For many industries, running Google Ads is often a no-brainer, but there are several considerations to be made before running an AdWords campaign especially when you’re in the Pharma and Healthcare sector. Many companies are scarred from costly, ineffectual campaigns due to bad management or policy restrictions.
So why Google Ads for pharma and healthcare?
Having clear goals set out and measuring the Return on Investment is key to these campaigns. Evaluating your ROI is crucial to understand the performance of digital marketing campaigns. Google AdWords provides state-of-the-art tools to do that; your campaign’s results are all measurable including:
• Click Through Rate (CTR) – this is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown expressed as a percentage
• Conversion Rate – the percentage of visitors who take a desired action
• Cost Per Click (CPC) – the actual price you pay for each click received on your ad
• Number of impressions – the number of times your content is displayed
You’ll also want to optimise your Google AdWords campaigns over time. Focusing on those keywords that bring the best results.
In Google Adwords terms:
So when a user searches “psoriasis symptoms” the ad could appear in Google Search results for that search. While the campaign is running, it is possible to reallocate the spend from certain non-productive keywords – for example, words or phrases that are too expensive – to more productive ones, in order to get the most out of the campaign.
There are precise restriction policies on the promotion of health-related content through Google Adwords. For example, in Ireland it’s not possible to promote prescription drugs online in any of the digital channels available. Over-the-counter drugs can only be promoted on some online channels such as Facebook; albeit, there are still some restrictions to that too.
Nonetheless, Digital Marketing offers plenty of opportunities for Pharma, particularly in the case of awareness campaigns. As we know from experience, Google AdWords is a cost-effective advertising platform; in other words, you only pay every time a person clicks on your ad (CPC – Cost per Click). Moreover, it is possible to target those people who are specifically interested in your subject or product. The ads will appear when somebody searches for keywords related to the specific product or subject, or browses websites related to the ads content. This advertising platform will also make sure that the ads appear only to those who live in a certain area or are interested in a local service.
Combined with Google Analytics (Google’s freemium web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic), Google AdWords allows you to measure the campaigns’ value against KPIs:
- the number of people who saw the content (impressions);
- keywords and ads with the highest conversion rates;
- users’ behaviour on the website
- the average number of web pages viewed per session
- the time spent on each page
- actions taken (downloads, video views, forms, contacts). This gives us the ability to track how many people downloaded a certain PDF on a landing page etc.
Traditional marketing has been losing ground against digital marketing in the last years. According to Smart Insights “One-third of businesses are planning to introduce a Digital Transformation programme and one third already have”. As stated by Econsultancy.com, “71% of companies planned to increase their digital marketing budgets this year”.
This is the future of marketing, and it is already here. If you are looking for other online targeting options for Pharma and Healthcare click here.
Contact us today to maximize your online presence with our healthcare-specific expertise.
