You cannot outbid Specsavers. Stop trying to.

Advertise the binocular vision outcome, not the reading outcome. Ahpra requires advertising claims to be substantiated by acceptable evidence, and the evidence here splits cleanly. The CITT-ART randomised trial found office based vergence and accommodative therapy significantly better than placebo for convergence measures, so that claim stands up. The same trial found it no more effective than placebo for improving reading performance on standardised tests, and a joint statement of four colleges reaffirmed in 2014 holds that scientific evidence does not support behavioural vision therapy for improving long term educational performance. There is also no Medicare item for vision therapy, so any implied rebate is a second problem on top of the first. The service is legitimate. Vision and learning as an advertised promise is what creates the risk.

No, not to the public in Australia. Myopia control lenses are regulated therapeutic goods, and the TGA permission that allows them to be advertised to consumers states that the advertisement must not include claims that refer to statistics to describe the performance of the goods. A percentage reduction in progression is exactly that kind of claim, which makes the industry's most quoted statistic unusable in a Google ad or on a landing page aimed at parents. The permission also requires two prominent statements: that an eye care professional must decide whether the product is appropriate, and the age range the product is intended for. Advertise the programme, the consultation and what it means for the child, not the percentage.

With the conditions attached, not as a bare claim. Ahpra's guidelines state that where the cost of a free offer is recouped through a price rise elsewhere or through other sources such as Medicare, the offer is not actually free, and they treat omitting restrictions such as eligibility as a potential breach. A bulk billed eye test is recouped through Medicare and cross subsidised by eyewear margin, which is precisely the described pattern. Bulk billed for eligible Medicare card holders, with the interval conditions accessible, is the version that works.

Not on the exam, because they bulk bill it too and they see millions of Australians a year. The winnable ground is the clinical work a short appointment cannot deliver: myopia management, dry eye clinics, behavioural and paediatric optometry, and complex contact lens fitting. Two of those carry advertising constraints worth knowing before you write a word of copy, since myopia lens ads cannot quote performance statistics and vision therapy cannot be advertised as improving reading. Those search as problems rather than products, they are largely private pay, and they carry the appointment length an independent can actually offer. There is also a fund angle worth exploring, since patients search for practices that take their specific fund.

September and October, ahead of the benefit expiry rush rather than during it. APRA's data shows optical volume rising more than 50 per cent into the December quarter, and one national buying group moved its member campaigns progressively earlier, from November to October to September, to stop practices being overwhelmed in December. There is a second, smaller window in January and February, when limits have reset, competitors have gone quiet and the back to school children's demand appears.

Usually yes, and check your provider status before you do. Patients on funds with preferred provider networks search for practices that take their fund, because the difference is real: one fund's out of network members face a capped benefit on multifocal lenses against a full benefit in network. Those queries are high intent and comparatively uncontested against the head terms. Two cautions. Advertising a fund relationship you do not have is a consumer law problem. And at least one major fund's provider contract restricts bidding on its trade marks and requires those terms as negatives, so read the agreement before building the campaign.