When we launched Google Ads for a physician-led integrative medicine practice in California, we did not build one campaign containing every service and every keyword.
We separated the account around two distinct patient needs: perimenopause and hormone health, and preventive and metabolic health. Each service received its own campaign, its own landing page, its own keyword themes, and its own geographic targeting structure.
The objective was simple: make it easy to see which service, search intent, location, and keyword pattern actually produces demand. This article breaks down the structure we used.
The Two Campaigns
The account launched with two active Search campaigns:
- Perimenopause / Hormone Health — targeting searches related to perimenopause, hormone health, hormone imbalance, local hormone care and local perimenopause care.
- Preventive / Metabolic Health — targeting searches related to metabolic health, preventive health, local metabolic care and local preventive medicine.
Both campaigns ran inside the same Google Ads account and targeted the same broader California market. But we deliberately kept the services separate.
Why We Did Not Put Both Services Into One Campaign
Perimenopause and metabolic health may be offered by the same physician, but they represent different patient problems. Someone searching "perimenopause doctor near me" is not expressing the same intent as someone searching "metabolic health doctor near me." They may differ in symptoms, urgency, treatment expectations, search language, decision process, landing-page needs, and eventual conversion rate.
If we combined everything into one campaign, those differences would become harder to measure. By separating the services, we can independently evaluate impressions, clicks, search terms, CPC, conversion rate, cost per lead, and booked consultations for each — especially important once the account accumulates enough conversion data to make budget decisions.
Each Campaign Had Its Own Landing Page
We also avoided sending traffic to the clinic homepage. The perimenopause campaign sent users to /perimenopause-consultation/. The preventive/metabolic campaign sent users to /preventive-metabolic-consultation/.
This created a direct relationship between search, ad and landing page. Someone searching for perimenopause does not land on a generic page and have to figure out where to go next — they arrive on a page built specifically around that service. The same applies to metabolic health. This gives us much stronger message alignment and also makes landing-page performance easier to analyze separately.
Campaign 1: Perimenopause and Hormone Health
The first campaign was built around three main service themes:
- Perimenopause — perimenopause therapy, treatment, doctor, specialist, clinic, consultation.
- Hormone health — broader hormone-related searches: hormone therapy, treatment, doctor, specialist, clinic, consultation.
- Hormone imbalance — more specifically people describing a hormone problem: hormone imbalance treatment, doctor, specialist, hormone balance clinic.
These were separated because someone searching directly for perimenopause may behave differently from someone searching more generally for hormone care.
Campaign 2: Preventive and Metabolic Health
The second campaign followed the same logic, with two primary themes: metabolic health (searches related directly to metabolic medicine) and preventive health (people looking for a more preventive approach rather than treatment of one specific condition). The same underlying structure was then expanded across different geographic and local-intent variations.
We Separated Generic, "Near Me," and Geographic Intent
One of the most important parts of the structure was geography. The practice serves several affluent areas around the Bay Area, so we did not treat every local search as identical. We created different ad-group themes around generic service searches, "near me" searches, and specific markets: Bay Area, Palo Alto, Portola Valley, Menlo Park, Los Altos.
For example, the perimenopause campaign included variations around Perimenopause Broad, Perimenopause Near Me, Perimenopause Bay Area, Perimenopause Palo Alto, Perimenopause Portola Valley, Perimenopause Menlo Park, and Perimenopause Los Altos — the same logic repeated for hormone and hormone-imbalance searches, and the metabolic campaign followed the identical geographic framework.
Why separate the locations?
Someone searching "perimenopause doctor" is different from someone searching "perimenopause doctor Palo Alto." The second search contains explicit local intent. That matters because we eventually want to know whether city searches convert better, near-me searches convert better, broad geographic searches produce more volume, certain local markets have stronger demand, or certain areas produce more expensive clicks. If everything is grouped together, those patterns are harder to identify — the structure was designed to make them visible.
Service and location, sketched out as the actual campaign structure.
The Initial Match-Type Structure
We also built parallel match-type structures. For the main keyword themes, the account initially contained both phrase/exact groups and broad-match groups, to test two different approaches.
| Campaign | Ad-group variants |
|---|---|
| Perimenopause / hormone | 42 |
| Preventive / metabolic | 28 |
| Combined total | ~70 |
The large number was not created simply for complexity. Most of the groups were variations of the same core logic: service + location + match type. For one service theme, the architecture effectively looked like: Perimenopause → Generic, Near Me, Bay Area, Palo Alto, Portola Valley, Menlo Park, Los Altos — then the same framework repeated for Hormone, Hormone Imbalance, Metabolic Health, and Preventive Health.
We Changed the Match-Type Structure After Launch
The account did not remain static. After reviewing the first search-term data, we made a significant change on September 12: 70 ad-group status changes were recorded. The structure moved from phrase/exact groups active to broad-match groups active — specifically, 35 phrase/exact groups were paused and 35 broad-match counterparts were enabled.
The early search-term data showed that phrase and exact targeting did not automatically produce clean commercial intent. Searches included examples such as "why are beans good for perimenopause," "what controls metabolism," "why would I see an endocrinologist," and "how to get rid of pre diabetes fast." The campaign was already generating informational searches despite starting with more restrictive match types. That gave us a reason to test a different approach rather than assuming phrase and exact match were automatically protecting the budget.
The Structure Was Designed for Measurement
This is the main reason we built the account this way. The objective was not simply to create more ad groups — it was to isolate different variables. We want to be able to answer questions such as:
- Which service produces more demand — perimenopause or metabolic health?
- Which service converts more efficiently? Higher search volume does not necessarily mean lower CPA.
- Which location performs best — Palo Alto may behave differently from Menlo Park or Portola Valley.
- Does "near me" intent outperform city-specific intent? We can measure that rather than assume it.
- Does broad match outperform phrase/exact? The account now gives us a real environment for testing it.
- Which search language produces qualified enquiries? Search terms can eventually be connected with conversion and booking data.
That is much harder to do cleanly when every service and search intent is mixed together.
What the First Two Days Already Showed
During the initial launch period, the two campaigns generated 668 impressions, 18 clicks, and $39.16 in spend. The perimenopause/hormone campaign generated 421 impressions and 13 clicks; the preventive/metabolic campaign generated 247 impressions and 5 clicks. There were no tracked conversions yet, so it would be too early to say which campaign is more profitable — but the structure had already given us enough visibility to identify differences in demand, click behavior, search terminology, mobile usage, and match-type behavior. That is exactly what the account was designed to do.
What We Would Avoid
The alternative would have been much simpler: one campaign, one large ad group, keywords for hormones, perimenopause, metabolism, preventive medicine, local intent, multiple cities — all sending traffic to one generic page. That would certainly be easier to build. It would also make it harder to understand why the account was performing the way it was. For a multi-service integrative medicine clinic, simplicity should not come at the expense of measurement.
What This Means for Functional and Integrative Medicine Clinics
Functional and integrative medicine practices often have unusually broad service menus — hormone health, metabolic medicine, longevity, weight management, nutrition, preventive medicine, integrative oncology, functional medicine. That creates a temptation to place everything into one Google Ads campaign.
We generally prefer separating substantially different patient intents. The clinic may see all of those services as part of one medical philosophy. The prospective patient usually does not — they search for the problem they want solved. Campaign structure should reflect that.
The Main Takeaway
Our initial Google Ads structure for this integrative medicine practice was built around five layers:
- Separate campaigns by service line — perimenopause/hormone and preventive/metabolic health.
- Separate landing pages — each campaign had a dedicated PPC page.
- Separate keyword themes — perimenopause, hormone, hormone imbalance, metabolic health, and preventive health.
- Separate geographic intent — generic, near me, Bay Area, Palo Alto, Portola Valley, Menlo Park, and Los Altos.
- Test match types rather than assume — phrase/exact and broad structures were created separately, then changed based on early search-term data.
The account is still young. The real value will come as conversions accumulate and we can compare which parts of this structure actually produce qualified consultations — but that is the point of the architecture: it gives us a framework where those answers can be measured clearly.
Wellness Practice Marketing specializes in Google Ads, SEO, Local SEO, and conversion-focused websites for functional and integrative medicine practices. We build campaigns around individual service lines, patient search intent, local markets, and dedicated landing pages so performance can be measured at the level that actually matters. If you want us to build or audit the Google Ads structure for your clinic, learn more about our Google Ads management for functional and integrative medicine practices.