Physiotherapy · Albany Creek, QLD
About $30 a conversion, and this time it's true
Three Pillar Health
Read the case study
Brisbane clinics
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
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
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'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.
Catchment strategy
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Google Ads in Brisbane
Meta Ads in Brisbane
Physiotherapy, Psychology, Podiatry, Occupational Therapy, Speech Pathology, Chiropractic, Exercise Physiology, Osteopathy, Remedial Massage, Myotherapy, Audiology.
Clinic websites in Brisbane
Physiotherapy, Psychology, Podiatry, Occupational Therapy, Speech Pathology, Chiropractic, Exercise Physiology, Osteopathy, Remedial Massage, Myotherapy, Audiology.
QLD regulatory and pathway notes
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
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
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.