The health industry is inundated with more data than ever before. As marketers try to track, analyze and make sense of data, this data fatigue can lead to potential missed opportunities to help consumers and patients.

Health publishers such as Healthline Media have enormous amounts of health interest data — and our expert teams know the best way to use it. We have data that marketers don’t have, and can combine pharma’s existing data with ours to build a whole-person understanding of how consumers learn and engage online.

Here’s how marketers can make the most of data by partnering with publishers.

Data keeps consumers at the center

Imagine helping people based on where they are in their treatment journey, whether they are at the symptomatic or pre-diagnosis stage, actively seeking or switching treatment, or managing their lifestyle and condition.

Publishers, equipped with rich first-party data on health interests and behaviors, have the tools to identify segments that reflect real treatment journeys.

Actions and return visits on Healthline.com provide over 1 billion intent signals that allow our data models to reveal how people actually engage across health topics. For example, our sleep audience is 2.2x more likely to read about immune system health, while the gut health audience is 4x more likely to read about vitamins.

Because we know what specific audiences are looking for, we can then build out resources and experiences that educate, engage and inspire more people. Say we learn that people living with diabetes are especially interested in nutrition but have challenges taking action — then we could develop content and a lesson tool to make a tangible, direct impact on these consumers.

Data helps pharma align with consumer journeys

Pharma often struggles with efficiently reaching their target population and getting people into their programs. To spark engagement and improve adherence, they need to be where consumers are.

By aligning with publisher content and products built for specific audiences, marketers can achieve the scale they need while narrowing in on highly qualified audiences. Marta Colussi, director of performance analytics, Healthline Media, shares the results: “We’ve seen that our scale offers advertisers 5x the cost efficiency in reaching qualified audiences. At the same time, content and products built for specific audiences can drive new patient starts 10x more than regular ads.” 

For example, we could help the life sciences industry with placing the right content and education in the right context, whether that means reaching those with diabetes looking for weight management solutions with nutrition content, or reaching those further down the weight management journey who are actively deciding on a weight loss drug. Our predictive data models can pinpoint these high-intent segments, who in one study were 74% more likely to click out to a brand’s site.Because our consumer understanding is driven by ongoing engagement, marketers get real-time opportunities to align with ever-changing consumer journeys. After all, the best time to get your brand in front of someone who is planning to start or switch treatment is ASAP. As consumers move from seeking answers to considering treatments, advertisers can switch automatically between techniques such as sequential messaging, exposed user retargeting and audience suppression to create a seamless path forward.

Data improves consumer health education

Data exhaustion is real and, unfortunately, it can lead to missed chances to make an impact. By working with publishers, marketers can achieve more effective and efficient marketing than they can on their own. At the same time, they help create an educational path to action that drives more people to understand their conditions, discover the prescriptions they need, and achieve better health outcomes.