Field Notes
Essays and analyses on Google Ads for independent veterinary practices. Written for practice owners, not the marketing coordinators who end up implementing the work.
What GeniusVets sells, and what it costs you
I checked every GeniusVets veterinary website I could find — 67 of them. They share one template, and often the same articles — each site claiming content that sometimes credits a competitor.
Read the post →Why I don't sell social media
I build Google Ads campaigns for veterinary practices, and I give away a full social calendar for free. Those two facts fit together.
Read the post →The ownership trap
Month-to-month sounds like the whole story. It isn't. The real question is what you can carry out the door — the site, the ad account, and the data.
Read the post →Your reviews are part of your ad campaign.
The practice down the road isn't beating your ads with better ads. They're beating them at the moment the pet owner chooses — and that moment has stars on it.
Read the post →September: the back-to-school dip that isn't.
Every year around now, somebody explains a slow Tuesday with the same story. I checked eleven years of data. The story doesn't hold.
Read the post →Quality Score for vets: the grade that sets your click price
Google keeps a grade on your practice. One for every keyword you bid on, updated continuously, and it changes what you pay for every single click.
Read the post →Facebook ads for vets: the client list is the whole game
Nobody's pet is sick on Facebook.
Read the post →Five clauses to read before you sign a vet marketing contract
Nobody reads the marketing contract. The vendor is counting on it.
Read the post →Why I charge a flat $750 a month — and what percentage pricing is designed to do
Ask a marketing agency what veterinary marketing costs and you'll get the same answer every time: it depends. On your goals. On your market. On a discovery call.
Read the post →"I searched for my own ad and it's not there." Here's why that's usually fine.
You typed your own service into Google to check your ad was running. Nothing showed up. Your stomach dropped — you're paying for this, and it looks broken.
Read the post →Who actually owns your practice's website? Check whose name is on the deed.
A common industry arrangement leaves practices renting the site they thought they bought. The contract lines that create it, and the five-minute check that tells you where you stand.
Read the post →The referring vet will be an AI. Here's what survives.
Four dated predictions about how pet owners will find a practice — with a public scoring next year.
Read the post →Pet owners are asking ChatGPT now. Should your practice advertise there?
OpenAI started showing ads inside ChatGPT this year, and a self-serve ads manager followed. Here is how the new ad slot actually works, and the honest answer on whether your marketing budget belongs in it yet.
Read the post →The dermatology vet website: what it must do that a general-practice site doesn't.
Veterinary dermatology has the most patient buyer in the profession — an owner months into a chronic problem, researching carefully, often burned once already. Here is what the site that wins them looks like.
Read the post →Google answers the question now. So what is your SEO retainer buying?
For fifteen years, veterinary SEO had one promise: rank for what pet owners ask, win the click, convert the visit. That doesn't kill search. It moves the money — and most retainers haven't noticed.
Read the post →The $6,000 veterinary website, itemized.
A veterinary website routinely costs $3,000 to $6,000 to build, plus a monthly retainer to keep alive. The last essay asked why agencies hide their prices. This one asks a better question: what is the price for?
Read the post →Three of five veterinary agencies hide their pricing. Ask why.
"Call for pricing" is not a customer-service choice. It is a sales mechanism — and understanding how it works will save you money with whichever agency you hire, including one that isn't me.
Read the post →Where your vet website quietly loses the patients your ads paid for.
You pay for the click. But the trail from click to booked patient breaks in specific, invisible places — and when it breaks, the booking still happens; you just can't see it.
Read the post →Anyone can build a good website now. That was never the hard part.
AI made building a website nearly costless. But producing the page was never the hard part — and what stayed expensive is the whole game.
Read the post →"Open today": why your hours are an advertising asset.
A pet owner searching "vet open now" is the highest-intent search you'll ever see — and the Google Ads levers that serve them are usually switched off.
Read the post →The slow-website tax: why Google charges you more per click.
A plain-English look at why a slow site quietly raises your ad costs — what makes a site slow, and what actually makes it fast.
Read the post →The 2026 Field Report: trends, threats, and opportunities.
How independent veterinary practices get found online in 2026 — a data-led read on what is quietly changing underneath the search bar.
Read the report →Demand capture vs. demand creation: where new patients come from.
Social media and Google Ads aren't competitors. They do two different jobs — and a practice that needs patients this quarter is usually hiring the wrong one.
Read the post →What Google's Recommendations tab is actually optimizing for.
Google's suggestions are built for the average advertiser across every industry on earth. Your practice is nowhere near that average.
Read the post →Why most veterinary practices can't prove their Google Ads work.
Most accounts I audit have tracking that's broken, incomplete, or counting the wrong thing — and the owners have no way to know.
Read the post →Google Ads for veterinary practices: the architecture most agencies get wrong.
A field guide for practice owners who suspect they're being overcharged — and the math behind why they probably are.
Read the post →Want me to audit your account?
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