The Account ManagerRotates.The Waste Stays.
Rehab PPC companies pitch platform expertise and "optimization," but the failures are operational — search terms nobody reviews, negatives that never update, conversion tracking that double-counts calls, and dashboards that celebrate volume while admissions asks why quality dropped. This page is an evaluation guide: what competent management looks like week to week, and which answers should end the conversation.
Pressure-Test a PPC Vendor
Share the deck you are comparing. We will tell you what to ask — and what evasive answers mean.
Why Accounts Stall
Autopilot Looks
Like Activity.
A live campaign is not the same as a managed account. In treatment search, the gap shows up in the search terms report long before it shows up in a QBR slide.
- Broad-match autopilot funds irrelevant queries until someone manually reads matched search terms — many agencies schedule that quarterly, if at all.
- Certification hand-waving — "we'll handle LegitScript" — without confirming platform healthcare approval status leaves ads disapproved when census is down.
- Lead-generation traffic merged into PPC reporting makes cost per lead look artificially low while admissions chases unqualified callbacks.
- No offline conversion feedback means smart bidding optimizes for the easiest click, not the inquiry your team would accept.
Evaluation Checklist
Questions That
Surface the Truth.
Ask these on every fit call. Vague answers are data.
Search-Terms Review Cadence
How often do they read matched queries and add negatives? Weekly is baseline for active treatment accounts. "Monthly optimization" without search-term examples is a warning sign.
Who Touches the Account
Name the strategist who will adjust bids and negatives — not just the salesperson on the call. Ask what happens when that person leaves. Account manager rotation without documentation resets learning.
Account Access & Ownership
You should own the Google Ads account and MCC access. Agencies that insist on proprietary accounts or withhold admin access make switching expensive by design.
Call QA Process
How do they define a qualified call? Do they listen to recordings with your team? Reporting that stops at "calls over 60 seconds" without admissions input optimizes the wrong thing.
Lead-Gen Separation
Confirm PPC reporting excludes purchased calls, affiliate traffic, and list buys. If it is all one CPL number, you are not evaluating paid search — you are evaluating a bundle.
Offline Conversion Discipline
Ask how qualified calls, VOB completions, and admissions milestones feed back into Google. Without it, automated bidding guesses — and usually guesses wrong in expensive markets.
Red Flags
Walk Away
When You Hear This.
Disqualifiers we have seen on audits — not hypotheticals.
Guaranteed CPL or Volume
01Disqualifier
No ethical vendor promises a cost per admission or call count in a regulated, auction-based category. Market difficulty, certification status, and landing-page quality move the number — guarantees signal inexperience or hidden traffic sources.
Broad Match by Default
02Disqualifier
Running single ad groups on head terms with broad match and "letting Google learn" without aggressive negatives is how treatment accounts fund irrelevant clicks at premium prices.
Opaque Traffic & Lead Sources
03Disqualifier
If they will not separate PPC from lead-gen, show search-term exports, or grant read access to the live account, you are buying a black box.
Certification Afterthought
04Disqualifier
LegitScript and platform healthcare certification are prerequisites — not a line item to "figure out later." Ads do not run without the gate cleared.
Named Case Studies,
Published Numbers.
Figures below come from full write-ups on our site — not composites, not anonymized claims.
Cost per admission dropped 67% while managed spend scaled
Multi-channel paid acquisition across Google, Bing, and Meta — with intent-based segmentation and dedicated landing pages. Full methodology and channel breakdown in the published case study.
30% reduction in paid CPA with passing Core Web Vitals
Scalable SEO content system, technical performance improvements, and admissions-funnel optimization — documented in the full case study.
Evaluation Questions
Rehab PPC Company
Questions, Answered.
What directors ask when comparing paid search vendors for a treatment center.
Campaign structure by level of care, search-term and negative keyword hygiene, bid and budget allocation by market, landing-page alignment, conversion tracking maintenance, and weekly reporting tied to qualified inquiries — not a monthly PDF of impressions.
Ask for a redacted search terms export from a healthcare client and walk through the last round of negatives they added. If they cannot show recent examples, assume matched queries are running unattended.
They need sufficient access to manage campaigns and conversion actions — but you retain ownership. Standard is your account, their MCC link, documented change history. Agencies that resist transparency are protecting something other than your performance.
Treatment search has certification gates, expensive irrelevant queries, call-heavy conversion paths, and compliance-sensitive copy. Generalists optimize for lead volume; specialists optimize for query intent, negative lists, and admissions feedback loops.
Spend by campaign and market, search-term themes added as negatives, qualified calls and forms with source attribution, and a written plan for the next period. Blended CPL without segmenting program and geo hides waste.
We staff BH-exclusive accounts with senior strategists, separate PPC from purchased leads, and document weekly search-term work. If you want to see how we structure that in practice, read our agency model — then pressure-test anyone else against the same checklist.
See our drug rehab PPC agency model →Explore our full Paid Media capabilities for behavioral health treatment centers.
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Before You
Sign Anything.
Bring the retainers you are comparing — ours included. We will walk through search-term exports, account access, and reporting examples so you know what strong PPC management looks like before budget moves.
What wasted spend looks like in a real search terms report.
Questions that surface weak account management on any fit call.
We will tell you when another vendor is the better fit.
Pressure-Test a PPC Vendor
Share the deck you are comparing. We will tell you what to ask — and what evasive answers mean.