Healthcare marketing Q&A · ICG Editorial

What should a clinic expect in the first 90 days with a marketing agency?

In the first 90 days a clinic should expect setup and proof, not a flood of patients. Month one is audit, tracking and access. Month two is launch: ads live, Google Business Profile fixed, first pages rewritten. Month three is tuning, with the first honest read on cost per qualified lead. SEO usually needs longer. A good agency agrees monthly goals up front and reports against them every week.

What is a healthcare marketing agency, and what does it do in month one?

A healthcare marketing agency plans and runs a clinic's or hospital's patient acquisition: search, maps, ads, website, content, reputation and lead handling, within medical advertising rules. In month one it should mostly listen and fix. Expect an audit, access handovers, tracking setup and a written plan with agreed goals, before any big spend starts.

Month one checklist

Access: Google Ads, Google Business Profile, Meta Business Manager, website, analytics and CRM handed over in the clinic's own name. The clinic should own every account.
Audit: current ads, search visibility, maps rankings, website speed, reviews and how enquiries are answered.
Tracking: calls, WhatsApp clicks and forms recorded as separate conversions, tied to a lead sheet or CRM.
Compliance pass: website and social handles checked against NMC guidance. Testimonials, before/after images and superlatives come down.
Goals: written monthly targets for enquiries, qualified leads and cost per qualified lead.

How to do marketing for a clinic in months two and three

Month two is launch. Search campaigns go live on service-plus-area keywords, the Google Business Profile is cleaned up, and the first service pages are rewritten. Month three is tuning: cutting wasted keywords, testing landing pages, and fixing the front desk's follow-up. By day 90 you should have real numbers, not promises.

Phase	What the agency does	What the clinic does	What you should see
Days 1–30	Audit, tracking, compliance fixes, plan	Give access, name one point of contact, share service priorities	A written plan and goals; a working conversion setup
Days 31–60	Launch ads, fix GBP, rewrite key pages, start reviews process	Answer calls fast, log every enquiry, approve content quickly	First enquiries with source tracked; weekly report
Days 61–90	Cut waste, test pages, adjust bids, publish content	Share which leads became visits; flag poor-quality leads	A first read on cost per qualified lead and conversion to visits

Paid search can produce enquiries within the first weeks of going live. SEO and maps work compound more slowly, so judge them on rankings and impressions at day 90 and on patients over the following months. ICG's guide on how long SEO takes for a clinic explains that timeline.

Marketing agency for doctors: red flags in the first 90 days

Watch for an agency that runs ads in its own accounts, reports only clicks and impressions, or promises rankings and patient numbers it cannot control. Also watch for copy that breaks NMC rules. A healthcare-only agency should be the one stopping you from testimonials and "best" claims, not adding them.

No access to your own ad or analytics accounts.
Reports full of reach and clicks, with no qualified leads or visits.
Guaranteed first-page rankings or fixed patient numbers.
Ads promoting an individual doctor as a product, or using patient testimonials.
No one asks how your front desk handles calls.

What the clinic owes the agency

Results in 90 days depend on the clinic too. Calls must be answered, WhatsApp enquiries replied to the same day, and lead outcomes shared back. Without that feedback the agency optimises for cheap enquiries instead of real patients. Name one person who owns the relationship and meets the agency weekly.

What a good weekly report contains

A weekly report should fit on one page. It should show spend, enquiries by channel, how many were qualified, how many booked, and cost per qualified lead against the goal. It should also list what changed that week and what will change next. If you have to ask what a chart means, the report is built for the agency, not for you.

How ICG runs the first 90 days

ICG works only in healthcare and has done since 2018. Every engagement starts with agreed monthly goals, tracked live, with a report every Monday. Retainers start from ₹20,000 a month, custom-scoped to the clinic. Across ICG's public dataset, the median cost per qualified lead is ₹1,220 against a market median of ₹2,100; your own numbers depend on specialty and city.

You can see how the engagement is structured on the healthcare marketing agency page. If you want a starting point before signing anything, request a free NMC compliance audit of your website and handles.

Detailed answers

Paid search campaigns can start producing enquiries within the first weeks after launch, once tracking and landing pages are ready. SEO and Google Maps work take longer and should be judged on rankings and impressions at 90 days, then on patient enquiries over the following months. Ask for weekly reporting from the start so you can see the trend.

A useful plan lists the audit findings, the tracking setup, which services and areas get priority, the channels to launch and in what order, the compliance fixes needed, and written monthly goals for enquiries, qualified leads and cost per qualified lead. It should also say what the clinic must do, such as answering calls and logging lead outcomes.

The clinic should. Every account, including Google Ads, Google Business Profile, Meta Business Manager, analytics and the website domain, should sit in the clinic's own name with the agency given access. If the relationship ends, the clinic keeps its data and history. Treat an agency that refuses this as a warning sign.

It is enough to judge how the agency works: its tracking, reporting, compliance discipline and early paid results. It is usually not enough to judge SEO or brand outcomes, which compound over a longer period. At day 90, review the agreed goals, the cost per qualified lead and how many leads became visits.

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