TL;DR — six findings from 328 healthcare GBPs
- Portfolio-wide medians: impression-to-call 4.8 percent, impression-to-direction 3.6 percent, impression-to-website-click 6.1 percent. These are the numbers to beat.
- Category shape dominates: dental practices convert impression-to-call at over 9 percent while hospitals sit below 2 percent. Reading GBP CTR without segmenting by category leads to the wrong conclusions.
- Rating drives CTR but saturates: profiles above 4.5 stars carry roughly 2.1x the call rate of profiles below 3.5 stars. Above 4.5, further rating lift produces diminishing marginal CTR gains.
- Photos are the second-highest lever: full-photo-library profiles show 1.4x the call rate and 1.6x the direction rate of profiles missing either logo or cover photo.
- City density matters: the same category converts materially better in cities with less local pack competition. Mumbai and Bengaluru sit above the portfolio median; Delhi and Gurugram below it.
- Zero suspensions across 328 healthcare profiles over eight months. CTR optimisation and suspension safety are compatible when the fundamentals hold.
Cite this report
Inline (HTML):
Ichelon Consulting Group (2026). GBP Category-Level CTR Benchmarks India Healthcare 2026. https://ichelonconsulting.com/reports/gbp-category-level-ctr-benchmarks-india-healthcare-2026
APA 7:
Sihag, H. & Ichelon Consulting Group. (2026). GBP Category-Level CTR Benchmarks India Healthcare 2026: 328 profiles, 80 categories, three action rates. Ichelon Consulting Group. https://ichelonconsulting.com/reports/gbp-category-level-ctr-benchmarks-india-healthcare-2026
Licence: CC BY 4.0 — free to reuse with attribution.
Six numbers to anchor the rest of the report
Methodology
This report benchmarks Google Business Profile click-through behaviour across 328 actively-managed Indian healthcare Google Business Profiles inside the Angryturtle managed portfolio, between 1 January 2026 and 31 August 2026. Every profile had at least 90 consecutive days of insights data inside the window; profiles below that threshold were held out for stability.
Metric definitions. "Impression" is the count of times the profile appeared to a searcher on Google Search or Google Maps, per GBP insights. "Call action" is a tap on the profile's phone number. "Direction action" is a tap on the direction-request button. "Website click" is a tap on the profile's website link. All three rates are computed as action count divided by impression count on a rolling 30-day window per profile.
Category segmentation. Every profile is bucketed by its GBP primary_category_name at the end of the window. Categories with fewer than three profiles in the sample are reported in the aggregate long-tail row but not as their own benchmark line. The 80 primary categories collapse into 14 category groups reported in the CTR benchmark tables below.
Rating and photo covariates. Every profile also carries its rolling 90-day average star rating at the end of the window and a photo-library completeness flag combining logo presence, cover photo presence, interior photo count and team photo count. These covariates are used only to describe CTR distributions inside each category — they are not used to normalise the category-level benchmarks themselves.
Anonymisation. No operator name, doctor name, address, phone number, profile URL or reviewer identity appears anywhere in this report or its underlying published dataset. All figures are aggregates by category, city or covariate. No individual profile is identifiable.
What this report does not claim. This is not a national CTR census. It is not a paid-media click-through comparison. It is the aggregate impression-to-action behaviour of a specific managed portfolio during a specific eight-month window, published so healthcare operators have a category-aware benchmark rather than a category-blind average.
Finding 1 · Impression-to-call rate varies from 1.8 percent to over 9 percent by category
The range: Hospital 1.8 percent to Dental clinic (general) 9.1 percent — a five-fold spread. The 4.8 percent portfolio median hides an enormous category distribution.
| Category (n profiles) | Impression → Call | Impression → Direction | Impression → Website |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental clinic (16) | 9.1% | 4.4% | 3.9% |
| Pediatric dentist / dentist tail (5) | 8.7% | 4.2% | 3.6% |
| Diagnostic centre (5) | 7.9% | 7.4% | 2.8% |
| ENT / family practice tail (3) | 7.1% | 4.9% | 3.2% |
| Physiotherapist (2) | 6.8% | 4.6% | 2.9% |
| Hair transplantation clinic (21) | 6.2% | 2.9% | 8.1% |
| Skin care clinic (18) | 5.9% | 3.7% | 6.4% |
| Cosmetic surgeon (7) | 5.1% | 2.6% | 7.9% |
| Obstetrician-gynecologist (9) | 4.6% | 3.9% | 5.2% |
| Plastic surgery clinic (8) | 4.2% | 2.4% | 8.6% |
| Plastic surgeon (16) | 3.8% | 2.2% | 8.9% |
| Dermatologist (28) | 3.4% | 2.6% | 7.7% |
| Fertility clinic (28) | 3.1% | 1.9% | 9.4% |
| Psychiatrist / mental health (11) | 2.9% | 2.1% | 6.8% |
| Clinic (general) (13) | 2.5% | 3.3% | 4.1% |
| Hospital (4) | 1.8% | 3.6% | 3.4% |
Source: Angryturtle GBP insights aggregate, Jan-Aug 2026. Rates are the median across profiles inside each category on a rolling 30-day window.
Finding 2 · Direction-request rate is a diagnostic-centre and dental story
The number: diagnostic centres lead impression-to-direction at 7.4 percent, roughly 2.1x the portfolio median. Dental clinics come second at 4.4 percent. Fertility clinics sit at the bottom at 1.9 percent.
The direction-request pattern is almost entirely explained by walk-in intent. Categories where a searcher can walk in and be served the same day — diagnostic collection, general dental, walk-in ENT — see high direction rates. Categories where every visit is booked and prepped days in advance — fertility, plastic surgery, dermatology consult — see low direction rates and channel the same searcher through the website click.
Finding 3 · Website-click rate flips the ranking
The number: fertility clinics lead impression-to-website-click at 9.4 percent, dermatologists at 7.7 percent, plastic-surgery categories between 7.9 and 8.9 percent. Hospitals and general clinic listings sit at the bottom of the website-click table, at 3.4 percent and 4.1 percent respectively.
The read is the mirror of Finding 2. High-consideration healthcare purchases — fertility, aesthetic, plastic surgery — route the searcher off the GBP card and onto the operator website for research, so the website-click rate is where the intent shows up. Low-consideration walk-in categories see very little website click because the searcher's next action is call or direction.
Impression-to-website-click rate by category cluster
Finding 4 · Rating drives CTR but saturates above 4.5 stars
The numbers: profiles above 4.5 stars showed a median impression-to-call rate of 5.9 percent. Profiles between 3.5 and 4.5 stars sat at 4.4 percent. Profiles below 3.5 stars fell to 2.8 percent — roughly one-half the rate of the top bucket.
The interesting part is what happens above 4.5. Profiles between 4.5 and 4.8 stars carried a call rate of 5.6 percent; profiles between 4.8 and 5.0 stars carried a call rate of 6.1 percent. The marginal lift from a 4.8-to-5.0 push is roughly 0.5 percentage points — real, but small compared to the two-point lift from 3.5-to-4.5. Below 3.5 is where the cliff sits.
Finding 5 · Photo library is the second-highest CTR lever after category
The numbers: profiles carrying a full photo library (logo present, cover photo present, at least 20 interior photos, at least 10 team photos) showed 1.4x the impression-to-call rate and 1.6x the impression-to-direction rate of profiles missing either logo or cover photo. Within category, the effect held for every category with at least six profiles in each photo-library bucket.
The mechanism is the map card render itself. Every action button competes for the searcher's first tap. A card with a real cover photo and a filled photo carousel signals a real operating business; a card with placeholder imagery signals doubt. The searcher's next tap follows accordingly.
Finding 6 · City density suppresses CTR in the two largest metros
The table below shows portfolio median impression-to-call for the six cities with at least 15 profiles in the sample. The pattern is a mirror of the geo-grid pack-presence pattern reported in the parallel GBP Health Report — cities with more local competition see lower per-profile action rates because the same searcher sees more listings and each listing captures a smaller share of the tap.
| City | Impression → Call (median) | Delta vs portfolio |
|---|---|---|
| Mumbai | 5.9% | +1.1 pp |
| Bengaluru | 5.4% | +0.6 pp |
| Faridabad | 4.9% | +0.1 pp |
| Gurgaon / Gurugram (combined) | 4.6% | -0.2 pp |
| Noida | 4.3% | -0.5 pp |
| New Delhi | 3.8% | -1.0 pp |
Cities with fewer than 15 profiles in the sample excluded. Deltas reported against the 4.8 percent portfolio median.
Finding 7 · Category CTR is stable across the reporting window
The number: category-median CTR values moved by less than 0.4 percentage points month-over-month across the eight-month window for every category with at least six profiles in the sample. The stability is important because it means a category benchmark computed in any single month is a reliable ceiling for planning purposes — this is not a metric that swings by season or by month.
The stability also means that a profile whose impression-to-call rate falls a full percentage point below its category median in a given month is signalling a real operational issue, not month-to-month noise. Rate drops of that magnitude usually track back to a specific event — a rating drop, a photo removal, a category change, or a description edit.
Finding 8 · Fixing the two easiest levers moves the portfolio above the category median
The audit is unambiguous on the lever hierarchy for a below-benchmark profile:
- Fix the photo library. Logo, cover photo, twenty interior photos, ten team photos. Effect: roughly 1.4x call rate and 1.6x direction rate lift within category.
- Push the rating from below-3.5-stars to above-4.5-stars via a structured review-request programme. Effect: roughly 2.1x call rate lift.
- Fill secondary categories deeply. Effect: increases the pool of queries the profile is eligible for, which lifts impressions rather than CTR — but is the third-highest total-actions lever.
- Fill the description to the full 750 characters. Effect: small direct CTR lift, larger AIO citation eligibility lift for informational queries.
Fixing the top two levers moves most below-benchmark profiles above their category median inside one 60-day cycle.
What this means for healthcare marketers
Four takeaways worth acting on this month.
1 · Stop reading GBP CTR without segmenting by category
A dental practice at 6 percent impression-to-call is underperforming its 9 percent category benchmark; a hospital at 3 percent is comfortably above its 1.8 percent category benchmark. The unsegmented average hides both.
2 · Prioritise the right action rate for your category
Dental and diagnostic: call and direction. Fertility, aesthetic, plastic surgery: website click. Hospital: direction. Route your website tracking and reporting around the action rate that maps to your booking flow.
3 · Photo library is the single highest-leverage CTR fix
Logo, cover photo, at least 20 interior, at least 10 team. Everything else is a slower lift.
4 · Rating below 3.5 is a CTR cliff — get above it first, then push above 4.5
The gap from 3.5 to 4.5 stars is worth 1.5-2 percentage points of impression-to-call rate. The gap from 4.5 to 5.0 is worth another 0.5. Fix the cliff first.
Frequently asked — GBP CTR benchmarks for Indian healthcare, 2026
What does "CTR" mean on a Google Business Profile — clicks from what to what?
How much does GBP CTR actually differ across healthcare categories?
Which action rate should a healthcare operator care about most?
Does a higher rating drive higher GBP CTR?
Do photos affect GBP CTR?
How does ICG track and lift GBP CTR for healthcare portfolios?
Related ICG research reports
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