Google Ads for Occupational Therapy Practices: A Compliance-Safe Playbook

24 August 2026·6 min read

Quick answer: Google Ads can work for occupational therapy practices, but only if you split your strategy in two — NDIS-funded search (families and support coordinators looking for a registered provider) behaves nothing like private or aged-care assessment search. Compliant ad copy avoids outcome claims and testimonials entirely, and paid search will never replace the referral relationships that actually fill an NDIS caseload. Get the split right and the ads become a useful supporting channel, not the whole strategy. 📈

Please note: general information, not advertising-compliance advice — check current AHPRA guidance before relying on it.

Here's the thing nobody tells OT practice owners before they hand over a card to run Google Ads: the platform doesn't know your industry has rules. It will happily let you write "Improve your child's outcomes with our proven OT program" and serve it to thousands of parents by lunchtime — right up until AHPRA or a competitor flags it, and then you're pulling the campaign and rewriting your whole account under pressure. We'd rather you got it right the first time. 💖 This playbook is about running Google Ads for an OT practice the way it should be run — split correctly between NDIS and private/aged-care search, worded to stay inside AHPRA's advertising guidelines, and honest about what paid search can and can't do for a business that lives on referrals.

What most OT practices get wrong with Google Ads

The single biggest mistake is treating "occupational therapy" as one audience. It isn't. A parent searching "NDIS occupational therapist near me" at 9pm because their child's plan review is next week is in a completely different headspace to a daughter researching "home modification assessment OT" for an ageing parent, or an employer's HR manager Googling "workplace OT return to work assessment" because a claim is sitting on someone's desk. Same profession, three different buyers, three different urgencies, three different objections. Run one generic campaign across all three and you'll bleed budget on clicks that were never going to convert, because the ad copy and landing experience didn't match what the searcher actually needed to know.

The second mistake is compliance as an afterthought — writing ad copy first, then trying to sanitise it once someone raises AHPRA. It's much easier to write inside the guardrails from the start.

The usable asset: a compliant campaign structure you can build today

Campaign 1 — NDIS Search (ad groups: "ndis ot [suburb]", "paediatric ndis ot", "ndis registered occupational therapist")
Headline: "NDIS Registered Occupational Therapy — [Suburb]"
Description: "Supporting NDIS participants and their families with assessments, therapy plans and reports. Accepting new referrals. Book a consult."

Campaign 2 — Private / Aged Care Assessment Search (ad groups: "home modification assessment", "aged care ot assessment", "occupational therapy assessment [suburb]")
Headline: "Home Modification & OT Assessments — [Suburb]"
Description: "Occupational therapy assessments for home safety, modifications and aged care needs. Registered, experienced clinicians. Enquire today."

Campaign 3 — Workplace / Return to Work (ad groups: "workplace ot assessment", "return to work occupational therapist", "workcover ot [suburb]")
Headline: "Workplace OT & Return-to-Work Assessments"
Description: "Functional capacity and workplace assessments for employers and insurers. Registered occupational therapists. Get in touch."

Note what's absent: no "best", no "guaranteed results", no "proven outcomes", no patient stories. Every line describes a service, a credential, or a next step — never a promised result.

Paediatric OT practice targeting NDIS families: Instead of bidding hard on broad terms like "occupational therapist," this practice built ad groups around "ndis paediatric ot [suburb]" and "sensory processing ot ndis," with copy that named the NDIS explicitly and pointed straight to a "how to make a referral" landing page rather than a generic contact form — because families in this search mode usually already have a diagnosis and a plan, they just need to know you take new NDIS referrals and how fast.

Home modification / aged-care assessment practice: This one skipped NDIS terms almost entirely and built around "home safety assessment," "OT home modification report," and "aged care OT assessment [region]," since most of this traffic is adult children researching on behalf of a parent — often for My Aged Care or insurance purposes — and the ad copy leaned on turnaround time and assessment scope rather than any therapy outcome.

Workplace / return-to-work practice: The searcher here is rarely the injured worker — it's an HR manager, case manager or insurer. This practice's ads dropped consumer language entirely in favour of "functional capacity evaluation," "workplace assessment," and "WorkCover approved," with the landing page built for B2B referrers, not patients.

How to actually do this

Start by separating your account structure by audience before you touch a single headline — one campaign per audience type, not per service. Set daily budgets modestly ($15-30/day per campaign is plenty to start) and use exact and phrase match on your core terms rather than broad match, which will otherwise pull in irrelevant clicks fast. Build a landing page per campaign that matches the search intent — an NDIS referral page for Campaign 1, an assessment-booking page for Campaign 2, a referrer-facing page for Campaign 3. Add negative keywords early: "jobs," "courses," "free," and any service you don't offer. Check your search terms report weekly for the first month — this is where you'll catch mismatched intent before it burns budget.

💡 Track enquiry quality, not just clicks. A cheap click that turns into an unfunded, out-of-scope enquiry is worse than an expensive one that turns into a genuine NDIS referral. Set up a simple tag on your enquiry form to note the campaign source, and review it monthly against actual bookings — not just leads.

Mistakes to avoid

Using patient stories, testimonials or before/after language in ad copy — AHPRA doesn't allow this, regardless of how the platform's ad approval process treats it.
Promising or implying outcomes ("we'll help your child catch up," "restore independence") rather than describing the service on offer.
Running one campaign across NDIS, private and aged-care audiences with identical copy.
Sending every click to your homepage instead of an intent-matched landing page.
Expecting paid search to replace referral relationships — for NDIS work especially, it won't.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google Ads even worth it for an NDIS-focused OT practice?

It can support your intake pipeline, particularly for capturing families who are actively searching after a plan review or diagnosis. But be honest with yourself about scale — much of the NDIS market moves through support coordinators, word of mouth and allied health referral networks, not search. Treat ads as a supplement, not your primary growth channel.

Can I mention the NDIS by name in my ads?

Yes, referencing that you accept NDIS-funded clients or are a registered provider is factual information, not a compliance issue. The line to watch is any claim about outcomes or results tied to NDIS funding — stick to describing eligibility and services.

What's a realistic budget to start with?

Most solo-to-small OT practices can test properly on $500-900 a month split across two or three campaigns. It's not enough to dominate a market, but it's enough to learn which search terms and ad copy actually convert before you commit more.

Should I run ads for the workplace/return-to-work side differently to consumer search?

Yes — this audience is almost entirely B2B (insurers, employers, case managers), so your language, landing page and even your call-to-action should read more like a professional services page than a patient-facing one. Mixing the two tends to weaken both.

Keep reading 🤍

Written by

Kate, founder of Chronically Online

I help Gold Coast and Brisbane businesses grow with branding, websites and marketing that actually works.

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