Google Search Ads for dermatology clinics.

The treatments you want to bid on are restricted terms

Botulinum toxin products and several of the injectables a clinic promotes are prescription-only medicines in most of the markets we work in. Google's healthcare policy restricts the use of prescription drug terms in ads, landing pages and keywords, and requires certification for prescription drug services.

The consequence is specific rather than general. You cannot simply build a campaign around the product name, and pointing a compliant ad at a landing page that names the product will still fail review. The restriction follows the term, not the placement.

What works instead is advertising the consultation and the concern rather than the product: the line you want treated, the condition you want assessed, the appointment where someone qualified will tell you what is appropriate. That is permitted, it is honest, and it matches what the searcher is actually ready to buy.

Medical and cosmetic need separate accounts, not separate ad groups

A skin cancer check and a cosmetic enquiry are different people in different moods needing different reassurance, and in Australia they fall under different advertising rules. AHPRA draws the medical and cosmetic dividing line through dermatology using a dominant purpose test and names dermatology procedures on both sides of it.

Mixing them in one account produces two problems. Commercially, the messaging that converts a cosmetic enquiry actively repels someone worried about a mole. From a compliance view, the higher-risk cosmetic rules apply to some of your advertising and not the rest, and a single account makes that boundary impossible to hold.

We build them as separate paths from the start, with separate budgets and separate reporting, so you can see which side of the practice the spend is actually growing.

Before-and-after imagery and testimonials do not survive the crossover

The assets that perform best in cosmetic advertising generally are the ones most restricted here. AHPRA's cosmetic procedure advertising guidelines cover testimonials and before-and-after imagery, and the guidelines' definition of advertising expressly includes directory listings, which tells you how broadly the term is being read.

In practice that removes the standard cosmetic playbook: no patient testimonials in the ad or on the landing page, and before-and-after images handled with considerable care if at all.

What remains is more durable anyway. Specific descriptions of what a treatment involves, who it suits, what recovery looks like and what it costs will outperform an untethered promise, and none of it creates a problem later.

What about ChatGPT Ads for a dermatology clinic?

OpenAI approves healthcare advertisers case by case with manual review. Cosmetic and aesthetic medicine is likely to attract closer scrutiny than a general medical practice, and the channel is not available in every market we serve.

We check eligibility and market availability before you commit budget. Verify the current position at OpenAI's ad policies page first, because the policy has moved repeatedly since the channel opened.

What we do on a dermatology ads account

• A term-by-term check against the prescription drug restriction before any campaign is built
• Medical and cosmetic separated into distinct campaigns, budgets and reporting
• Landing pages reviewed for restricted terms, not just the ad copy
• Ad copy built around consultations and concerns rather than product names
• Testimonial and before-and-after assets checked against the cosmetic advertising guidelines
• Certification applied for where a service genuinely requires it
• Monthly reporting split by medical and cosmetic, so you can see what is actually growing

Questions

Sources

• Google Ads — Healthcare and medicines policy
• AHPRA — Cosmetic procedure advertising guidelines
• AHPRA — Cosmetic procedure guidelines

Guides for dermatologists