Facebook and Instagram ads for UK dental practices, judged on consultations that turn up

What Facebook ads for dentists are good for

Meta means Facebook and Instagram, which share one ad system. Its strength is showing an ad to someone who wasn't looking for dentistry that day. That's a different job from search, and this is how I weigh the two.

So my rule: search comes first for high-value treatments, because the people searching are the closest to booking. Meta earns a place for treatments patients choose with their eyes, such as composite bonding and aligners, and for long decisions like full-arch, where a patient may think for months before booking. Marketing full-arch treatment covers that longer journey.

How it is measured

Plenty of Meta reports stop at cost per lead. A lead is an enquiry: a form, a call, an online booking request or a message, and on Meta it is usually a form. It's the start of the work, not the result.

I measure every stage, per treatment, from the practice management system (PMS). Then I send two of those stages back to Meta, consultation booked and consultation attended, so its delivery system optimises towards booked and attended consultations rather than form fills. Meta offers a lead-ads performance goal that optimises for qualified leads, people most likely to convert after sharing their details. From April 2026, Meta says that goal is no longer available for new campaigns unless the Conversions API is connected.¹ The Conversions API is Meta's route for sending events from your own systems to Meta, server to server.

There's a limit here that matters for dentistry. Meta's terms prohibit sending health information through its business tools, and its list includes medical procedures, treatments and testing.² Meta may also assign a website to a health and wellness category and restrict what it can share, from stripping URL details to blocking mid and lower funnel events.³ What I send back is designed around that: the two stage events go under generic names, with identifiers hashed, only for patients whose explicit consent is recorded, and with nothing about treatment, conditions or prices. If Meta restricts those events for the practice's site, they may not reach Meta at all, and I don't work around it. The detail is on the Conversions API and its health-data limits.

Creative within the rules

Meta ads are judged by three sets of rules at once: Meta's advertising standards, the GDC and the ASA. It's easy to break one of them without noticing.

Meta's personal attributes policy says ads must not assert or imply personal attributes, including physical or mental health, and gives "Do you have diabetes?" as an example of what's not allowed.⁴ Its health and wellness standard also bans statements of inferiority about appearance, including negative questions that attack someone's appearance or body parts.⁵ The GDC says advertising must not create unjustified expectations about results,⁶ and the ASA says before-and-after photos must be genuine and representative, with signed and dated proof held.⁷

The full platform rules are on Meta's health ad policy for dentists. I write creative around the treatment, the clinician, the consultation and the cost, and the principal signs off every claim before it runs.

Lead quality

The usual complaint about Meta is that the leads don't answer the phone. It's real, and it has causes that can be traced.

Meta's instant forms, the forms that open inside Facebook or Instagram, default to a type called More volume, which is built to be quick to submit on a phone. The Higher intent type adds a review screen and a note that the business may follow up, to cut submissions from people who are only marginally interested.⁸ Which one fits depends on the treatment and on how quickly the practice calls back. The trade-offs are on lead forms versus landing pages.

The other causes sit in the signal the campaign optimises for, the offer in the creative, and what happens at the practice after the lead arrives. I diagnose them in that order. The full method is on why Meta leads don't turn up.

The calling itself is the practice's job, not mine. What I do is measure how fast leads are contacted and how many book, so the gap is visible in the report rather than blamed on the ads.

What I need from you

I take one practice per catchment, so I'm never competing against another client for the same patients. Meta usually sits next to search, SEO and the website as part of one plan. See what an engagement includes for the whole picture.

To talk about whether Meta suits your practice, email [email protected]. Tell me the treatment you want more of and whether you can currently see which leads turn up.