What to Look For
Med spas sit between retail and medicine. Growth depends on repeat visits, memberships and packages, but many services involve prescription products and medical devices, which narrows what you can say and where.
- Retention marketing: Email, SMS and membership programs that bring clients back on the right treatment interval, with opt-in records kept.
- Booking platform integration: Tracking tied to your scheduling and point-of-sale tools so you can see revenue by campaign.
- Treatment-specific landing pages: Pages for injectables, lasers, body contouring and skin treatments that explain candidacy, downtime and who performs the service.
- Policy-aware social ads: Experience keeping cosmetic procedure ads approved on Meta and other platforms.
- Claims discipline: Copy that describes devices and products accurately, without overstating regulatory status or results.
Compliance and Advertising Rules
Meta requires ads for cosmetic procedures to target people 18 and older, and its policy names dermal fillers, injectable treatments, chemical peels, micro-needling and non-ablative laser treatments among them. Before-and-after transformations are allowed in those adult-targeted ads, but statements of inferiority about appearance are not. If you sell prescription weight loss drugs, Meta sends those ads to its separate drugs policy, which requires LegitScript certification and Meta authorization.
Google restricts prescription drug terms in ads, landing pages and keywords, which affects brand-name neurotoxin promotion, and treats injections and other invasive procedures as a sensitive category for personalized ads. FDA warns that describing a medical device as “FDA registered” or “FDA certified” can be misleading, so device claims should state what the clearance or approval actually covers. For compounded GLP-1 drugs, FDA states that compounded drugs are not FDA approved, and in March 2026 it sent warning letters to 30 telehealth companies over claims implying their compounded products were the same as approved drugs.
Rules on medical supervision, ownership and who may perform injections are set by states. Ask the agency to keep provider titles accurate and to have treatment claims reviewed by your medical director or counsel.
How Engagements Usually Work
Most med spa engagements run on monthly retainers covering social, paid ads, local SEO and retention campaigns, with ad spend billed by the platforms. Some agencies offer performance-based pricing per booked consult. If so, ask how a booking is defined and verified.
Reporting should cover new clients, rebooking rate, membership growth and revenue by channel. Agree on who owns the email and SMS lists, ad accounts and content library, and confirm that promotional texts follow consent rules.
Red Flags
- Discount-only strategy: Constant deep discounts attract one-time bargain hunters and erode margins.
- “FDA approved” on everything: Many devices are cleared, not approved, for specific uses.
- Implying compounded drugs equal brand drugs: FDA has warned companies over exactly this.
- Ads aimed at under-18 audiences: Cosmetic procedure ads on Meta must target adults.
- No medical review of copy: Treatment claims should be checked by a licensed clinician.
