Clinic Mastery Marketing

Brisbane clinics

Healthcare marketing in Brisbane, by clinic owners.

Google Ads, Meta Ads and websites for Brisbane clinics, with northside and southside run as separate campaigns.

Brisbane has grown fast over the last ten years and the clinics have not kept up everywhere. Some professions are crowded, others are short of clinicians, and a campaign that works in Paddington can fall flat in North Lakes. The cost of a new patient varies more by suburb here than in Sydney or Melbourne.

Brisbane, QLD

Metro population 2.6 million

Google Ads cost per booking

$85 to $130

Meta Ads cost per booking

$50 to $75

Real ranges. Real catchments. Local clinic owners.

The Brisbane market

What makes Brisbane different.

Brisbane's map redraws itself every few years. Suburbs that were quiet in 2015, like Springfield, North Lakes and Coomera, are now busy clinic markets, while the established suburbs like Kelvin Grove, Toowong and Indooroopilly are crowded with providers. Your campaign has to know which side of that line your clinic sits on.

Queensland does not have daylight saving, so in summer Brisbane is an hour behind Sydney and Melbourne. That sounds trivial. It matters for clinics that take interstate referrals, and for how you time after hours ads.

Brisbane has large faith based and not for profit hospital groups, with Mater headquartered here. Many private clinics share a catchment with hospital run outpatient services. That means visible clinician credentials and clear fees carry extra weight, because the patient is comparing you with a hospital name they already know.

The river shapes a Brisbane catchment more than most owners expect. Northside and southside are different markets, both in how locals talk and in how they behave when searching for a clinic, and the crossings are why: every bridge adds real minutes at the times people book. A clinic at Bulimba and a clinic at West End are a few kilometres apart in a straight line and share almost no patients.

Referrals come mostly from three hospital areas. Herston, with the Royal Brisbane and Women's. South Brisbane, with the Mater group and the Queensland Children's Hospital side by side. Chermside, with the Prince Charles on the northside. Add the university campuses at St Lucia, Kelvin Grove and Nathan and you have most of the city's clinical pull. A practice near one of those sees a very different patient mix from one at Kenmore, The Gap or Wynnum, and the ads should read differently for it.

Brisbane is growing in three directions. North through North Lakes, Mango Hill and Griffin. South through Springfield, Ripley and Logan. East across Moreton Bay and the Redlands to Victoria Point and Redland Bay. In all three the clinics are still catching up with the houses, and fewer clinics are bidding than in the inner ring. That gap is the best opportunity in South East Queensland right now.

Roadworks ahead of the 2032 Olympics keep changing drive times around the inner suburbs. A 15 minute catchment two years ago is not the same shape today, so we recheck Brisbane targeting more often than we do in other cities.

What new patients cost

Realistic cost per booking ranges in Brisbane.

These are the ranges a well run campaign should land inside, in this city, in 2026. Outside this range, usually higher, the campaign almost always has a fixable issue: the wrong patients targeted, keywords that are too broad, or a leaky booking page.

Google Ads

$85 to $130

per new patient booking

Brisbane sits a little behind Sydney and Melbourne on cost, and it varies more by suburb than either of them. An inner ring clinic at Toowong pays more for a new patient than the same clinic would at North Lakes.

Meta Ads

$50 to $75

per new patient booking

Facebook and Instagram lead forms usually cost about $25 a lead, and one in two or three of those people book. Pain led professions (physio, chiro, osteo, podiatry) and paediatric OT and speech, where a parent's worry carries the ad, do particularly well here. A clear first visit offer is still needed. Psychology costs more, around $100 to $150 a client, because psychology clinics don't run offers.

Where we run campaigns

Brisbane suburbs we work in most.

Brisbane's catchments stretch further than Sydney's because the city is more spread out. A 6 to 8 km radius works in most outer suburbs, narrowing to 4 km inside the inner ring.

Inner North (New Farm, Newstead, Fortitude Valley, Spring Hill)
Inner West (Toowong, Indooroopilly, Auchenflower)
Inner South (West End, South Brisbane, Highgate Hill)
Inner East (Bulimba, Hawthorne, Morningside)
North (Chermside, Aspley, North Lakes)
South (Mt Gravatt, Holland Park, Sunnybank)
West (Kenmore, Brookfield, The Gap)

Catchment strategy

How we set up targeting in Brisbane.

Brisbane is spread out enough that a wider radius works, and split by a river that punishes you for ignoring it. Here is how we set it up for a Brisbane clinic.

Step 01

Inner suburbs 4 km, outer suburbs 6 to 8 km.

Through New Farm, West End, Toowong and Bulimba there are enough clinics that a tight radius works. Past Chermside, Mt Gravatt, Kenmore or The Gap the clinics thin out, people drive further as a matter of course, and 6 to 8 km is realistic. In the newer suburbs at North Lakes, Springfield or Coomera you can go to 10 km without paying for junk.

Step 02

Pick a side of the river and mean it.

Northside and southside are not two halves of one campaign. They are two campaigns. If your clinic is northside, target northside plus the few southside suburbs with a genuinely quick crossing to you, and leave the rest out. A campaign that straddles the river pays for clicks from people who look at the drive and give up.

Step 03

Give the new suburbs their own campaign.

North Lakes, Springfield, Ripley, Logan and the Redlands behave nothing like Toowong or New Farm. Fewer competitors, younger families, fewer people with an existing clinic. They need a wider area, plainer copy, and their own budget line so their results don't get averaged into an inner suburb campaign running on completely different numbers.

Step 04

Write plainly and name the suburb.

Brisbane patients respond to direct, plain copy better than the polished tone that works in inner Sydney. Pair that with the suburb in the ad group and in the ad itself. "Podiatrist Chermside" does more work here than any clever positioning line, and it costs less.

The Brisbane specialty mix

How each profession does in Brisbane.

Patient demand, competitive density, and funding mix vary by specialty in every city. Here is what Brisbane's clinic mix looks like, specialty by specialty.

Physiotherapy

Sport and outdoor injuries drive a lot of the demand. Cyclists, runners and surfers are a big share of the patient base.

Psychology

Private fee work is steady across the city, and NDIS demand is growing in the outer suburbs.

Podiatry

The outdoor lifestyle shifts demand toward heel and forefoot pain in summer, so the campaign changes with the season.

Chiropractic

Brisbane patients use chiropractors readily, and plain pain led campaigns do most of the booking.

Occupational Therapy

Paediatric demand is strong, most of all in the family suburbs north and south of the river.

Speech Pathology

Early intervention for children leads, and NDIS funds most of it.

Exercise Physiology

Queensland has higher rates of type 2 diabetes and heart disease than the national average, so chronic disease management work keeps growing.

By profession in Brisbane

Every profession searches differently. So does every Brisbane suburb.

The Brisbane market context above applies to every clinic here. What changes profession by profession is which searches book, what a new patient costs to acquire, and where the money leaks. Each page below covers one profession properly.

QLD regulatory and pathway notes

What is different about advertising in QLD.

AHPRA's advertising rules are federal and apply identically across every state. The moving parts genuinely specific to QLD are practical rather than regulatory in the advertising sense. First, Queensland workers compensation flows through WorkCover Queensland (a single statutory insurer for most employers), and CTP claims flow through licensed insurers regulated by MAIC (Motor Accident Insurance Commission). Second, paediatric work in Queensland requires a Blue Card under the Working with Children (Risk Management and Screening) Act, which is the QLD equivalent of the WWCC in other states. Third, Queensland does not observe daylight saving, so during the southern summer Brisbane is one hour behind Sydney/Melbourne, which affects scheduling for clinics that take interstate referrals or run shared call centres.

Featured Brisbane case studies

Real Brisbane clinics, real numbers.

Ready when you are

We'll show you what your Brisbane campaign should look like.

Tell us about your clinic, your suburb, and the patients you want more of. We'll come back with a one page plan for your part of Brisbane: which suburbs to target, which searches to chase, and what 90 days should realistically deliver.

Common questions

What Brisbane clinic owners ask us most often.

How does Brisbane's growth change the campaign for a new clinic?

If your clinic is in a fast growing suburb like Springfield, North Lakes, Coomera or Logan, the campaign should cover a wider area, because more families are arriving every year and fewer clinics are competing for them. If it is in an established inner suburb, a tighter radius and sharper keywords matter more. The same plan works in neither place. We tune it for the suburb you are in.

Do Brisbane clinics need different ad copy from Sydney or Melbourne clinics?

The basics are the same: AHPRA compliant, led by the patient's problem, clear on fees. Brisbane patients respond better to plain, direct copy than to the more polished tone that works in inner Sydney. We adapt the voice to the local audience without losing the compliance or the clarity.

Should my Brisbane clinic compete with Mater or St Vincent's outpatients on Google Ads?

Not head on. Hospital outpatient services have a name, a fee structure and referral pathways you can't beat directly. The better play is to reach the patients who don't yet know which option to use, with copy that explains the difference (private fee, no waitlist, your choice of clinician) and a fast booking flow. Patients pick for themselves once they can see what each option offers.

Does Queensland's high rate of chronic disease change how EP and physio clinics should advertise?

Yes. Queensland has higher rates of type 2 diabetes and heart disease than the national average, so the pool of patients for chronic disease management work is larger. The campaigns need to speak plainly about Medicare care plans and what the referral from the GP looks like, more so than the same campaigns in Sydney or Melbourne would.

How much does healthcare marketing cost in Brisbane?

Our fee does not change by city, and Brisbane is no exception. What changes is what a new patient costs, and in Brisbane a well run campaign lands at $85 to $130 on Google Ads and $50 to $75 on Meta for most professions. The cheaper end of that range is remedial massage, myotherapy and osteopathy, the dearer end is psychology, NDIS occupational therapy and speech pathology, and the profession pages carry the national range for each. Brisbane moves you around inside that range by suburb more than any southern capital does. An inner ring clinic at Toowong pays more than the same clinic would at North Lakes. On top of ad spend, our Google Ads management is $525 a month with a $795 setup, on a $500 a month minimum media budget.

Do you work with clinics outside the Brisbane CBD?

Almost all of them. We run campaigns across the inner suburbs at New Farm, West End, Toowong and Bulimba, north through Chermside, Aspley and North Lakes, south through Mt Gravatt, Sunnybank, Springfield and Logan, west through Kenmore and The Gap, and east across the Redlands. The newer suburbs and the Redlands often produce the best numbers in South East Queensland, because fewer clinics are bidding on the same searches out there.

Should my Brisbane clinic target northside and southside in the same campaign?

Only if you can name the crossing that makes it realistic. Every bridge adds minutes at the times patients book, and in practice a Bulimba clinic and a West End clinic barely share a patient despite being close on a map. We build one campaign for your side of the river, then a small, separately bid campaign across it for the higher value conditions people genuinely travel for. Blending them almost always underdelivers.

Other cities we work in

Other cities we work in.

Looking for our general approach? See how we run Google Ads for healthcare clinics, or browse every city we cover.