Dental Clinic Google Ads for Health Tourism

Source: https://oguzerol.com/en/dentist/

Google Ads

# Dentist Google Ads in Turkey: Health Tourism Setup

[Oğuz Erol](https://oguzerol.com/en/about-me/)  |  11 min read

A dental clinic in Turkey can run Google Ads to patients abroad, but in the normal period not to patients in Turkey: listings must be “not paid sponsored and not aimed at prominence”. The exceptions are a new facility’s first month and a licensed health-tourism facility advertising abroad in languages other than Turkish. The rules are in the [Regulation on Promotion and Information Activities in Health Services](https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2025/11/20251112-2.htm) (Official Gazette, 12 November 2025, no. 33075). Below: the health-tourism setup in Google Ads, then the domestic rules; this describes the regulation, it is not legal advice.

## The three cases at a glance

What a Turkish dental clinic may do on Google depends on which of three situations it is in.

|  | In Turkey, normal period | First month after opening | Health tourism (licensed) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sponsored ads on Google and social media | No (art. 5/1-i) | Yes (art. 5/1-j) | Yes, from a separate site or account aimed abroad (art. 8/1-a) |
| Prices, discounts, offers | Banned (art. 5/1-m) | Banned (art. 5/1-m) | Allowed (art. 8/3) |
| Patient reviews and thanks | Not as advertising (art. 5/1-e) | Not as advertising (art. 5/1-e) | Allowed with documented patient consent (art. 8/1-ç) |
| Before-after images | Conditional, never sponsored (art. 7/1-j) | Conditional, never sponsored (art. 7/1-j) | Sponsored allowed with an audience abroad and automatic targeting off (art. 8/1-d) |
| Targeting and language | — | Domestic | Abroad; official languages other than Turkish; people living in Turkey may not be targeted (art. 8/1-a, c) |

The regulation took effect on the day it was published, 12 November 2025 (art. 14), with no transition period. A sponsored campaign aimed at Turkey that is not in its first-month window falls outside the rule today.

## Who may advertise abroad, and what the site needs

Only a facility or an intermediary holding an international health-tourism authorisation certificate may run sponsored promotion abroad. The certificate comes from the [Regulation on International Health Tourism and Tourist Health](https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2025/04/20250426-2.htm) (26 April 2025, no. 32882):

- **Facilities** apply through the Ministry of Health’s EKİP platform. The provincial or district health directorate checks the documents, inspects the facility on site and, if satisfied, forwards the file to the Ministry within 15 working days. The Ministry issues the certificate within 15 working days if it approves. The certificate cannot be transferred (art. 5).
- **Intermediaries** (firms that arrange consultation, accommodation and transfers for health tourists) get theirs from USHAŞ, the International Health Services company (Uluslararası Sağlık Hizmetleri A.Ş.). They may run sponsored promotion only for their own services and must not give the impression of being a health facility (art. 8/1-g). The agency that manages your ads is not an intermediary in this sense.

The conditions that shape the website include:

1. **A separate platform with a declaration.** Promotion abroad runs from a website or social account aimed abroad, in languages other than Turkish, which states clearly that it offers services under health tourism (art. 8/1-a).
2. **The certificate on the site** (art. 8/1-b) and **the HealthTürkiye logo** in all channels (art. 8/1-e).
3. **Name and URL that match the licence.** The facility name, title and URL on the site must match the title and owner on the Ministry licence (art. 8/1-f).
4. **Accreditation on the site.** The health-tourism regulation also requires a site with a foreign-language option and publication of the facility’s accreditation or certificate (art. 13/2 of the 2025 health-tourism regulation).
5. **No demand from Turkey.** Creating demand among people living in Turkey is banned (art. 8/1-c).

## Campaign setup, step by step

A licensed health-tourism clinic should run one Search campaign per country, target presence only, exclude Turkey and switch off automatic expansion. The full order I recommend:

1. **One campaign per country.** Language, time zone, budget and advertising law differ. Pick countries by one test: can your team reply to patients in that language the same day? I recommend splitting budget by each country’s cost per booked consultation; with no such data at the start, begin with equal budgets, capped by how many patients your team can handle in that language.
2. **Location option: Presence.** Choose “Reach people in or regularly in your targeted locations (Presence)” rather than the default, which also reaches people who have shown interest in the location.
3. **Exclude Turkey.** Add Turkey as an excluded location in every campaign. That excludes people Google judges to be in Turkey; Google notes location targeting is best effort, not 100% accurate.
4. **Language.** Campaign language, ad copy and landing page in the target country’s language.
5. **Switch off automatic expansion.** The regulation writes the “automatic audience definitions off” condition for social-media targeting and sponsored visual content (art. 8/1-c, d). I apply the same care on Google Search: Display Network expansion off, phrase and exact match only.
6. **No Performance Max.** Performance Max is Google’s automated campaign type that serves ads, including visual ones, across Search, YouTube and the Display Network from one campaign. Its audience signals guide rather than limit, so I can’t square it with “automatic targeting off” for sponsored visuals. That is my reading, not a legal opinion.
7. **Don’t plan around remarketing.** Google treats invasive medical procedures as a sensitive interest category; there, Customer Match, your own data segments and audience expansion are not supported. Dental treatment is not named on Google’s list, but the list is not exhaustive.
8. **Prices are allowed, with limits.** Article 8/3 permits discounts, offers and competitive prices abroad. The target country’s advertising law still applies, and Google bans claims that promise an improbable result.

## Which searches are worth paying for

Searches that combine a treatment with Turkey or a Turkish city are worth paying for; job, school and risk searches are negatives. The examples below are illustrations, not measured volumes.

| Search | Decision | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| “dental implants turkey”, “veneers istanbul” | Bid | Treatment plus destination: someone planning a trip |
| “all on 4 turkey”, “zahnimplantat türkei” | Bid, in the matching language campaign | Specific treatment, high intent |
| “turkey teeth cost” | Bid with price-led copy | Price is allowed abroad (art. 8/3) |
| “turkey teeth gone wrong” | Negative | Researching risks, not booking |
| “dentist jobs turkey”, “dental school turkey” | Negative | Not a patient |
| “NHS dentist”, “free dentist” | Negative | Looking for a local public service |

A starting [negative keyword](https://oguzerol.com/en/negative-keyword-management/) list (searches you don’t want your ad to appear for), to be extended from the search terms report in week one:

```
jobs
salary
school
university
course
pdf
nhs
free
diy
home remedy
toothpaste
gone wrong
```

## The landing page

An ad should land on a treatment page on the separate site, in the target language, not on a home page. On that page I check for:

- the statement that the clinic provides services under health tourism (art. 8/1-a);
- the authorisation certificate, the HealthTürkiye logo and the accreditation (arts. 8/1-b, 8/1-e; art. 13/2 of the health-tourism regulation);
- a facility name and domain that match the licence (art. 8/1-f);
- prices if you choose to show them (art. 8/3), and patient stories only with documented consent (art. 8/1-ç);
- WhatsApp and a form in the patient’s language, both carrying the click ID described below.

## Measuring enquiries without call tracking

Google forwarding numbers (the temporary numbers Google uses to measure calls from ads) are not available in Turkey: as of 13 October 2026, Turkey is not on Google’s [30-country list](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2382961). So a clinic in Turkey gets no call length, and a rule such as “calls over 60 seconds count as conversions” can’t be built. Google’s own instruction is to switch call reporting off; the call asset still works and conversions are classified from ad interactions.

What can be measured is a chain:

| Step | How it’s measured | Role in bidding |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Tap on the call button in the ad | Call asset interaction, no duration | Secondary |
| Tap on the number on the site | Click conversion via the Google tag ([call tracking](https://oguzerol.com/en/call-conversion-tracking/)) | Secondary |
| Tap on the WhatsApp button | Click event ([WhatsApp tracking](https://oguzerol.com/en/whatsapp-conversion-tracking/)) | Secondary |
| Message actually received | Short code in the pre-filled message | Matching |
| Consultation booked | Offline import with the GCLID | Primary |
| Treatment plan accepted | Same route, with a value per treatment line | Primary |

The GCLID is the ID Google gives every ad click; offline import means uploading a booking that happened at the clinic back to Google Ads with that ID. The short code works like this. The site stores the visitor’s GCLID and gives it a code such as “K-4821”. WhatsApp opens with “Hello, I’d like a consultation (K-4821)”. The patient coordinator writes the code next to the booking, and once a week the bookings are uploaded to Google Ads with their GCLIDs. Only the click ID, time and conversion name go to Google, never a name, phone number or treatment detail. Run it past your data-protection adviser too.

The most common mistake I see in Google Ads is launching a campaign before measurement is set up: the ads run, the data doesn’t exist. A close relative is feeding smart bidding a conversion that isn’t real. A WhatsApp tap set as the primary goal is the same error as counting page views: not everyone who taps writes, and not everyone who writes books.

## The domestic rules, briefly

Inside Turkey, a clinic’s search visibility in the normal period comes from its unpaid Google Business Profile and its own site. The rules that matter:

- **No sponsored posts or ads** on search engines or social media outside the first month (art. 5/1-i). The “Sponsored” result on Maps is not named in the article; my reading is that the general advertising ban in art. 5(1) covers it too.
- **Keywords and search-result text** must also comply (art. 5/1-i): no “best”, “cheap” or “discount” in titles and descriptions.
- **Patient reviews** can be answered, but republishing them as “what our patients say” falls under the ban on advertising through thanks and satisfaction (art. 5/1-e).
- **The site** shows its last-updated date and an editor’s contact details (art. 5/1-ı).

How I run a profile is on the [Google Business Profile management](https://oguzerol.com/en/google-business-profile-management/) page.

## Before you go live

Breaches are inspected by the provincial health directorate and decided by a provincial commission within 45 days of the file reaching it (arts. 10/4, 11/2). Health facilities face the administrative sanctions in the regulation’s Annex 2 form, based on additional article 11 of Law no. 3359; the fine amount is not in the regulation’s text (art. 12/1-a). Access blocking can be requested for content that endangers health (art. 12/1-e). Those who share non-compliant content are as responsible as those who publish it (art. 5/2).

Show your plan to the provincial health directorate or a health-law lawyer before launch. I build the campaigns; I don’t give legal advice.

**How do we start?** First we confirm which of the three cases your clinic is in, then map the campaigns to it. You can reach me from the [contact page](https://oguzerol.com/en/contact/).

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Does a sole-practitioner dental office get the first-month exception?

Not clearly. Dentists are named as health professionals (art. 4/1-f), so the advertising ban applies to them, but the first-month exception is written for “health facilities”. I can’t settle from the text whether a single-dentist practice counts; ask the provincial health directorate.

### What if our campaign is already reaching people in Turkey?

The regulation has no transition period, so pause the domestic targeting rather than delete the campaign, which keeps its history. If you hold a health-tourism certificate, rebuild it per country with Turkey excluded, as above.

### If Google approves my ad, is it legal?

No. Google’s health-care policy has no Turkey-specific clause, so approval can come through, but Google [leaves compliance with the laws of every targeted area](https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6023676) to the advertiser.

### Can we show before-after photos to patients abroad?

Sponsored visual content is allowed abroad with an audience outside Turkey and automatic targeting off (art. 8/1-d). The regulation’s other rules still apply outside article 8 (art. 8/4): patient consent on the Annex 1 form, no retouching, the same setting before and after, both dates shown, and no images taken during treatment (art. 7).

[Back to top ↑](https://oguzerol.com/en/dentist/#icerik)

## You may also find these useful

[Call Conversion Tracking | Measuring Phone EnquiriesIf customers convert by calling and that is not measured, campaigns look worse than they are. Call tracking setup and filtering low-quality calls.](https://oguzerol.com/en/call-conversion-tracking/)[Form Conversion Tracking | Measure Incoming LeadsIf form submissions are not measured, ad budget is spent blind. How to set up form conversions and prevent double counting and spam submissions.](https://oguzerol.com/en/form-conversion-tracking/)[Landing Page Optimisation | Do Not Waste the ClickAd budget pays off on the landing page. Message match, speed, forms, trust and mobile experience — the fixes that move conversion rate the most.](https://oguzerol.com/en/landing-page-optimization/)

[Browse all articles →](https://oguzerol.com/en/articles/)

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