How 2025’s biggest ad platform updates impact your dental practice
We shared earlier in the year how AI is changing the future of organic search. But if you’ve been running ads for your dental practice in 2025, some significant platform changes have also reshaped how you reach patients in your local area and across the UK.
It’s tough to stay on top of everything. Meta and Google are the biggest players shifting the landscape, known for beta testing new features and rolling out the latest AI-powered features at the drop of a hat. Having said that, you don’t want to get left behind – which is why it is so important to take the time to understand how these updates impact your dental practice, so that you can tailor your paid media strategy to maintain your competitive edge.
Paid Search Updates
Search ads are coming to AI Overviews
And they will be coming to AI Mode in 2026, offering a new placement option for high-quality ads.
Google has been experimenting with the ad positioning before and after AI Overviews since 2024. So it comes as little surprise that Google now plans to introduce ads within the content itself.
The more specific and relevant your ads are to your patients and the treatments they’re searching for, the better your chances of ads appearing within this feature that has taken search by storm!
We can’t wait to see how this impacts the scene in the new year, especially now we know paid media click-through rates have declined by 68% when AI Overviews appear on informational searches.
What this means for your practice is trust and building a brand that gets mentioned across paid ads, SEO and social media and cited in AI is key.
AI-powered campaigns are getting smarter and more transparent
We talk a lot about a campaign type called Performance Max, to broaden our reach on paid search when you have very high visibility on your search campaigns. Performance Max is a conversion-based campaign that displays a set of creatives and text across Google-owned places like YouTube, Gmail and other Search Partners.
In the summer, Google introduced acquisition goals, negative keyword lists, device targeting and channel reporting to Performance Max. It allows us to assert a little more control over who sees these ads, so we have more confidence in finding efficient leads.
What this means for your practice is that your ads have even more precise targeting – reaching patients in nearby locations through whichever device they use to search – and can now avoid appearing as a result for particular irrelevant searches.
Paid Social Updates
Audiences have more control over ads with the “Pay or Consent” Model
One of Meta’s more controversial changes happened in September when they brought in an optional “pay or consent” subscription-based model to the UK. Social media users now have the choice to pay a small monthly charge to use Facebook and Instagram without ads.
While the majority of users are expected to consent to seeing ads, for those users who opt out of ads entirely they are essentially paying for privacy.
What this means for your practice is there may be a slight shift in reachable audiences on Facebook and Instagram, depending on the uptake of this subscription, but those remaining audiences may be more engaged with ads given they have consented to it.
Targeting will get broader as Meta leans on AI and their algorithms
Meta continues their push towards broader targeting as they announced in June this year that some detailed targeting options will be removed or combined. In internal testing, they found the system is getting better at finding the right audience for each ad.
What this means for your practice is you will potentially have less control over manually selected audiences you’re targeting in the ads, but at a lower cost if Meta’s AI can find the right patients near you.
It is definitely worth experimenting with more broad options in the new year, but keep an open mind to using first-party data (patient lists, website visitors). We predict these will be crucial as privacy regulations evolve.
Our own testing of lookalike, interest-based and broad audience targeting for certain campaigns still showed mixed results. We’ll be keeping an eye on how this changes once the next set of changes to targeting are due to take effect in January 2026.
Meta encourages use of its AI creative enhancements, but at the risk of brand misalignment
With a view to boost performance and simplify personalisation, some of Meta’s Advantage+ creative enhancements are automatically being added and applied (at the risk of distorting your brand visual and messaging!).
What this means for your practice is your ad spend could be wasted on ad creatives where you have less control over your brand – and your brand is where the essence of your practice lies.
Ads may now display sitelinks that have automatically been generated from your website, crop and adjust your creative, rotate headlines and text from your entire media library, and more. Whilst some of these features can be used (with caution) to assist, we prefer to take the lead by manually testing this suite of enhancements to find safer alternatives.
Key Takeaways
Both platforms are prioritising AI and automation in an attempt to make it easier for busy dental practice owners and professionals to run their paid marketing campaigns.
It’s hard to truly know the impact of the changes with some of them being so new. But we can adapt. We can find a way to turn these challenges into opportunities through testing what works – and ultimately what doesn’t. At MiSmile Media, we’re already testing these features to get a better understanding of how they shape the dental industry. We’re gathering real performance data to help us discover the right paid media strategy for dental practices we work with.
These platform changes can feel overwhelming. If you’re looking to stay ahead of the curve with the latest ad platform changes, from 2025 and into 2026, we’d love to help.
