March GSC: 9,499 impressions, 8 clicks, 0.08% CTR, position 6.2

Why Wellness Brands Struggle with Paid Ads

Before we talk platforms, let’s talk about why so many health brands get this wrong. It usually comes down to three things:

They treat paid ads like organic content. Your blog post can say “this adaptogen may support stress relief.” Your ad can’t. Platforms hold ads to a much higher standard because they’re pushing content to people who didn’t ask for it. Different rules, different game.

They target too broadly. “Women aged 25-54 interested in health” isn’t a target audience, it’s half the population. When you’re paying per click, vague targeting is just setting fire to your budget.

They forget about the landing page. Your ad could be perfect, but if it sends someone to a generic homepage or a product page with no social proof, no trust signals, and no clear next step? They’re gone. And you’ve paid for that click.

Sound familiar? Don’t worry, every wellness brand we work with has made at least one of these mistakes. The good news is they’re all fixable.

Platform-by-Platform Breakdown

Not every platform works the same way for wellness brands. Here’s what we’ve seen work, and what to avoid, on each one.

Google Ads

Google is where intent lives. Someone searching “best magnesium supplement for sleep” is already halfway to buying. That’s why Google Ads tends to deliver the highest conversion rates for wellness products, you’re catching people at the exact moment they’re looking for what you sell.

What works:

• Shopping ads for physical wellness products, supplements, skincare, fitness equipment. Visual, price-prominent, and they show up right at the top
• Search ads targeting specific long-tail queries like “vegan collagen powder UK” rather than broad terms like “wellness supplements”
• Remarketing campaigns for people who visited your product pages but didn’t buy

Watch out for:

• Google’s healthcare and medicines policy is strict. You can’t advertise prescription products, unapproved supplements, or anything making clinical claims without certification
• Supplement brands need to stick to structure/function claims (“supports immune health”) rather than disease claims (“cures colds”)
• Google will reject ads that reference specific medical conditions in targeting

Heights is a great example here. Their Google Ads focus on specific ingredient benefits, “brain supplements backed by research”, rather than making health claims. They lead with the science angle, which keeps them compliant and builds trust at the same time.

Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)

Meta is still the workhorse for wellness brands, and for good reason. The targeting options are ridiculously detailed, the creative formats are flexible, and it’s where most of your audience is already spending time.

What works:

• Video ads outperform static images by 2-3x in wellness. A 15-second clip of someone using your product feels more authentic than a polished product shot
• User-generated content ads, real customers talking about their experience, consistently deliver the best cost per acquisition we’ve seen
• Lookalike audiences built from your existing customer list. If you’ve got even 500 email subscribers, Meta can find thousands of similar people

Watch out for:

• Meta’s ad policies around health are aggressive. You can’t imply someone has a health condition (“struggling with anxiety?”), reference personal attributes (“your skin problems”), or use before-and-after photos that suggest unrealistic results
• The platform’s AI review system will flag and reject ads automatically. Sometimes it’s wrong, and you’ll need to appeal, but build time for that into your launch schedule
• Interest-based targeting around health topics has been limited since iOS 14.5 privacy changes. First-party data is more valuable than ever

Wild Nutrition runs brilliant Meta campaigns. They use short recipe-style videos featuring their supplements as ingredients, which sidesteps the hard-sell approach entirely. It feels like content, not advertising, and that’s exactly why it works.

TikTok Ads

TikTok is the wild west for wellness brands, in the best possible way. The organic-style content format means your ads can blend seamlessly into someone’s feed. But the compliance rules are tighter than you might expect.

What works:

• Spark Ads that boost existing organic content. If a TikTok about your product already performed well organically, putting paid behind it is almost guaranteed to scale
• Creator partnerships where the influencer genuinely uses your product. TikTok audiences are brutal at spotting fakes, but they’ll champion brands they believe in
• Educational content that teaches something, “what actually happens when you take ashwagandha” performs better than “buy our ashwagandha”

Watch out for:

• TikTok prohibits ads for weight loss products, supplements making health claims, and anything that promotes unhealthy body image
• You can’t use medical terminology or reference specific conditions
• The platform skews younger, so if your target customer is 45+, your budget is probably better spent elsewhere

Supplement brands on social media like Rheal Superfoods have cracked TikTok by treating their ads like regular content. Short, punchy, personality-driven clips that happen to feature their products. No hard sell, no health claims, just genuinely engaging content.

Compliance: What You Can and Can’t Say

This is the bit that trips up most wellness brands. Each platform has its own rules, but here’s the universal truth: you cannot make health claims in paid ads unless you have the clinical evidence and platform certification to back them up.

You CAN say:

• “Supports immune health” (structure/function claim)
• “Made with vitamin D3 and zinc”
• “97% of customers said they felt more energised” (with evidence)
• “Formulated by nutritionists”

You CAN’T say:

• “Cures insomnia” (disease claim)
• “Lose 10lbs in 2 weeks” (unrealistic outcome)
• “Do you suffer from joint pain?” (implying a condition)
• “Clinically proven” (unless you literally have clinical trials)

The ASA in the UK is particularly hot on wellness advertising right now. They’ve cracked down on influencer marketing in wellness and paid social. If you’re making claims you can’t substantiate, it’s not just your ad that gets pulled, it’s your reputation.

Budget Allocation: Where Should Your Money Go?

Here’s a question we get from almost every wellness brand we work with: “How much should we spend on paid ads versus content?”

There’s no single right answer, but here’s the framework we use:

If you’re a new brand (under £10K/month revenue):

• 70% content and organic (SEO, social, email)
• 30% paid ads (focused on remarketing and brand awareness)
• You need to build trust before you can convert cold traffic profitably

If you’re an established brand (£10K-£50K/month):

• 50% content and organic
• 50% paid ads (split between prospecting and remarketing)
• You’ve got the social proof and reviews to make cold traffic work

If you’re scaling (£50K+/month):

• 30% content and organic
• 70% paid ads (aggressive prospecting with robust remarketing funnels)
• Your unit economics are proven, it’s time to pour fuel on the fire

The biggest mistake? Spending all your budget on cold prospecting ads before you’ve got the landing pages, social proof, and email sequences to actually convert that traffic.

Common Mistakes We See Every Week

After running paid campaigns for dozens of wellness brands, we’ve seen the same mistakes come up over and over:

1. Ignoring the landing page. Your ad is only half the equation. If someone clicks through and lands on a generic page with no reviews, no trust badges, and a “buy now” button above the fold, they’re bouncing. Every time.

2. Making health claims to boost CTR. Yes, “this supplement cures anxiety” will probably get more clicks than “supports mental wellbeing.” It’ll also get your ad account suspended. Not worth it.

3. Not testing creative. Running one ad and hoping it works is like buying one lottery ticket and planning your retirement. Test different hooks, different formats, different CTAs. We typically test 5-10 creative variations per campaign before we find the winner.

4. Forgetting about social proof. Wellness is a trust industry. If your ads and landing pages don’t feature real reviews, real customers, and real results, you’re asking people to take a leap of faith with their health. Most won’t.

5. Setting and forgetting. Paid ads aren’t a slow cooker. You can’t set them up and walk away. Weekly optimisation, adjusting bids, pausing underperformers, testing new audiences, is what separates profitable campaigns from money pits.

How We Approach Wellness Paid Ads at Hummingbird

We’ve learned that wellness paid advertising isn’t about finding a magic formula. It’s about understanding the specific regulations, audience psychology, and platform quirks that make health and wellness different from every other industry.

Here’s what that looks like when you work with us:

• Platform audit, we look at where your audience actually is, not where you think they are. Sometimes that means pulling budget from Meta and putting it into Google Shopping. Sometimes it means TikTok Spark Ads. It depends on your brand.
• Compliance review, before a single ad goes live, we check every headline, description, and image against platform policies and ASA guidelines. We’ve had too many clients come to us after their ad accounts were suspended to skip this step.
• Creative testing, we don’t guess what’ll work. We test it. Multiple hooks, multiple formats, multiple audiences. Then we scale what wins and kill what doesn’t.
• Full-funnel thinking, we build the landing pages, the email sequences, and the remarketing campaigns that turn a click into a customer. Because a click that doesn’t convert is just a cost.

We’ve helped supplement brands go from wasting £3K/month on unfocused Meta campaigns to generating consistent, trackable revenue from paid ads across multiple platforms. The difference isn’t budget, it’s strategy.

Ready to Stop Wasting Ad Budget?

If you’re a wellness brand that’s either burned by paid ads before or just never known where to start, we should talk. We’ll look at what you’ve tried, where your audience actually is, and build a paid strategy that’s compliant, creative, and, most importantly, actually profitable.

Get in touch and let’s figure out what’s going to work for your brand.