How a Salt Lake City plastic surgeon went from 1 or 2 surgeries a month to 7 or 8 on the same ad budget by focusing on the surgery he loves.
This Salt Lake City surgeon was marketing himself as someone who does everything: faces, noses, ears, eyelids, breasts, bodies. What he actually wanted was a practice built around body contouring. We rebuilt his website, landing pages, story, and search presence around that focus. On the same monthly budget of about $5,000, the account went from 15 to 25 leads and 1 or 2 surgeries a month to 75 leads in January 2026 at about $60 each, and 7 to 8 surgeries a month. More leads, and far better ones.
1–2 → 7–8
Surgeries / Month
Before vs. after, same budget
15–25 → 75
Leads / Month
Inherited account → Jan 2026
~$5,000
Monthly Budget
About the same throughout, varied month to month
~$60
Cost Per Lead
January 2026
Snapshot
Client snapshot.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Practice type
- Board-certified plastic surgeon
- Focus procedures
- Mommy makeover, lipoabdominoplasty, liposculpture, fat transfer to hips and glutes
- Audience
- Women across the Salt Lake Valley (Sandy, Draper, South Jordan, Park City) researching body contouring surgery
- Channel
- Google Ads (search)
- Engagement
- Repositioning + website + landing pages + Google Ads + SEO and AI search
The Problem
"I do everything" is a hard story to sell.
This surgeon is skilled across the full range of plastic surgery, and his marketing said so. Facelifts, rhinoplasty, eyelids, ears, breasts, bodies: everything got equal billing.
The trouble was that it wasn't the practice he wanted. His real passion is body contouring, and those are the patients he wanted to see more of. A story built around doing everything attracted a little of everything, and gave the body contouring patient no particular reason to choose him. In Salt Lake City, where the concentration of plastic surgeons is among the highest in the country, that is an expensive gap.
When we took over the account, it was spending about $5,000 a month for 15 to 25 leads and 1 or 2 surgeries. Our first full month, July 2025, produced 27 leads. Not a disaster, but not a practice being built on purpose.
From the Field
“A lot of surgeons are afraid that focusing their marketing means turning patients away. It's the opposite. When a mommy makeover patient lands on a page that's clearly built by a body contouring surgeon, she stops comparing. His story wasn't being told, and the moment it was, the right patients found him.”
Mike Funkhouser
Founder, Practice Growth Co
Audit Findings
Why the story wasn't landing.
Every procedure got equal weight
With a dozen procedures presented side by side, nothing stood out. A body contouring patient had to dig to find that this was a surgeon who specializes in exactly what she wanted.
Marketing didn't match the practice he wanted
The patients he most wanted to serve weren't the ones his story was built for. The marketing was describing his capabilities, not his focus.
Landing pages without a clear point of view
Ads for body procedures sent patients to pages that didn't lead with body contouring results or explain why he's the surgeon for it.
Invisible in organic and AI search
In one of the most competitive plastic surgery markets in the country, the practice averaged about position 45 in Google for the searches it appeared for, which is effectively invisible. Every body contouring patient had to be bought through an ad, and none came from Google's organic results or from AI search tools.
The Rebuild
A body contouring surgeon, told as one.
A new story built around body contouring
We rewrote how the practice presents itself so body contouring comes first: who it's for, what results look like, and why he's the surgeon to trust with it.
A rebuilt website with dedicated body pages
The new site gives his core body procedures their own pages, including lipoabdominoplasty, liposculpture, and fat transfer to the hips and glutes, and a clear path to a consultation for patients across the Salt Lake Valley.
Landing pages that lead with results
The paid landing pages open with his body contouring work and before-and-after results, so the patient clicking an ad sees proof in the first few seconds.
Ads aimed at the patients he wants
Campaigns concentrate on body contouring searches, led by "mommy makeover Salt Lake City" and "tummy tuck Utah", targeted to the metro, with copy centered on liposuction, body shaping, and natural, safe results.
SEO and AI search built around the same story
We rebuilt the site's body contouring pages to rank for the searches Salt Lake City patients use, with clear procedure definitions, surgeon credentials, FAQs, and structured data, so the practice shows up in Google results and in AI answers (ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews) for those procedures. His average Google position across the searches he appears for moved from about 45th to 11th in Search Console, with 10 to 15 of those searches now on page one. Organic consultations grew with it, and the cost per surgery fell further because not every patient was coming through a paid click.
Engagement Timeline
Jul 2025
First full month: 27 leads (the inherited account had been doing 15–25)
Aug–Sep 2025
46 and 48 leads
Oct–Dec 2025
52, 53, 58 leads
Jan 2026
75 leads at about $60 each, 7–8 surgeries
Results · Google Ads
Nearly 3× the leads. 4 to 5× the surgeries. Same budget.
75
Leads in January 2026
vs. 15–25 a month on the inherited account
~$60
Cost Per Lead
January 2026, vs. $200–330 before
45 → 11
Avg. Google Position
Search Console, 10–15 page-one rankings
7–8
Surgeries / Month
vs. 1–2 before, practice-reported
Monthly Google Ads leads
See how these numbers compare with the other plastic surgery accounts in The Plastic Surgery Ad Spend Report 2026. For the market itself, see plastic surgery marketing in Salt Lake City.
What Carries Over
Lessons for surgeons who want a different kind of practice.
Market the practice you want, not the one you have
Your marketing decides which patients call. If it describes everything you can do, you get a little of everything. If it describes what you love, you get more of that.
Focus is cheaper than budget
Leads nearly tripled and surgeries went from 1 or 2 a month to 7 or 8 without spending another dollar. A clear story makes every click more likely to turn into a consultation request.
More leads was never the goal. Better ones were.
The account went from 1 or 2 surgeries a month to 7 or 8 on the same spend because the leads it produced were the right patients for the right procedure, not simply because there were more of them.
Specialists win the comparison
Patients researching surgery in Salt Lake City compare several surgeons before they call. The one who is clearly built for her procedure is the one she contacts.
In a competitive market, organic visibility lowers the cost of every patient
Salt Lake City has one of the highest concentrations of plastic surgeons per capita in the country. Moving from an average Google position of 45 to 11, with 10 to 15 page-one rankings, and showing up in AI answers, meant the practice stopped paying for every single patient, and the cost per surgery kept falling after the ad rebuild.
If you want more of the patients you love treating
Let's build the practice you actually want.
If your marketing presents you as a surgeon who does everything, you're probably attracting a mix of patients you didn't choose. Book a strategy call and we'll show you how we'd refocus your story, website, and campaigns.
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Case Studies
Outcomes from similar engagements
How a Phoenix plastic surgeon went from 1 lead a month to 8 to 10 new surgical patients a month after rebuilding his website and ad strategy.
A board-certified plastic surgeon in Phoenix was running Google Ads to a generic website that didn't show what made his work different. In July 2025 the account spent $1,497 and produced one lead. We rebuilt his website around the procedures he performs most, gave each one its own page with a proper before-and-after gallery, and rebuilt the campaigns to match. Leads became steady within a month. Once the new system proved itself, the practice doubled its budget, and by July 2026 the same account was producing about 40 qualified leads a month at $75 each, and Google Ads alone was putting 8 to 10 new surgical patients on his schedule every month.
How an Austin plastic surgeon became a breast and body specialist and turned it into 7 to 8 new surgical patients a month.
An Austin plastic surgeon came to us after working with an agency that "specialized in healthcare" but had given him the same generic website it could have given any doctor. His real strength, breast and body surgery, was nowhere in his story. We rebuilt his website and his Google Ads around that specialty. In the first 12 months the new system produced about 315 qualified leads at $75 each on roughly $2,000 a month in ad spend, and Google Ads alone now brings in 7 to 8 new surgical patients a month.
How a Miami plastic surgeon's hidden expertise became 6× more search visibility and half the cost per lead.
This Miami surgeon teaches at a medical school, leads a surgical simulation program, and speaks at conferences around the world. Online, none of that showed. His Google Ads were paying $160 to $200 a lead in one of the most competitive plastic surgery markets in the country. We rebuilt his story around his real expertise and published it everywhere patients and AI tools look: his website, procedure pages, and a library of bilingual, expert-written patient guides. Over the next 12 months his Google ranking keywords grew about 6×, and his Google Ads cost per lead fell by half, to about $80, and held there: roughly 75 leads a month on the same $6,000 budget.