How to Market Pelvic Health Services Without Breaching the Rules

Incontinence, prolapse, diastasis recti and pelvic girdle pain do not appear on the ASA's list of conditions physiotherapists may advertise treating. And Google's personalised advertising policy names genital, bowel and urinary health as a sensitive category, which rules out the remarketing most agencies will sell you.

Almost everything written about marketing pelvic health is about tone: be sensitive, be discreet, use warm language. That advice is fine and it is not what gets your advertising pulled. These two rules are.

What does the ASA actually allow physiotherapists to claim?

CAP publishes a list of conditions it accepts physiotherapists may advertise treating. It runs roughly as follows: aches and pains generally, arthritic pain, backache and back pain, circulatory problems, cramp, digestion problems, joint pains, lumbago, muscle spasms, neuralgia, fibromyalgia, minor sports injuries, and tension.

Read that list again looking for pelvic health. It is not there. No incontinence. No prolapse. No diastasis recti. No pelvic girdle pain. No postnatal recovery.

That does not make those claims automatically prohibited. It means they fall outside the accepted list, and under CAP rule 12.1 an objective claim outside the accepted list must be supported by documentary evidence, most likely in the form of clinical trials.

So the practical position is that a claim to treat incontinence is a claim you must substantiate, rather than one you may simply make. That is a meaningfully different starting point from advertising treatment for back pain.

Does that mean you cannot advertise pelvic health at all?

No, and this is where the distinction matters.

You can describe what you do. Pelvic health physiotherapy, pelvic floor assessment, postnatal assessment, rehabilitation. Describing a service is not the same as claiming an outcome for a condition.

You can state your qualifications and registration, which for this specialty involves post-registration competence in internal examination and is a genuine differentiator.

You can explain what an appointment involves, which is often the most useful thing you can publish, because uncertainty is the main barrier for this patient group.

What you should be careful with is a claim that you treat, cure or resolve a named condition, unless you hold evidence you would be comfortable producing to the ASA.

The gap between "I treat incontinence" and "pelvic health physiotherapy, including assessment and rehabilitation of pelvic floor function" is the gap between an unsubstantiated efficacy claim and an accurate description of a service.

The advertising platform problem

This one catches practices that have done everything else right.

Google's personalised advertising policy identifies sensitive categories that may not be used to target people, and genital, bowel or urinary health is named among them.

The practical consequences:

No remarketing lists built from pelvic health page visits. The standard tactic of retargeting people who read your incontinence page is not available.

No audience segments built on that interest. Advertiser-curated audiences based on this health interest are outside policy.

Care with conversion tracking that could be read as tying an individual to a health condition.

That rules out much of what a general digital agency will propose, and agencies frequently do not know the restriction exists because it never comes up for their other clients. If someone is pitching you a remarketing funnel for pelvic health, that is the moment to ask whether they have read the policy.

What remains available is substantial: search advertising against what people are actively looking for, a complete Google Business Profile, and organic content. Our guide to getting patients without paying for ads covers the channels that work here, and they work particularly well for this specialty because the searches are highly specific.

Testimonials will not do the work

The instinct in a sensitive specialty is to let patients speak for you, because their words carry warmth that yours cannot.

CAP is explicit that testimonials do not constitute substantiation. A patient saying you cured their incontinence does not evidence that claim, and a testimonial making a claim you could not make yourself is treated as though you made it. That includes reviews you republish on your own site.

Testimonials are still valuable for conveying what the experience of care was like, which is exactly what this patient group is anxious about. Use them for that. Do not use them to carry efficacy claims your own copy avoids.

Where the real marketing advantage is

Two things, and neither is a claim.

Explaining the appointment. The single biggest barrier to someone booking pelvic health physiotherapy is not scepticism about whether it works. It is not knowing what will happen, whether they will be examined, whether they can bring someone, and whether they can stop. A page that answers that plainly converts better than any efficacy claim, and it is entirely compliant.

Naming your competence properly. Internal examination is a post-registration competence and cannot be delegated to support staff. Saying clearly that assessments are carried out by a physiotherapist with specific training is accurate, differentiating, and not a claim about outcomes.

A checklist

Audit your site for condition claims, particularly incontinence, prolapse and diastasis recti
Rewrite them as service descriptions unless you hold clinical evidence
Check your testimonials for claims your own copy avoids
Ask your agency about the sensitive category policy before signing off any remarketing
Build an appointment page that answers the questions people are too embarrassed to ask
Use CAP's free Copy Advice service for anything borderline

And handle the records with the same care as the marketing. Pelvic health notes are among the most sensitive a practice holds, and our UK GDPR guide covers the confidentiality tiers that ought to apply to them.

This is general information about advertising rules, not legal advice. The CAP accepted conditions list and platform advertising policies are updated. Check the current versions, and consider CAP's Copy Advice service before publishing.

Sources: ASA/CAP advice, physiotherapy · Google, personalised advertising policy · ASA/CAP, claims in testimonials and endorsements