Case Study — SPECIALTY SMILE PARTNERS
CSG Scaled Paid Media Across SSP’s 15-Brand Practice Portfolio
How CSG helped Specialty Smile Partners generate 22,300+ patient leads in 2025 through a coordinated paid search and social program.
Communications Strategy Group (CSG®) is a healthcare marketing and paid media agency with expertise in building scalable lead generation programs for multi-location practice groups.
See what we did for Specialty Smile Partners
22,300+
patient leads generated across 15 brands
50%
decrease in cost per lead compared to pre-CSG performance
32M+
total impressions across all SSP brands in 2025
Opportunity
CSG Built a Paid Media Program to Fuel SSP’s Multi-Location Growth
Specialty Smile Partners (SSP) acquires and operates pediatric dental and orthodontic practices across the country, providing the back-end infrastructure each practice needs to run a profitable, sustainable business. As SSP’s portfolio expanded, so did the complexity of marketing it, with individual brands operating independently and no unified system to align their digital advertising.
Scaling a multi-location healthcare portfolio requires a coordinated advertising infrastructure capable of delivering consistent performance across every location, filling new patient pipelines with the same efficiency at location fifty as at location five. When SSP came to CSG, the opportunity was to build a paid media foundation designed to grow with the portfolio.
CSG identified five areas where centralizing and standardizing the advertising program would unlock the greatest gains for SSP’s practices:
- Consistent frameworks from setup to execution to support future expansion
- A unified reporting framework to track performance consistently across the entire portfolio
- A shared lead definition aligned to the needs of each practice type
- Clear benchmarks and goals to guide ongoing optimization
- Centralized paid media expertise to inform strategy across all locations
The work started with building the foundation SSP needed to reach new patients at scale.
solution
From Fragmented Practices to a Unified Paid Media Program Built to Scale
Before a single dollar went into media, CSG built the foundation the campaigns would need to succeed.
Phase 1:
Building the Infrastructure
We established the reporting and tracking infrastructure SSP needed to understand performance across its entire practice portfolio. We defined what a lead looks like for each practice discipline and built a framework that made consistent, apples-to-apples evaluation possible across locations with different patient bases, market sizes, provider mixes and competitive dynamics in every local market.
Phase 2:
Launching Campaigns
We activated Google Search campaigns with evergreen and promotional creative to reach patients already in market. In select markets where opportunity warranted it, we layered in Performance Max to extend visibility. Across the portfolio, we maintained a consistent Meta presence, giving parents another touchpoint and supporting trust-building regardless of tenure.
Phase 3:
Optimizing and Scaling
We translated performance data into decisions, diagnosing underperformance and adjusting spend to reflect each practice’s patient-volume needs and competitive landscape. The result is a paid media foundation built to scale efficiently as practice needs shift throughout the year and as SSP continues to expand its portfolio with new orthodontic and pediatric dental practices.
impact
22,300+ Patient Leads.
One Coordinated Program.
CSG generated 22,300+ patient leads for SSP across 15 brands at an average cost of $34.25 per lead across phone calls, booked appointments, and contact form submissions. SSP’s combined campaigns delivered more than 32 million impressions across Meta and Google.
Performance Max proved to be the program’s most efficient lead driver. Across SSP’s four largest Performance Max accounts, CSG generated approximately 660 leads at an average cost per lead of $18.44.
2025 Full-Year Performance
22,300+
patient leads generated across 15 brands
$34.25
average cost per lead
32M+
total impressions across Meta and Google
660
Performance Max leads generated
$18.44
Performance Max average cost per lead
By consolidating SSP’s paid media under one coordinated program, CSG brought the structure, consistency and scale needed to fill new patient pipelines efficiently across an expanding multi-location portfolio.
Why This Work Matters
Building a high-performing paid media program for a multi-location healthcare group requires more than campaign activation. CSG and SSP approached this engagement as an infrastructure project first and an advertising program second, creating a foundation that could support consistent, measurable growth across every market in the portfolio.
Measurement Before Media
Establishing a consistent measurement framework before launching gave SSP the ability to evaluate performance across three tiers: at the macro level across the entire portfolio, by individual brand, and at the regional level within each market. That layered view made optimization decisions faster and more informed at every stage.
A Channel Strategy Built to Scale
Defining a baseline channel mix across the portfolio gave every practice a proven starting point, with the flexibility to layer in additional tactics as market conditions and practice needs warranted. That structure made it possible to expand the program efficiently without rebuilding the approach from scratch.
A Foundation That Grows With the Portfolio
A standardized program executed consistently across locations gave SSP a paid media foundation that can absorb new practices, adapt to shifting patient-volume needs and continue performing as the portfolio scales.
This work reflects our belief that the best-performing paid media programs are built on clear definitions, consistent measurement and a deep understanding of what success looks like at every level of the organization.
