Marketing
How Much Should Your Medical Practice Spend on Marketing in 2026? A Metro Atlanta Breakdown
Here’s a truth most medical practice owners do not want to hear: you are probably spending your marketing dollars in the wrong places. Some of you are throwing money at ads that never bring in a single new patient. Others are spending almost nothing and then wondering why the waiting room stays empty.
Both of these problems are very common. And both of them can be fixed but only if you know where you actually stand.
The good news is that we now have solid data to answer one of the biggest questions in healthcare: How much should a medical practice actually spend on marketing? This is not a guessing game anymore. Whether you run a primary care office in Roswell, a dental practice in Johns Creek, or a specialty clinic in Sandy Springs, there are real numbers you can use as your guide.
In this blog, we are going to break down exactly what successful practices spend, how much it costs to bring in a new patient depending on your specialty, where to put your marketing dollars for the best return, and why Metro Atlanta practices face a new unique challenges that you need to plan for.
What the Data Actually Says About Marketing Budgets
Let us start with the big picture. According to the Patient10x Healthcare Digital Marketing Budgets Report and the Tebra Healthcare Marketing Budget Benchmark Survey, the average medical practice spends somewhere between 2% and 4% of its gross revenue on marketing. That sounds like a reasonable number, right? The problem is that practices spending at that level are not growing. They are just barely staying where they are.
The practices that are actually growing, the ones that are adding new patients, expanding their services, and building a strong name in their community, are spending 6% to 12% of their gross revenue on marketing. That is a big difference. And for practices that are in a serious growth phase, like opening a new location or launching a new service line, the number can go even higher. Some are investing 10% to 15% of their revenue during those expansion periods, according to the same Patient10x report.
So what does this mean in real dollars? Let us say your practice brings in $2 million a year in revenue. At the average 3% spend, you are putting about $60,000 toward marketing. At the 9% level that successful practices target, you are looking at $180,000. That is three times the investment and practices at that level are seeing results that justify every dollar.
The key takeaway here is simple: underspending on marketing is not saving you money. It is costing you patients.
How Much Does It Actually Cost to Get a New Patient
This is the question every practice owner wants answered. And the answer depends a lot on what kind of practice you run. The numbers below come from a mix of industry reports, including data from Patient10x, Elevate DDS, LocaliQ Healthcare Search Advertising Benchmarks, and the InfluxMD Medical Practice Lead Conversion Crisis Report 2025.
Primary Care Practices
If you run a primary care practice, expect to spend somewhere between $150 and $400 to acquire a single new patient when you are using Google Ads as your main paid channel. That range covers a lot of ground, and where you fall on that scale depends on how competitive your local market is, how well your ads are written, and how good your website is at turning visitors into people who actually book an appointment.
This is also where proper call tracking becomes important. The Invoca Call Conversion Industry Benchmarks Report 2025 which analyzed over 60 million calls found that a large number of patient leads still come in through phone calls, not just online forms. If you are not tracking where those calls are coming from, you have no idea which ads are actually working. That is a gap a lot of practices in the Atlanta area have not closed yet.
Specialty Practices
Think orthopedics, dermatology, cardiology, and others tend to pay more per new patient. The range here is roughly $300 to $800 per patient. This makes sense because patients looking for a specialist are often doing more research before they commit. They are comparing options, reading reviews, and taking their time. That means your marketing has to work harder and stay in front of them longer.
According to Medical Marketing Guru's comparison of Google Ads versus Facebook Ads for healthcare, specialty practices tend to get the best results when they use both channels together. Google Ads catches the patients who are already searching for help. Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) keep your practice visible to people who are still in the early stages of figuring out what they need. Running both at the same time and doing it well is one of the biggest advantages a well-managed practice can have over one that is only using a single channel.
Dental Practices
Dental is a little different because the cost structure breaks down at two levels. The cost per lead meaning someone who fills out a form or calls your office is usually between $40 and $80. But not every lead turns into a patient. Once you factor in the people who do convert, the cost per new patient lands between $175 and $325, according to data from Elevate DDS's Google Ads for Dentists 2025 Report.
Here is the exciting part: dental practices that run well-optimized marketing campaigns are seeing a return on investment of 300% to 500%. That means for every dollar you put into marketing, you are getting back three to five dollars in new patient revenue. If those numbers do not get your attention, nothing will.
What These Numbers Tell You
Patient acquisition cost is one of the most important numbers in your practice. It tells you exactly how much it costs to fill one chair or add one new patient to your books. If you do not know what your current number is, that is the first thing to figure out. Everything else in your marketing plan builds on top of it.
Where Should You Put Your Marketing Dollars?
Knowing how much to spend is only half the battle. The other half — and honestly the more important half is knowing where to spend it. A lot of practices make the mistake of putting all their money into one channel and hoping for the best. That rarely works.
The breakdown below is based on the Patient10x Budget Allocation Analysis and aligns with what Marketing LTB's Healthcare Marketing Statistics 2025 report as best practices for digital spend across specialties.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Content Marketing: 25–35% of Your Budget
This is where the long game pays off. SEO is all about making sure your practice shows up when someone in your area types something like "primary care doctor near me" or "best dentist in Alpharetta" into Google. It usually takes three to six months to build, and once it kicks in, it keeps working for you even when you are not actively spending money on ads.
Content marketing goes hand in hand with SEO. This means creating blog posts, guides, and other helpful material that answers the questions your patients are already asking. When you do this well, Google rewards you by showing your website higher in search results. And when patients land on your site and find genuinely useful information, they are much more likely to trust you and book an appointment.
A big part of SEO for local practices is also Google Business Profile optimization. Your GBP is often the very first thing a patient sees when they search for a doctor or dentist near them. If it is incomplete, outdated, or missing key details like your hours and services, you are losing patients before they ever visit your website. Keeping your GBP sharp and up to date is one of the highest-value tasks in your entire marketing plan.
Website Optimization: 15–25% of Your Budget
Your website is not just an online brochure. It is the place where a potential patient decides whether or not to become an actual patient. If your site is slow, hard to navigate, or does not look professional, people will leave before they even read a single word about your services.
Spending on website optimization means making sure your site loads quickly, looks great on phones (because most people are searching on their phones), has clear and easy ways to book appointments, and tells a clear story about who you are and what you do. This is one of the smartest places to invest because every other part of your marketing, your ads, your SEO, your social media eventually sends people back to your website.
Reputation Management and Reviews: 10–15% of Your Budget
In healthcare, trust is everything. And in 2026, trust is built online. According to the BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey, a large majority of patients read online reviews before choosing a doctor or dentist. That means your Google reviews, your Yelp page, and how you respond to feedback all matter a great deal.
Spending in this area covers things like actively encouraging satisfied patients to leave reviews, responding to any negative feedback in a professional and caring way, and keeping your online profiles up to date and accurate. It may not sound glamorous, but this is one of the areas with the highest return on investment in all of healthcare marketing.
Paid Advertising (Google Ads and Meta Ads): The Rest of Your Budget
After you have covered the basics above, whatever is left in your budget can go toward paid ads. Google Ads are especially powerful for healthcare because they put your practice right in front of people who are actively searching for what you offer. Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) are great for building awareness and staying top of mind in your community.
How much you put here should depend on your growth goals. If you are trying to fill seats fast — maybe you just opened a new practice or added a new provider — you might lean heavier into paid ads. If you are in a more stable growth phase, you can keep this portion smaller and let your SEO and reputation do more of the heavy lifting over time.
A Word About Reporting and ROI
Here is something a lot of practices get wrong: they spend money on marketing but have no clear way to see what is actually working. That is like driving with your eyes closed. You might get lucky, but you will not get far.
Good marketing comes with good reporting. You should know exactly how much you are spending, how many new patients each channel is bringing in, and what your cost per patient actually is at any given time. When you have that kind of transparency, you can make smarter decisions, move money away from things that are not working and put more behind the things that are. That is how you turn a marketing budget into real growth.
Why Metro Atlanta Is a Different Kind of Market
If you are running a medical practice anywhere in the Metro Atlanta area, you are dealing with a market that has some unique pressures. And if you are budgeting based on national averages alone, you might be setting yourself up to fall short.
Competition Is Higher, So Costs Are Higher
Metro Atlanta is one of the largest and fastest-growing metro areas in the country. That means there are a lot of practices competing for the same patients. According to industry data, urban practices in competitive metro areas like Atlanta tend to spend 20% to 40% more on marketing than practices in smaller cities or rural areas. This is not because marketing is more expensive for no reason, it is because there are simply more voices trying to be heard, and you have to work harder to stand out.
Whether you are in a busy area like Midtown Atlanta, a growing suburb like Johns Creek or Roswell, or a community like Sandy Springs or Alpharetta, you are in a market where patients have options. Lots of options. And that means your marketing has to be sharper, more consistent, and more strategic than what a practice in a quieter market might get away with.
Local SEO Is Not Optional, It Is Essential
One of the most important things you can do in a market like Metro Atlanta is make sure your practice is easy to find locally. Research from Physicians Practice and other industry publications confirms that 63% of patients choose a healthcare provider based on how close the practice is to them. That number should get your attention.
Local SEO means making sure that when someone in Duluth searches for a doctor, or someone in Cumming looks for a dentist, your practice shows up in the results if you serve that area. It involves keeping your Google Business Profile up to date, making sure your name, address, and phone number are consistent across every online directory, and creating content that is specific to the communities you serve.
For example, if your practice sees patients from both Marietta and Kennesaw, your website and marketing should reflect that. You should not be treating Metro Atlanta as one giant blob. The people in each city and suburb have their own habits, their own search patterns, and their own expectations. The practices that understand this and market accordingly are the ones that win in this market.
What This Means for Your Budget
If you are in Metro Atlanta and you have been budgeting based on national averages, you are probably underspending. A realistic starting point for a practice in this market is on the higher end of those benchmarks we talked about earlier, closer to 10% of gross revenue, especially if you are in a competitive specialty or a densely populated suburb like Peachtree City, Norcross, or Lawrenceville.
That does not mean you have to throw money around with no plan. It just means that in a market this competitive, a smart and well-targeted marketing strategy is not a nice-to-have. It is a must-have.
Get Your Free Metro Atlanta Marketing Audit
You have now seen the benchmarks. You know what growing practices spend, what it costs to bring in a new patient in your specialty, and where the smart money goes. You also know that Metro Atlanta is a market that does not reward guessing.
So here is the next step and it costs you nothing.
We are offering a free, personalized marketing audit for medical and dental practices across Metro Atlanta. This is not a generic checklist or a templated report. It is a real look at your practice, your current spend, your online presence, your Google Business Profile, and how all of it stacks up against the benchmarks we talked about in this post. We will tell you what is working, what is falling short, and exactly where to put your dollars to see the kind of growth that actually moves the needle.
Whether you are in Johns Creek, Roswell, Sandy Springs, Alpharetta, or anywhere else in the Metro Atlanta area, this audit is built for practices just like yours.
Ready to see where you actually stand? Claim Your Free Marketing Audit Or visit adodemedia.com/medical to learn more about how we work with Metro Atlanta practices and what to expect from the audit process.
It takes about 30 minutes. And for a lot of the practice owners we have worked with, it was the first time anyone had actually shown them the real numbers behind their marketing. That alone is worth your time.
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Adode |A-doe-day| Media is a podcasting, marketing, and visual content agency specializing in helping brands create meaningful connections with their audience. Adode has revolutionized the podcast industry by providing end to end production services to a variety of clients from corporations to influencers.
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