Google Ads · Psychology

Google Ads forpsychologists

Google Ads for psychologists, written for the person searching for help right now. AHPRA compliant, built around your catchment, measured in booked first sessions.

Most psychology clinics that try Google Ads end up paying for the wrong searches. The campaign chases counselling, therapy, mental health and psychology all at once. The traffic comes in. The budget burns out. The bookings don't follow. The fix isn't more keywords. It's fewer, sharper ones. The people who specifically search for psychologists convert at a different rate than the ones who search for counselling. Your ads need to know the difference, and plenty of agencies running ads for psychologists don't.

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google.com

anxiety psychologist near me

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Sponsoredyourpsychologyclinic.com.au

Sydney Psychology · Anxiety and Trauma

Care that meets you where you are. Anxiety, depression, trauma. Medicare rebates available.

4.9 · 312 reviews

another-psychology.com.au

Another Psychology Practice

Welcome to our practice. Comprehensive psychology services.

city-counselling.com.au

City Counselling and Therapy

When patients search, you win the click.

What psychology patients search

Patients don't search 'mental health'. They search what's wrong, and where they live.

The big volume keywords like 'mental health' and 'therapy' look attractive on a search planner. They convert poorly. The patients who book search with much sharper intent: a problem, a suburb, or both.

anxiety psychologist near me

psychologist [suburb]

child psychologist [suburb]

depression psychologist [city]

relationship counsellor [city]

trauma psychologist near me

Two patterns matter here. The location pattern. The problem pattern. Patients either know where they want to be seen, or they know what they want help with. Often both. We build campaigns that capture both kinds of search, because the booker lives in both.

See the thinking behind one ad

Pick your specialty and the search a patient runs

You will get one real ad, written the way I write them, and the method I used to get there. No campaign structure, no keyword list, no budgets. That part is the work I do with you.

Where agencies go wrong

Counselling searches and psychology searches are different patients. Most campaigns bid on both.

Years of auditing Google Ads accounts belonging to psychologists inside the Clinic Mastery community make a single pattern impossible to miss.

The campaign targets every adjacent term at once. Counselling. Therapy. Mental health. Wellbeing. Self help. Psychologist. Psychiatrist. The thinking is broader is better. The reality is the budget bleeds across traffic that was never going to book a psychology session.

Counsellor and psychologist are different professions at different price points. The patient searching for a 'counsellor' is often looking for a different service, a different fee, a different pathway. They're not your patient. If your ads chase them, you pay Google to bring them in, then they don't book, then your cost per new patient looks terrible.

Most psychology clinics don't have a budget big enough to afford the broad approach anyway. The budget needs to focus. Capture the patients who specifically search for psychology, by problem, by suburb, or by both. Skip everyone else. The narrower the campaign, the higher the conversion.

Counsellor and psychologist are not the same search. Don't pay Google as if they are.

How we run it

How we run Google Ads for psychology clinics.

Same four steps every clinic gets, sharpened for psychology.

Audit your ideal client list against Google reality.

Most psychology clinics see a wide spread of clients. Anxiety. Depression. Trauma. Relationships. NDIS. Children. Adolescents. We list the avatars you want more of, then sort which ones search Google in a way Google can deliver. Some of your best clients come from GP referrals, EAP programs, or word of mouth. Those don't go in the Google Ads campaign. The avatars who do search Google get the budget.

Build keyword groups by problem and by suburb.

Patients search 'anxiety psychologist [suburb]' or 'depression psychologist near me'. They almost never search the bare word 'psychology'. We build separate keyword groups for each problem area you treat, paired with location modifiers. Each group gets its own ad copy and landing page section that speaks to the patient's specific issue.

Filter out counselling, therapy and broad mental health searches.

Counsellor. Therapist. Coach. Mental health professional. Generic 'therapy' searches. Wellbeing. These look related. They're different searches with different intent at different price points. We negative keyword them out so your budget stays on the patients who specifically want a psychologist.

We report on bookings. Not clicks.

The dashboard tells you what each new psychology patient costs you, broken down by problem area and suburb. That's the only number that matters. Click through rate doesn't fund your clinic. Bookings do.

Field notes

What we see in psychology accounts

Psychology accounts have the best maths on this site and the most ways to waste it. A new client costs $80 to $120 to acquire, pays $250 to $275 a session and stays for around ten sessions. The waste comes from letting counselling, free and bulk billed searches into a campaign built for people looking for a psychologist, and from advertising capacity the clinicians do not have.

The second thing we see is small budgets doing more than owners expect. At a $500 a month floor, a tidy campaign brings in 4 to 7 genuine enquiries at $68 to $103 each (what our psychology accounts measured in September 2026), which is one or two new clients covering the whole spend in their first month. Safe House Psychology went from three enquiries a week to thirteen on that logic; Eastern Therapy Hub from five to fifteen.

Counsellor and psychologist convert nothing alike.

The big volume keywords look attractive on a search planner. Most of them burn budget on patients who were never going to book a psychologist at a psychologist's fee. The actual money searches are sharper, more specific, and almost always pair a problem with a suburb or a Medicare pathway.

Burns budget

counselling near me
Different profession, different fee.
therapy
Vague intent. Browsers and students.
mental health support
Often points to free services.
wellbeing coach
Coaching is not psychology.
self-help
Information seeker. Not a booker.

Books patients

anxiety psychologist [suburb]
Problem + suburb. Sharp intent.
child psychologist [suburb]
Parent searching. High commit.
depression psychologist [city]
Specific. Often Medicare aware.
trauma psychologist near me
High urgency, careful chooser.
psychologist with Mental Health Care Plan
Already has GP referral.

Counsellor and psychologist are different professions at different price points. Don't pay Google as if they're the same. Add the left column as negative keywords from the start.

The economics

What a new psychology client costs, and what they're worth.

Psychology has the most forgiving economics in allied health and the most expensive mistakes. A high session fee and a long episode of care mean you can carry a higher acquisition cost than a physio can. A wrongly targeted campaign means you carry it for nothing.

Cost to acquire a new client

$80 to $120

Wider than most specialties, because suburb competition and clinician availability both move it.

Standard session fee

$250 to $275

Where most Australian private psychology practices sit for a standard consultation.

Sessions per client

Around 10

The default we model on. An episode of care, not a single appointment.

Run those three numbers together and the picture is obvious. A client acquired for $100 who sits with one of your psychologists for ten sessions at $250 to $275 is not a marketing cost. It's the best return in the building. Which is why we never chase the cheapest possible acquisition in psychology. We chase the right one.

The trap is the pathway. Search terms like counselling and therapy sit next to psychologist in the auction and cost about the same per click, but the person typing them is often after a different service at a different fee. Buy enough of them and your acquisition cost looks broken when the campaign is fine. It just bought the wrong people.

Capacity is the other half. Psychology is the one specialty where the constraint is usually a clinician's diary, not demand. There's no point acquiring twelve new clients a month into a practice with four available slots. We map spend to the availability you have, per clinician, and we'd rather run a smaller campaign that fills the right diaries than a bigger one that builds a waitlist people abandon.

The numbers nobody publishes

What a new patient enquiry costs a psychology clinic.

Off the accounts we run, September 2026. An enquiry only counts when it is genuine: a website call past 30 seconds, an ad call past 60, or a real booking or contact form submission. No link taps, no button clicks, no page views.

$85

median cost of one new patient enquiry, September 2026

$68 to $103

lower quarter to upper quarter

$2,630

what one new patient is typically worth, at $263 across 10 visits

See where psychology sits against every other discipline

What good looks like

What a healthy psychology Google Ads account looks like.

A healthy psychology Google Ads account in Australia costs $80 to $120 per new patient booking. The range is wider than other specialties because the cost depends heavily on how competitive your suburb is, whether you're competing with NDIS funded providers, and whether your clinic accepts Medicare with a Mental Health Care Plan. We've seen efficient suburb level campaigns book new patients for under $80. We've seen broad keyword campaigns hit $200 plus. The number on the screen doesn't matter on its own. What matters is what each new patient is worth to your clinic over their first 12 sessions. That's the lens we run the account through.

Pricing

Management is $525 a month plus GST and 15 percent of ad spend, with a one off setup of $795 plus GST. No lock in, and the account is yours. See the full pricing breakdown.

Written by Pete Flynn, physiotherapist. One of the owners of Clinic Mastery and Physio Fit Adelaide.

About Pete

Common questions

The questions clinic owners ask us.

Do Google Ads work for psychologists?

Yes, and psychology is one of the better fits on Google. People search for a psychologist with real intent, usually naming a problem and a suburb in the same query. The economics carry it easily: acquire a client for $80 to $120, see them for an episode of care at $250 to $275 a session, and the campaign pays for itself several times over. What breaks it is the keyword set. Psychologists who let an agency bid on counselling, therapy and mental health alongside psychologist end up funding a lot of traffic that was never going to book with them.

How much do Google Ads cost for a psychology practice?

We'd start at $500 a month in ad spend for a single suburb catchment, plus our management fee. At that level, expect about 4 to 7 genuine enquiries a month at the $68 to $103 per enquiry our psychology accounts measured in September 2026, and the booking page decides how many of those become clients. The number that decides whether it's worth it is your available capacity. If your psychologists have open hours, the maths works comfortably. If they're already booked out eight weeks, we'll tell you to spend the money elsewhere until you've hired.

Will Google Ads work for a small psychology practice?

In most catchments, yes. The minimum we'd recommend is $500 a month in ad spend. For a psychology clinic, that works out at about 4 to 7 genuine enquiries a month (a website call past 30 seconds, an ad call past 60, or a form sent, at the $68 to $103 per enquiry we measured in September 2026), and the booking page decides how many of those become clients. The bigger question is whether your booking page is built for the way psychology patients decide. Patients usually want to choose a clinician they connect with, not just book any available slot. If your site doesn't help them make that choice, the campaign suffers. We'll tell you that before we ask you for a cent.

Should I bid on the keyword 'counselling'?

Almost never. The patient searching for 'counselling' is usually looking for a different service at a different price point. They're not the patient who's going to book and stay with a psychologist. Bidding on 'counselling' burns your budget on traffic that won't convert. If you also offer counselling at a different fee, we can build a separate campaign for that, with separate ads and a separate landing page. They don't share keywords.

Do you lock me in?

No. We have a 30 day notice period and that's it. We don't believe in 12 month contracts. Clinics work with us because they see value, they get results, and they enjoy working with healthcare professionals who understand them. Not because they're trapped. If we're not earning our keep, we don't deserve to keep your business.

How fast will I see results?

Typically, most clinics start seeing results inside the first four to six weeks. We're not promising overnight miracles. Anyone who does is lying. We are promising that your campaign will be live, optimised, and bringing in genuine new patient bookings within that window.

Ready when you are

See which psychology clients you can win on Google, and at what cost.

Tell us about your psychology practice. We'll come back with a one page plan: which problem areas and suburbs we'd target, which we'd skip, and what 90 days of Google Ads should realistically deliver for a clinic your size. No pitch deck. No one hour discovery calls that add no value whatsoever.

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We work with healthcare clinics across Australia.

Google Ads for other specialties

Other services for Psychology clinics

This page is the psychology playbook. The general approach is on the Google Ads for healthcare clinics page.

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