Patient acquisition

Medical ad costs in Saudi Arabia: what sets them, and the number worth tracking

No neutral body publishes healthcare ad cost figures for Saudi Arabia. What the platforms document about price, and how to work out your own cost per attended visit.

7 October 2026 · 4 min read

No neutral body publishes cost-per-click or cost-per-enquiry figures for healthcare advertising in Saudi Arabia, and the figures circulating online come from agencies and tool vendors. What sets your cost is documented by the platforms themselves: the auction, the quality of your ad and landing page, the limits on health advertising, and then your team's reply. The number worth tracking is the cost of each attended visit, worked out from your own data.

Why there is no reliable benchmark

We looked for an official or academic source for Saudi healthcare ad costs and found none. Paid market reports exist, and their figures sit behind commercial methods we cannot check.

What is documented is the direction of the market. An outlook by Gmedia and Oxford Business Group projects digital channels at 90% of total ad spend in the Kingdom by 2029, according to trade press coverage of the report. More spend on digital can mean more advertisers in the same auctions.

How the Google auction sets your price

Google explains the mechanics in its help page on how the Google Ads auction works. Your position and price depend on:

  • Your bid.
  • The quality of your ad and landing page.
  • The expected impact of assets such as call buttons and extra links.
  • Minimum thresholds for showing an ad.
  • The context of each search: the words, location, device and time.
  • How competitive the auction is.

Google also notes that you usually pay less than your maximum bid.

Quality Score, rated from 1 to 10, is built from expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google describes it as a diagnostic tool and says it "is not an input in the ad auction". It points you to the same three things the auction rewards.

Health policy limits that shape your cost

Health advertising works with fewer tools than other sectors, and your budget should allow for that.

  • Google treats health as a sensitive interest category in its personalised advertising policy. Customer Match and your own data segments are unavailable for it.
  • Meta does not allow ads that assert or imply a person's health condition, according to its personal attributes policy. "Do you have diabetes?" is refused; "New diabetes treatment available" is allowed. Our article on Meta's health ad limits covers the measurement side.
  • Influencers advertising in the Kingdom need a Mawthooq licence from the media regulator, introduced in October 2022. Arab News reported a fee of SR15,000 for 3 years at the time; confirm the current fee and penalties with the regulator before any campaign.

What happens after the click

The platform charges for the click. Whether that click becomes a patient depends on what happens next. A low cost per click followed by a reply hours later can cost more per patient than a higher click price answered in minutes. Our article on the first minutes after an enquiry covers this in detail.

Practical steps

  1. Judge each campaign on cost per attended visit, and look at cost per click only as a diagnostic.
  2. Improve the landing page and reply time before raising bids. Both feed into what Google rewards.
  3. Write health ads about the service and the consultation, and avoid addressing the person's condition.
  4. Plan targeting without Customer Match or your own audience lists for health campaigns.
  5. If you show cost ranges from your own experience, label them with dates as your own averages.

The Performance Advertising service runs campaigns on this basis.

How to check it is working

  • Cost per attended visit = ad spend ÷ attended visits from that channel. Our guide on cost per booking shows how to track it.
  • Median time to first reply on ad enquiries, by hour of day.
  • Quality Score components for your main keywords: which of the three is below average.
  • Share of ads rejected for policy reasons each month. The target is zero.

Common questions

What is the average cost per click for clinics in Saudi Arabia?

No neutral body publishes one. Figures online come from agencies and vendors. Work out your own cost per attended visit from your ad account and booking records.

Does a higher bid always lower my cost per patient?

Price depends on bid, ad and landing page quality, context and competition. A better landing page and a faster reply often do more than a higher bid.

Is Quality Score part of the Google Ads auction?

Google says it is a diagnostic tool and not an input in the auction. Its three parts reflect what the auction rewards.

Sources

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