Everyday Health said it spent $30 million to acquire Tea Leaves Health, a company with a digital platform hospitals use to market to consumers and physicians.
Tea Leaves Health, which is based in Roswell, GA, employs 27 people and works with about 25 hospital systems. Its platform provides three tools: One helps providers acquire and retain profitable patients, another optimizes physician referral patterns and a third can prioritize a hospital’s strategic opportunities. The deal includes an additional potential earnout slated for end of 2016.
The deal is the latest acquisition for Everyday Health as it seeks to diversify its revenue stream. The company also purchased Cambridge BioMarketing, an agency focused on marketing rare disease therapies, earlier this year and DoctorDirectory, a marketing services firm targeting physicians, at the end of last year. Michael du Toit, an executive at Publicis Healthcare Communications Group, joined Everyday Health in February.
The acquisition will be integrated into a payer/provider business that Everyday Health formed in late 2014. Everyday Health CEO Ben Wolin told investors this year that the company’s existing audience, content and data assets meet the needs of payers and providers as well as pharma companies, which traditionally generate the majority of Everyday Health’s revenue.
The ongoing changes occurring in the US healthcare system, such as the rise of engaged patients and patient cost-sharing, have meant that payers and providers need to more actively engage with consumers. Hospitals spend an estimated $2 billion each year on marketing.
“What we are seeing is that our existing monetization platform, which can efficiently target both consumers and physicians, can meet the marketing needs of small and large hospitals in the same way we work with pharma and CPG companies,” Wolin told investors in May.
Everyday Health is expected to release its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday afternoon.
