10 questions to ask a treatment marketing agency
Choosing a marketing agency for a treatment program is a bigger decision than it looks. The work is judged by admissions, it runs under stricter advertising and privacy rules than most industries, and the people on your site are patients and families at a hard moment. These ten questions separate agencies that know that from agencies that are learning it on your account.
1. Can you show cost per admission, with a date range and a baseline?
A strong answer: real spend and real admissions, dated, against a stated starting point. Be wary of lifetime totals, or percentages with no base.
How we answer: we report ad spend per admission, dated and sourced, kept separate from our fees. Across all our paid search accounts combined, it fell 19% from January through September 2026, compared with the same months of 2025 ($6,516 to $5,282 per admission; ad spend only).
2. Do you work only in behavioral health?
A strong answer: levels of care, admissions workflows and payer mix are the daily work, not one vertical among many.
How we answer: behavioral healthcare is the only industry we serve.
3. What will you report every month?
A strong answer: calls, qualified calls and admissions alongside spend, with branded search (people who already know your name) kept apart from non-branded search (people who haven’t contacted you before). Blended totals can look healthy while new demand shrinks, and only non-branded results tell you what you can scale.
How we answer: every number split branded vs. non-branded: calls, qualified calls and the admission counts your team provides, with a weekly call and written recaps.
4. Who approves clinical content and expert quotes?
A strong answer: your licensed clinicians, before anything is published or pitched.
How we answer: your clinicians approve clinical pages. For editorial placements, your designated clinician approves the topics, and approves every answer before it goes out in their name.
5. How do you handle LegitScript and Google’s ad rules?
A strong answer: experience preparing certification, and honesty that approval isn’t the agency’s to give. (We explain the rules in Advertising addiction treatment on Google.)
How we answer: we prepare applications and renewals with your team. Approval decisions belong to LegitScript and Google.
6. What do you track on our site, and how?
A strong answer: a clear policy for patient-facing sites and a straight answer on what’s tracked. Google doesn’t allow advertiser-curated audiences, such as customer lists or lookalikes, to promote health services, so ask any agency what its audience settings are.
How we answer: form contents never reach analytics or ad platforms, and we set tracking up with your patients’ privacy in mind.
7. How are calls recorded and disclosed?
A strong answer: recording set up to your state’s consent rules, with a disclosure your team signs off on.
How we answer: we set up call tracking with you before launch and flag your state’s recording-consent rules for your counsel to decide.
8. How do you decide what to work on first?
A strong answer: a written method that ranks work by likely impact, not a monthly task list.
How we answer: our ranking matrix scores 40 factors for their impact on Google and on AI answers. It’s our model, not Google’s weights, and it decides what we do first.
9. Who makes decisions on my account, and what does AI do?
A strong answer: AI to see more, and a named person accountable for every decision.
How we answer: our Client Intellect Hub brings nine data sources into one view of your account. A strategist owns every decision.
10. What do you guarantee?
A strong answer: nothing about rankings or admissions. Be cautious of any agency that guarantees them.
How we answer: no guarantees. Your monthly report shows every month, including the soft ones.
More about how we work: About TDI and our four services.
Want to hear these answers about your own program? Start with a free website audit.