Google Ads for therapists: reach people searching for care, inside the health ad rules.

A practice owner’s guide to paid ads

What Google and Meta allow for mental health ads, how to spend only where you can help, and how to tell whether it’s worth the money.

When ads make sense, and when they don’t

Ads make sense when you have room for new clients, a service people search for by name and a page that answers their questions. They also help when you’ve just opened, added a location or started a service your site doesn’t rank for yet.

They make less sense when your caseload is full, since every paid click becomes a person you turn away. Hold off, too, when no one can answer the phone or reply promptly, or when the page an ad would use is out of date. Fix those first.

What Google’s healthcare policy limits

Google’s healthcare and medicines policy restricts prescription drug terms in ads, landing pages and keywords, so a psychiatry practice advertises evaluation and medication management without naming drugs. Ads promoting online prescribing count as a prescription drug service; in the US, telemedicine providers need LegitScript certification and Google’s approval for them.

Addiction services have their own rule. In the US, ads for recovery-oriented drug and alcohol addiction services require LegitScript certification and Google’s approval, applied for by location. Behavioral addiction, impulse control and nicotine services fall outside that policy. If you treat substance use alongside other conditions, check before writing an ad.

No audiences built on mental health

Google’s personalized advertising policy treats health as a sensitive category, and names counseling for depression, anxiety and addiction as an example. Ads promoting those services can’t use advertiser-curated audiences: no remarketing lists of site visitors, no Customer Match and no lookalike segments.

Location targeting and Google’s predefined audiences remain available, because Google removes sensitive signals from them. In practice, a mental health account runs on search campaigns: the person says what they need in the search box, and your ad answers it.

Why ads show as “limited by policy”

In a mental health account, it’s common to see ads marked “Eligible (limited)”. Google uses that status for ads that comply with its policies but are limited in where, to whom or on which devices they show, and healthcare is one of those policies. Terms on your site can trigger it even when your service complies.

The status alone isn’t a fault. Add the Policy details column to see which policy applies. If it points to a restricted audience, remove it; if it points to drug terms, rewrite the ad or page. If the label looks wrong, appeal through the Policy manager.

Keywords to bid on, and keywords to block

Build ad groups around what people type: a service and place (“anxiety therapist in [city]”), a format (“online couples counseling [state]”) or a payer (“therapist that takes [plan]”). Bid only on plans you accept. Google doesn’t restrict trademarks as keywords, but an insurer can complain about its name in ad text, so name plans on the landing page.

Negative keywords block searches you can’t help with: jobs (“jobs”, “salary”, “license”, “CEU”), “free” if you don’t offer free services, and crisis searches such as “crisis line”, since someone in crisis needs 988, not an ad. Negatives don’t match close variants, so add plurals and spellings yourself.

Show ads only where you’re licensed

Clinicians can see clients only where they’re licensed, so campaign locations should match those states or the area around your office. Google suggests its stricter “presence” setting for sensitive categories with strict targeting limits. It reaches people in the places you choose, not people elsewhere who are merely interested in them.

Telehealth makes this easy to get wrong. A therapist licensed in two states, or practicing under an interstate compact, should target only the states each clinician can serve, and say so in the ad. If you’re unsure what a license or compact privilege covers, check with your state board.

A landing page and phone line that match the ad

An ad for “EMDR therapy in [city]” should land on a page about EMDR in that city, not your home page. Say who it’s for, whether you’re taking new clients, fees or plans, telehealth or office, and how to ask for an appointment. Keep 988 and emergency instructions visible.

Call assets add your number to ads, with a call button on mobile. Schedule them for hours when someone can answer; call reporting can count calls as conversions through a Google forwarding number. The number must appear on your site, or your domain must be verified in Search Console.

Tracking results without patient data

You need to know which ads lead to inquiries, but the ad platform doesn’t need anyone’s health details. Count simple actions, such as a call or a request form sent, with neutral names. Keep tags off intake forms, patient portals and any page where people type symptoms, and never send names or emails to an ad platform.

HHS guidance says that when a tracking tool sends protected health information to a vendor, the practice needs a business associate agreement with that vendor, and a promise to strip the data afterward isn’t enough. A 2024 court ruling vacated part of that guidance for public pages; the rest stands. Ask your counsel to review your tags.

Google Ads or Meta ads

Google Ads reaches people while they’re searching for help. Meta ads reach people who aren’t, which suits news of a new group or location more than a request for care. Meta removed detailed targeting tied to health causes in 2022, and its ad standards forbid implying a viewer’s mental health: an ad can offer depression counseling, not ask whether you’re depressed.

Measurement is harder on Meta. It can place a health website in a category that turns on “core setup”, which strips custom parameters and everything in a URL after the domain, and requires custom events to be reviewed. Custom conversions or audiences that suggest a health condition are flagged. Limits on standard events change, so check Meta’s current rules.

Budgets: judge cost per lead against your visit fee

There is no right budget for a therapy practice, only one that fits your openings and market. Pick a daily budget you could spend for a month with nothing to show, run it long enough to see real search terms, then adjust. Competitive cities and services cost more per click.

Judge the result by cost per inquiry, then by how many inquiries became first appointments in your own records. Compare the cost of gaining a client with what that client brings at your fee or usual reimbursement over a typical course of visits. If it costs more than it brings, fix keywords or pages before raising the budget.

Real numbers: our founder’s own practice

Family Hope Healthcare is the outpatient telepsychiatry practice owned by LunahUP’s founder. From January 7 to October 26, 2026, its Google Ads account recorded 7,490 impressions, 563 clicks (a 7.52% click-through rate) and 36 conversions, on $1,733.04 spent: about $48 per conversion.

A conversion here is whatever the account was set up to count, not necessarily a phone call, a form or a new patient. These are one practice’s numbers in one market. Results depend on the market, budget, landing pages and policy limits, and these figures are not a prediction for your practice.

Review the account every month

Once a month, read the search terms report to see what people actually typed. Add negatives for searches you can’t help with and keywords for ones that brought real inquiries. Check that each ad still matches its page and that no ad mentions a service, plan or clinician you no longer offer.

Then compare cost per inquiry with the month before and with your intake records, and check the Policy details column for anything new. Change one or two things at a time so you can tell what worked. If your caseload fills, lower the budget or pause.

How LunahUP helps with ads

Ad management is quoted separately from the search plans. Before anything runs, we agree which services can be advertised, in which states, with what budget, and who on your team approves the wording. We draft keywords, negatives and ads inside Google’s and Meta’s health rules, each pointed to a page that answers it.

Ad spend is always paid by your practice into its own Google or Meta account, so you see every charge. Your team approves the ads before they run. We don’t build audiences on health, don’t put patient details in tracking and don’t promise a cost per lead or new patients.