Harnessing Data to Boost Your Medical Practice’s Digital Marketing ROI

Consumer data is everywhere — but are you using it correctly? Learn how to boost your medical practice’s digital marketing ROI with data analytics.

Thanks to the massive proliferation of digital technologies in recent years, medical marketers have access to more consumer data than ever before. With the proper approach to performance tracking, that data can be utilized to optimize your digital marketing efforts over time. Here are three tips that will help get you started down the path to generating more new appointments at a lower price point.

1. Integrate Your Channels

Most digital advertising services offer robust, built-in performance tracking tools, but unfortunately there’s a catch: the data gathered in each platform is usually siloed, making it difficult to see the full impact of your digital advertising spend.

With a customer data platform (CDP) — for instance, Google Analytics — medical organizations can integrate their marketing data from multiple channels and gain a more comprehensive view of the customer journey. CDPs can trace a single (anonymized) customer’s interactions with your brand across platforms and devices so you can get a complete picture of each step that ultimately led to a conversion.

2. Attribute Traffic

Data integration through an analytics platform will reveal a potential patient’s customer journey, but which touchpoint was responsible for the conversion? The next step in the process is data-driven attribution — that is, assigning value to each digital touchpoint along a patient’s user journey. Only then will you know whether your marketing spend is being used wisely.

Using algorithmic modeling, your CDP will determine the value and cost associated with each of your digital marketing channels. The results can be surprising; for example, you may discover that most users find your practice through organic search, but that customers who click through AdWords ads are more likely to make an appointment. Attribution can even show you which keywords or ad types are performing best within a given campaign, which helps you make impactful adjustments to maintain solid performance.

3. Implement Changes

Based on the results of the attribution process, medical marketers can invest more resources in the channels that contribute to conversions while reducing or eliminating spend on less effective ones. Better yet, certain CDPs will allow you to update bidding algorithms for paid search in real time, continually optimizing your marketing spend.

As competition for patients’ attention online continues to increase, medical marketers need to make sure they’re using every tool at their disposal to maintain the upper hand. Advanced performance tracking tools can help you remain highly visible and relevant over time — but only if you know how to use them correctly.