The Best Google Ads for Therapists: Revkey vs Counseling Wise & Therapy Flow
Most therapists with a growing practice eventually reach a point where word-of-mouth referrals and Psychology Today profiles aren’t enough to sustain them. When things get to this point, one of the next logical steps to take is to start digital marketing. And among all the different forms of digital marketing, Google Ads stands out as the one that’s always present, yet it seems incredibly intimidating to start.
This intimidation is understandable. Google Ads is a very data-heavy and complex platform, and it's very easy to spend thousands of dollars on ads and get nothing in return. To avoid that risk, most practice owners look for experts to manage their ads for them. However, in the search for a marketing partner, you’ll soon learn that every agency has a slightly different definition of what Google Ads for therapists entails.
Marketing agencies often offer Google Ads as a sort of add-on to their main speciality, whether that’s SEO, social media, or software. While having a single point of contact that handles your entire digital presence is a nice convenience, such an approach often means that the person handling your ads is more of a sales person than a true expert in Google Ads or the mental healthcare industry, and views management of ad campaigns as one more thing they need to do on top of their main service, leaving your campaigns under-optimized and wasteful.
In this post, we’re going to take an honest look at how we approach Google Ads here at Revkey compared to two of our most popular competitors in the industry: Counseling Wise and Therapy Flow. By looking at the philosophy, pricing, and long-term strategy of each, you can decide which partner is the right fit to help you fill your client list.
The Add-On vs Specialist Mentality
Before we get into the weeds comparing ourselves to our competitors, it’s important to know why the focus of a marketing agency matters. Google Ads for the mental health field is a high-stakes environment. Between managing HIPAA compliance and staying within Google’s strict guidelines regarding advertising for healthcare services, running a successful Google Ads campaign for therapy requires careful attention and experience within the field of mental healthcare.
If your account manager is splitting their time rewriting your website, managing your social media presence, or troubleshooting software issues on top of managing your ads, the ads are usually the first thing to suffer. This is even more true if the agency in question is a generalist and lacks specific knowledge about the mental health space. That’s why we at RevKey pride ourselves on our years of experience and knowledge when it comes to running Google Ads for therapists.
Competitor 1: Counseling Wise
When you begin your search for “marketing for therapists” on Google, Counseling Wise is often the first name that appears (due to their SEO skills!). They have a strong reputation as an established and long-running SEO-focused agency tailored specifically for the mental health field. However, this focus and background lead to an SEO-first philosophy when it comes to Google Ads, and means they might not be up to date with the constantly changing best practices.
With an approach like this, Google Ads are used mostly as a support to fill in the gaps while their long-term SEO strategy matures. While this can be a sound strategy, too much focus on SEO leads to Google Ads campaigns that eventually peter out and end up not being able to scale with your practice.
The Per-Ad Group Pricing Mistake
One of the biggest differences between RevKey and Counseling Wise is how we handle the structure of your Google Ads account and what we charge for. Unlike us, Counseling Wise typically charges its partners per speciality or per ad group. Their basic package only covers one ad group, and it increases by $400 if you want to have at most four ad groups.
At RevKey, we find this type of structure problematic for both solo practitioners and group practices. If you have five niche areas of practice, or if you have five clinicians each with their own niche areas, you shouldn’t be forced to decide what you advertise for based on an arbitrary cap that your ad agency set.
We believe in doing whatever it takes to build the Google Ads campaign your therapy practice needs to succeed, which is why we don’t put a cap on the number of ad groups or specialities we’ll advertise for you, nor do we charge for our services per ad group.
The 90-Day Fine-Tuning Window
Another approach Counseling Wise takes is the three-month period for which their services last. They build your campaign and manage it for 90 days with the goal of getting it to an optimized state. After those three months, the active management of your campaign typically ends.
We have two major problems with that style of Google Ads campaign management:
The Minimum Time for Optimization: Google Ads is a data-driven platform. 90 days is the industry standard minimum for interpreting a new campaign’s data and implementing long-term strategies, and for Google’s algorithm to figure out what your campaign’s goals are. By stopping campaign management at the third month, you’re essentially quitting right when the most valuable data is starting to come in.
Market Changes: The therapy market is seasonal and competitive, particularly in Google Ads. A campaign that’s been fine-tuned in February might begin to fail when the “summer slump” comes around a few months later, unless it’s being actively managed through that time. Without a dedicated specialist regularly monitoring and optimizing your campaign, your campaign can suddenly stop working without warning, and you’ll be left wondering why.
Continuous Campaign Maintenance Matters
Counseling Wise does offer monthly maintenance, but they explain it as an optional service better suited for larger therapy practices with generous ad spends. For the average practice or solo practitioner, the message is that after three months of managing your campaign, you can set it and forget it.
In our experience, an approach like this is a recipe for wasted money. Google Ads campaigns need to be continuously monitored: negative keywords need to be continuously added to prevent your ads from showing on irrelevant searches, seasonal changes need to be responded to, and long-term goals need to be strategized in order to make the most out of your ad spend.
By choosing an agency like RevKey, you’re paying for guidance and support beyond the beginning phase. We constantly monitor your ad campaigns, respond to market changes, and implement new strategies that ensure you get the most leads possible.
Competitor 2: Therapy Flow
As you continue your search for a marketing partner, you will likely come across Therapy Flow. This company has a very specific focus that differs from both an SEO firm and a dedicated Google Ads agency. Therapy Flow is primarily a CRM company. They offer a software platform designed to manage your lead pipeline. Their Google Ads management is offered as an add-on to this main service.
Therapy Flow’s approach is that their system is the main solution to everything. Because their CRM is their main selling point, the focus of their Google Ads service is on integration with their platform. They prioritize making sure your data all goes to one place in their CRM.
Integration vs. Optimization
There’s a big difference between a Google Ads campaign that’s well integrated and one that’s well optimized. Integration makes sure that when someone fills out a form, you can find it in your CRM. Optimization is the process of making sure your ads serve the right audience at the lowest possible cost.
The more time a company spends on troubleshooting software issues or building automated messages, the less time they have to spend on Google Ads. This can lead to surface-level campaign management. They might focus on the number of leads being sent to your CRM while ignoring the quality of those leads.
At RevKey, we believe that the Google Ads platform is where the real work takes place. We are not and do not want to be an all-in-one solution because we want to spend 100% of our time looking for ways to improve your Google Ads campaign. We prioritize the technical and strategic side of Google Ads in order to make sure your campaign gives you the highest ROI possible.
The Problem with Software Lock-In
The biggest issue with having a CRM focused company manage your digital marketing is the risk of being locked into their software. When your entire marketing strategy is built for a specific proprietary software, it becomes difficult to leave, especially after going through what could be a months-long CRM change. You might find yourself unable to switch to a different ad agency because everything is tied to their platform. Conversely, it will be hard for you to switch to another CRM while keeping your current Google Ads campaign because of how closely your campaign’s data is linked to their platform.
RevKey is different because we meet you where you are. We work with what you already have in place. We don’t try to upsell you on a subscription, nor do we push you to use any single platform. We do this because we’re confident in our ability to optimize your Google Ads to the highest degree. And if you ever decide to part ways with us, you still own 100% of your data and everything associated with your Google Ads campaign.
The RevKey Difference: Dedicated Management
We do things differently at RevKey because we believe therapists deserve a partner as dedicated and specialized as they are. We aren’t a jack-of-all-trades agency that does everything, nor are we a Google Ads generalist. We have built our business around one single focus: mastering Google Ads for the mental health industry. This singular dedication allows us to provide a level of expertise and ability that other agencies cannot match.
We Are Ads-First
The biggest difference you’ll notice with us is that we are an ads-first agency. While others might treat Google Ads as a secondary service they provide, or lack specific knowledge about the mental health industry, those things are our expertise. We don’t spend our workday doing anything other than digging into your Google Ads campaigns, analyzing data, and making the changes necessary to keep high-quality leads coming your way.
The single focus means we’re always ahead of the curve. By the time Google changes its healthcare advertising policies or introduces a new bidding strategy, we’re already testing it. We change as fast as the market changes, ensuring that your practice and your campaigns never fall behind the competition.
We Don’t Limit Your Growth
Marketing agencies should scale with your business, not hold it back. A common practice we see in our industry is the practice of charging per ad group or per service advertised. At RevKey, we don’t place these kidneys of arbitrary limits on our clients. We will never punish you for being a multi-disciplinary practice. Our management fee covers the growth of your entire campaign.
We Meet You Where You Are
Unlike other agencies, we don’t force you to change how you run your business. Our job is to provide you with high-quality leads that turn into clients. We work with the tools you already use and are used to, whether that’s SimplePractice, Jane, or Acuity.
Choose The Right Partner For Your Future
The decision to invest in Google Ads for therapists is a major milestone for any therapy practice. Your choice of a marketing partner will determine how quickly you reach your growth goals and how much of your budget actually turns into new intakes.
If you want a dedicated partner that focuses entirely on the performance of your Google Ads campaign, RevKey is the right choice for you. We don’t require a software subscription or limit your growth by charging extra fees. We can give you the constant optimization your ad campaigns need in order to keep your calendar full.
Our team of Digital Marketing Professionals is here to help you reach the clients who truly need your expertise without the distraction of other services. We believe that professional ad management should be simple, effective, and entirely focused on your success.
Ready to see how your practice can grow with expert ad management? Reach out today to get started.
Choose a Partner That's 100% Focused on Google Ads for Therapists
You deserve a marketing partner who treats your advertising campaign as their primary focus, not just another add-on service to their main offering. Google Ads for Therapists requires dedicated expertise, continuous optimization, and someone who understands both the platform and the mental health industry inside and out. RevKey specializes exclusively in managing ads for therapy practices with no software lock-in, no arbitrary limits, and no distractions—reach out today to see how dedicated management makes all the difference. Get started in three simple steps:
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your practice goals and learn how dedicated Google Ads for Therapists management differs from add-on services.
Meet with one of our digital marketing professionals to explore how we optimize campaigns without software lock-in or arbitrary limits on your growth.
Start receiving high-quality leads from clients actively searching for your services, with continuous optimization and full account ownership.
Additional Services Offered at RevKey
At RevKey, we focus exclusively on Google Ads for Therapists without the distractions of managing SEO, software platforms, or other services that pull attention away from campaign optimization. In addition to this, we provide Google Ads management for Chiropractors, Dentists, Doctors & Surgeons, Holistic Medicine, Small Business, Landscape Architecture, Industrial Marketing, B2B, and Agencies, as well as Social Media Marketing. We serve clients nationwide across the United States, from New York to Chicago to California and everywhere in between. Explore our blog for more insights on why dedicated Google Ads management delivers better results than add-on services.
