How to choose a marketing agency for your practice.
We'll say the quiet part out loud, even about ourselves. Here's how to compare your options, spot the red flags the industry hopes you miss, and pick a partner who'll actually grow your chiropractic, SoftWave, shockwave, or med spa practice.
Four ways practices try to grow.
Each has a place. Most owners land on the last one once they've tried the others.
Do it yourself
Cheapest on paper. Full control.
Eats the time you should spend treating patients, and the learning curve is expensive in wasted ad spend.
Best fit: Owners with real marketing skill and spare hours.
Buy shared leads
Fast and requires no setup.
Leads are sold to several clinics, arrive cold, and rarely book. You're renting, never building.
Best fit: Almost no one, long term.
Generalist agency
Handles the tactical work across many industries.
No feel for cash device economics or patient psychology, and you're one small account among many.
Best fit: Practices that just need hands, not expertise.
Specialist partner
Knows the niche, the offers, and what actually converts patients.
Costs more than a lead vendor, and the good ones have standards about who they take on.
Best fit: Practices that want a system built and managed properly.
Five warning signs to walk away from.
"100 patients in 30 days" guarantees
Nobody can promise a patient count. It depends on your market, offer, and spend. A specific guaranteed number is a sales tactic, not a plan.
Long lock-in contracts up front
If they need 12 months to prove value, ask why. A fair agreement gives enough time to build and optimize without trapping you.
Big setup fees before anything runs
Charging thousands before a single ad goes live shifts all the risk to you. Look for billing that starts when the ads do.
No clear reporting
If you can't see cost per lead and cost per booked patient, you can't tell if it's working. Vague "impressions and reach" updates hide bad results.
You always chase them
If you're the one following up to see what's happening, that's the relationship. Proactive beats reactive every time.
Seven questions to ask any agency.
- 1Have you run campaigns for practices like mine, and can you show real results?
- 2What exactly do you build, and what stays mine if we part ways?
- 3How is ad spend handled, and what do you recommend for my market?
- 4What does reporting look like, and how often will we actually talk?
- 5When does billing start, and is there a setup fee?
- 6What happens in the first 30, 60, and 90 days?
- 7What won't you promise me, and why?
The honest pitch for Automated Practice.
We're the specialist partner. Since 2018 we've run patient acquisition for 600+ clinics, almost all chiropractic, device, and med spa practices. We build the whole system: ads, funnels, automations, and a full new patient platform, and we manage it proactively.
We won't promise you 100 patients in 30 days. We don't charge a setup fee, billing starts when your ads go live, and we'll tell you the truth about your numbers even when it's not what you want to hear. That's slower than the hype. It's also why 90% of our clients come from referrals.
If you want a vendor to babysit, we're not it. If you want a team that treats your growth like their own, book a call and we'll give you a straight answer, whether or not that means working together.
Choosing an agency, answered.
Management fees typically run from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars a month, plus your ad spend, which is paid to the platforms and controlled by you. Be wary of large upfront setup fees. We quote after we see your market, and we don't charge a setup fee. Billing starts when ads go live.
Ready to partner with a real growth team?
Give us 30 minutes. We'll show you where patients are falling out of your system.