Search for "dentist near me" on a phone, and look at what shows up first. Very often it is not a regular search ad. It is a short list of dentists with photos, star ratings and a button to call, labeled "Sponsored Dentists." Below that come the search ads this guide has spent eleven chapters on. Below those comes the map.
When we searched from Phoenix in September 2026, that block of sponsored dentists sat at the top of six of the nine dental searches we ran, including searches for implants and crowns. On the main "dentist near me" search, one practice was paying to appear in both the search ads and the map. A dental patient's first look at the page is often decided somewhere other than the search campaign.
This chapter covers the two ways to show up in those places: Local Services Ads, which put your practice in that top block, and the map placements you can earn through your regular campaigns. It also covers a change Google is making to Local Services Ads that will reach dental practices in 2027.
Local Services Ads Charge per Patient Call, Not per Click
Local Services Ads work differently from everything else in this guide. You do not bid on keywords, write headlines or pay for clicks. You set up a profile for your practice, Google checks that you are licensed and legitimate, and your practice appears in that sponsored block for relevant searches in your area. You pay when a patient contacts you through the ad.
Dentists qualify in Google's health category, and the practice goes through Google's screening and license checks before the ads can run. What patients see is simple and built for a phone: the dentist's photo, the star rating and number of reviews, years in business, whether you are open now and a button to call. In the Phoenix results, the two practices holding that block showed ratings of 4.9 with hundreds of reviews each, and decades in business.
That format is exactly why Local Services Ads suit a dental practice from the very start. They sit at the bottom of the funnel, in front of people ready to call. And unlike the Exploration campaign or Performance Max, they do not depend on months of conversion history in your Google Ads account. So in our rollout, Local Services Ads can launch in the first month, alongside the Isolation campaign from Chapter 6, as long as two things are true: the practice has solid reviews, and someone reliably answers the phone during business hours. Why those two things matter comes next.
Reviews and a Ringing Phone Decide Who Shows Up First
Local Services Ads do not rank by who pays the most. Google looks at a set of factors, and most of them are about how the practice treats patients:
- Where and what the patient is searching: the service, their location and the time of the search.
- Your star rating and number of reviews. Google says providers with higher ratings and more reviews stand out and typically book more.
- Your responsiveness. Google tracks how quickly you respond, and says missed calls can hurt your ranking. If you regularly fail to answer calls or reply to messages, your ad ranking may be affected.
- Your business hours, which Google uses when measuring response times.
- The quality of your profile: photos, completed verification checks and the other information patients use to choose.
Notice how much of that happens at your front desk. In Chapter 3 we said the front desk sets half your cost per patient, because it decides how many calls become appointments. For Local Services Ads, it also decides where your ad appears in the first place. A practice that lets calls roll to voicemail during lunch is not just losing those patients. It is teaching Google to show someone else first.
Set It Up Like a Patient Is Reading It, Because One Is
A Local Services Ads profile is short, and every part of it is seen by patients or used by Google to decide when to show you. A few choices matter most for a dental practice:
- Services. Select the dental services you actually provide, and leave out the ones you don't. If you do not place implants or see children, saying so here keeps those calls from reaching you and costing you a lead.
- Service area. Match it to where your patients really come from, the same area you use for your search campaigns.
- Hours. Set the hours someone will answer the phone. Google uses them when it measures how responsive you are.
- Photos and details. Real photos of the office and team, and a complete business description.
Then choose how you pay. Google offers three bidding modes: Maximize leads, which it suggests for new advertisers; a target cost per lead; and a maximum you set per lead. For Maximize leads, Google recommends a budget of at least 10 leads a week, and says it takes about two weeks to see accurate results while the system learns your practice. Starting with Maximize leads and a budget you can sustain for a month is the simplest way to find out what a lead really costs in your market.
Healthcare Leads Don't Get Credited Back Automatically
A lead in Local Services Ads is a real contact: a phone call you answer, a voicemail, a missed call you return and reach, a message, or a booking request. You pay per valid lead, and prices vary by location, the type of service and the type of lead.
Google says it automatically credits some low-quality leads for many businesses. There is an important exception in its own help pages: "Automatic credits aren't available for healthcare." For a dental practice, that means a wrong number, a sales call or a patient looking for a service you do not offer will not be refunded on its own. Google offers a feedback survey for each lead where you can report a poor-quality one.
So treat the lead list the way you treat the search terms report in the Exploration campaign. Someone at the practice should review it regularly, report the leads that were not real patients, and notice patterns. If the same kind of wrong call keeps coming in, it may be your profile, your categories or your hours that need adjusting.
The Change Coming to Local Services Ads in 2027
Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads itself. They are becoming a specialized kind of Performance Max campaign with what Google calls pay-per-lead goals. The migration started in August 2026 with home service businesses like plumbers and electricians, expands to more businesses later in 2026, and finishes in 2027 with "all remaining supported business categories, including healthcare services."
For a dental practice, two things are worth knowing now. First, the core of the deal does not change: Google says advertisers still pay only for valid leads such as calls and messages, not for clicks. Second, existing Local Services Ads campaigns are moved over automatically, and the old dashboard is replaced by Google Ads. If your practice runs Local Services Ads today, they will eventually sit in the same account as your search campaigns.
What carries over is what drives ranking today: your reviews, your response times and a complete profile. Building those now is not wasted, whatever the dashboard looks like next year.
Your Regular Campaigns Can Put You on the Map Too
Local Services Ads are one way into the top of the page. The map is another, and you can reach it with the campaigns you already have.
Google shows several kinds of ads on Google Maps, including promoted pins on the map itself, ads at the top of map search results and ads that appear as suggestions while someone types in the Maps app. Different campaign types reach different ones. Search campaigns with location assets, Performance Max and Demand Gen can all show on Maps.
Two setup steps make this possible:
- Link your Google Business Profile to Google Ads. Google requires this for promoted pins.
- Turn on location assets. These add your address, a map and the distance to your office to your ads, and Google requires them for ads in map search results.
For a patient searching on a phone a few blocks away, an ad that shows your address and how far away you are can be the deciding detail. It is easy to overlook, and it is one of the cheapest ways to look closer and more convenient than the practice across town.
Your Google Business Profile Is the Foundation Under All of It
Every local placement in this chapter leans on the same thing: your Google Business Profile. Your reviews live there. Your hours, photos, categories and address live there. Location assets pull from it. And the qualities that rank Local Services Ads, from ratings to response times to a complete profile, are the same qualities that make a practice look trustworthy on the map.
A few habits make the biggest difference:
- Ask for reviews consistently, from every happy patient, as part of the checkout routine rather than a campaign once a year.
- Keep your hours accurate, including holidays, because Google uses them to judge how responsive you are.
- Use real photos of your office, your team and your dentists.
- Choose the right categories and services, so Google knows which searches you belong in.
None of this is advertising in the strict sense. But it decides how well every local ad you run performs.
Next, the Automation Google Wants on Every Campaign
You now have every campaign type a dental practice needs: search campaigns that protect and expand your best searches, Performance Max and Demand Gen higher in the funnel, and local placements at the very top of the page. One piece of Google's automation is left, and it comes last for a reason.
That is Chapter 13, AI Max.
If you would like your local placements set up alongside your search campaigns, we handle Local Services Ads, location assets and profile setup for the dental practices we manage. Our Google Ads management covers the whole results page, not just the search ads.
