Telehealth Marketing That Books More Patients

It depends on your market, your goals and the services you need. Most of our telehealth clients run an SEO campaign as the long-term foundation, paired with paid search to drive immediate booking requests.

We’ll right-size a plan to your practice, your competitive market and your growth goals, and tell you exactly where each dollar goes.

Very. At the typical healthcare organization in the calls we've listened to, 34% (about 1 in 3) of calls went to voicemail or were never picked up: 28% during business hours and 51% after hours. And most of those callers do not try again: 73% of callers who reached voicemail did not call that business again within a week.

That is why we track every call from your campaigns, flag missed calls, and help you set up call routing, after-hours coverage and fast call-backs, so the leads you pay for are not lost at the front desk.

Based on calls to 26 healthcare organizations we market, Apr to Sep 2026.

We classified a sample of 288 new-customer calls to the healthcare organizations we market by what the caller wanted (all healthcare, not only telehealth practices). The most common reasons to call were booking an appointment or checking availability (40%), a consultation or estimate (15%), whether a specific service is offered (12%) and insurance, financing or payment (11%).

Typical questions: “Can I schedule an appointment?”, “Can I come in for a consultation or evaluation?”, “Do you offer this specific treatment or service?”. Your website, ads and Google Business Profile should answer these before the phone rings, and your team should be ready to answer them when it does.

Based on calls to SmartSites clients, Apr to Sep 2026; questions paraphrased, no caller or client identified.

Mostly business hours: 20% of calls came outside Monday to Friday 9 to 5 (4% on weekends), and the busiest day is Monday. Of the calls that were answered, 45% were new-customer inquiries, 40% were existing customers, and 17% were sales pitches or wrong numbers.

That mix is why we report on qualified calls, not raw call counts.

Based on 39,000 calls to 53 healthcare organizations we market, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 (timing) and Apr to Sep 2026 (call types).

Across the Google Ads accounts of the 49 healthcare organizations we manage, the median cost per lead over the last 12 months was $90, with a median cost per click of $5.40 and a median conversion rate of 6%.

Your number depends on your market, services and how well the landing page and phones convert. We use these medians as a starting benchmark, then work to beat them.

Source: Google Ads accounts managed by SmartSites, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026; a lead is a tracked call or form conversion as set up in each account.

For the 55 healthcare organizations whose Google Business Profiles we manage, the median profile got about 910 views, 34 calls and 66 direction requests a month over the last year.

Reviews, photos, accurate hours and categories move those numbers, which is why local SEO is part of every plan we build for a telehealth practice.

Source: Google Business Profile performance data for profiles managed by SmartSites, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026.

You don’t have to choose. The best results come from doing both, with experts who know how to use AI responsibly:

• AI-assisted audits: our audits combine years of human expertise with AI to spot opportunities a person alone would miss.
• Enterprise-grade data: professional SEO and ads tools give us visibility into organic, AI and paid search.
• Always human-in-the-loop: every output is reviewed by a strategist before it ships, and you own all work product.

A good in-house marketer is only one person. With SmartSites you get a whole team (strategist, SEO specialist, paid media lead, web designer, email specialist and social manager) for less than the cost of a single hire, with no recruiting and no learning curve.

No, and we’ll always be straight with you about that. Effective telehealth marketing takes time; practices that expect instant booking volume from SEO are usually disappointed. Here’s what to realistically expect:

• SEO can be a roller-coaster, but the long-term curve bends up and compounds.
• Paid search typically generates booking requests within the first 30 days.
• Web rebuilds pay for themselves through higher conversion rates.

Yes. We optimize for generative engines (GEO) as well as traditional search, so telehealth practices show up in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and the AI assistants patients increasingly use to find same-day virtual care. Our tracking includes AI mentions and citations, not just rankings.

Yes. We build location and licensure-aware pages so patients in each state you’re licensed to serve can find and book you, while keeping messaging consistent with your credentialing and payer rules. We never make claims about coverage or outcomes we can’t verify.

Telehealth providers don’t think in impressions or vanity metrics. They think in:

• Cost per booked visit
• Show-up rate
• Patient retention
• ROI

We do too. The wins we drive are more booked video visits, more patients choosing convenience, and a calendar that stays full.

Paid search usually produces bookings within the first month. SEO builds over several months and keeps compounding. Our case studies include organic site traffic up 957% and site traffic up 463% (Optimal Health), plus leads up 255% (Symmetry Counseling).