22 September 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
How an Irish dental practice should price an implant lead
A dental practice running one marketing budget across everything is averaging two businesses with almost nothing in common. One is a proximity business defended by reviews; the other is a considered purchase people will travel for. Here is why that distinction decides what you can afford.
Two businesses, one building
General dentistry is won on being nearby and well reviewed. People choose within a few kilometres, largely from the map results, and rarely switch. Advertising has a low ceiling here because the decision is mostly made before anyone searches.
Implants, orthodontics and full-mouth work behave completely differently. People research for months, compare several practices and will drive an hour. The practice that explains best generally wins.
The worked example
Take a check-up worth roughly a hundred euro against an implant case worth several thousand. If both campaigns produce leads at forty euro, one is marginal and the other is extraordinary.
Now suppose the implant lead costs a hundred and fifty and converts one time in four. That is six hundred euro of marketing to win a case worth several thousand — comfortable by any measure, and a figure most practices would reject on instinct because it sounds expensive per lead.
What splitting them reveals
Once the campaigns are separated, most practices discover the high-value side was quietly subsidising the routine side, or the reverse — and that they had been optimising the whole account towards whichever produced more leads rather than more revenue.
It also lets you spend confidently on the side that deserves it, instead of applying one cautious budget to both.
A note on what you can say
Dental advertising in Ireland carries professional obligations around claims, imagery and pricing, and before-and-after imagery in particular needs care.
Any agency should be writing to those constraints and sending work for your approval rather than assuring you it is fine. Your professional judgement is the one that counts.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.