.

It had something to do with promos.

It was with the promos.

Well, promos matter, though.

Actually,

I know what I was going to say.

So if today we're doing a whitening promo,

fifty nine dollar whitening and and then

next month we're doing five hundred off

aligners.

do you put it so that they don't

just put Cisco?

Do you specifically tell them, okay,

now we're switching ads,

make your referral source something

different?

Because that's what I'm really big on

because I want to know what promo did

best.

See, this is why Paula is a genius.

Because... I like that.

It's what you... Realistically,

we could go month to month and see,

but if we forget what ad we did,

I mean, we'd have to call you.

So a great way... So first of all,

this goes back to not using your website,

right?

Using landing pages that are only visible

to people that visited through your ads.

So this is a great example, too, of...

I generally don't use promos in the Google

ad.

Like,

I don't want you to call thinking you're

getting stuff cheap.

I want you to call because this is

what you really want.

Then I want to surprise you when you

land on the landing page with a great

offer for that.

But does that offer?

I guess what I'm saying is.

OK, so you're at you,

you're doing one part of it,

you're getting someone to call or getting

someone to go to my landing page.

But and now once they go to my

landing page, they're going to reach out,

hopefully.

So you get the call tracking that the

actual like promo,

what promo made them call?

I think in the in the practice management

software that has to change.

I don't want it just to be a

digital rain working.

Right.

I want to know how are they working

best?

Was it when I ran my whitening ad

or was it when I ran my five

hundred aligner ad?

And it's hard enough to get the front.

You know,

it's great that you can go back and

look for me.

But number one, as a dentist,

I'm probably never calling.

I'm only going to call you when it's

not working.

It's not working.

I'm quitting.

It's not working.

I'm just going to jump in and say

that's next level.

Like Cisco would agree.

Number one,

just tracking if digital reigns working is

so hell.

I'll take that.

But taking it to another level and

tracking digital reign,

whitening digital reign.

uh free toothbrush whatever like that is

that's next level because now you're

tracking promotions and let me let me

address that because we do that part but

it's it may not be exactly what you're

thinking but i just want to address it

so

You know,

we don't have a whole lot of time

left,

but I do want to go over this

quickly,

which is we don't always know what message

is going to resonate best,

even if it's whitening.

Let's talk about promotions.

What we almost always do is split test

the landing page.

So one page may have one offer.

The other page has a different offer and

fifty percent of the traffic to one fifty

percent to the other and then see which

one drives phone calls.

Then when we find one that wins,

we create another variation of it using,

say,

different language or a different photo or

whatever it may be.

And we usually do fifty fifty,

but we can also split it out into

multivariate and different versions.

But we're always testing what drew drove

those most conversions.

Cisco, you've been Cisco,

you've been holding out the entire

episode.

That's some next level stuff right there.

That is why what I love.

That's amazing.

So so your company should be thinking

about.

exactly what he just said and that is

the difference maker of a cisco and a

google consultant not only creating

landing pages but also testing which one's

getting the higher conversions that's it

that's the money maker we don't have a

lot of time but uh uh dan throughout

it's kind of a great segways

Great conversation.

What do you think about having a hard

sell giveaway, free resources?

It plays right into what we're talking

about.

And my opinion is you spend the money

to get the recognition,

to get the awareness.

The promotion gets them to call.

Like you can do – we talk about

it with mail all the time.

Just putting a mailer out saying, hey,

I'm –

Sweet Tooth Dental office nearby,

come see us.

Okay,

thanks for sending me a postcard that says

welcome me.

Or you could do, hey,

I'm Sweet Tooth Dental and I've got these

three opportunities for you if you wanna

try us out.

That's always gonna do better than just,

hey, I'm here.

Do you agree?

Promotions are strong.

So you have to spend money on Cisco,

you have to spend money on Google,

the clicks,

and then you gotta spend money on

promotions.

And if you're not doing that part,

I find that your results are less.

Is that the same with your statistics too?

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely when you do a promotion,

almost always a stronger response.

Like I said,

I generally don't do it on the ad

itself because I don't want to pay

somebody to want to get something free.

I want...

to get the highest quality click and so

dangling a low price you may get people

who are just clicking because they see a

number that seems low or an opportunity or

something that seems low but then surprise

them on the landing page

Because at that point,

once they've clicked,

you've already paid for it.

I like that.

Nobody talks about the surprise and the

landing page.

Let's put an end cap with this

conversation.

Give me one solid example of what a

surprise looks like.

Surprise!

Yeah,

give us an example of what it would

say in the ad, and then they land,

and then, oh, that's the surprise.

Give us an example,

because I've never heard that before.

I think it's genius.

Yeah.

So, so in an ad, in this scenario,

in an ad, I would lead with authority,

lead with credentials.

You know,

if you have a practice that's been in

around for twenty years and you've done,

you know, ten thousand, you know,

ten thousand crowns, whatever it is,

lead with that lead with that authority.

Then when they land on the page.

That's when you hit them with, you know,

nine ninety nine crowns or whatever your

whatever your offer is.

And now that you've paid for it,

you do everything you can to get you

get the lead.

So you're not,

I see what you're doing there because if

you lead with authority,

you're getting the right customer.

Because if you led with the promo,

you're getting shitty customers.

That's kind of the thing.

That's the theory.

But then when you land on it, okay,

there's no shitty customers.

That's not what I mean.

Paul's about to yell at me.

I'm making a point.

So you lead with authority to get the

right calls,

right clients that you're trying to

attract.

And then on the landing page,

you offer a sweet deal that gets them

to actually call.

Is that the theory?

Exactly.

You're doing everything you can to get the

right people in the room.

And then once they're in the room,

you're selling them however you can.

Dude, Cisco, your name and reputation,

what am I trying to say?

Proceed you, my friend.

That was a fantastic episode.

I think it was knowledge-based.

I think it was rich.

I think you provided a lot of value.

I hope you get a lot of calls

from this episode.

I think you come highly recommended,

and I think we were even working on

some of our clients together.

Thanks.

um thanks so much for giving us your

time investing your time and knowledge

it's always fun to talk about this stuff

and you guys have been great really

appreciate it that's great that's great

well uh folks if you're getting something

out of these episodes please like

subscribe all the things uh would love

more reviews it helps our program get more

popular

um and reach out to next level like

we don't give ourselves too much too many

props but paul and i love what we

do every day we help lots of clients

make better decisions it's right on our

website in the first page uh we help

doctors make great decisions and uh we'd

love for uh we'd love to be part

of your team so reach out do make

that call uh i don't have a ninety

nine dollar special but

We will take great care of you.

So thanks so much for your time today

and listening.

And Cisco, thanks again.

We'll talk soon.

Thanks so much.

Bye, guys.

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