Paid search engine marketing campaigns can be one of the most effective and cost efficient channels for promoting pharmaceutical products and attracting new patients.
But if not implemented and managed effectively, paid search campaigns can quickly burn through a marketing budget with little to show for it. In this article I discuss the key steps for implementing and measuring the success of effective paid search campaigns.
First, in order to have a successful campaign, “success” has to be defined. How?
1. Identify the objectives of the campaign.
2. Establish goals for each objective.
3. Make sure there are analytical tools in place for measuring progress towards your goals.
Objectives for healthcare related paid search marketing campaigns can vary greatly from developing brand awareness, to generating registrations, to increasing revenue from prescriptions. Objectives are the key to defining the target audience whether its caregivers, diagnosed patients, undiagnosed information seekers, family members, etc. Knowing the target audience is the key to identifying the appropriate keyphrases to bid on, and it guides the language used in the ad copy.
For each defined objective, set a quantifiable goal. For example, if one of your objectives is to increase the number of registrations for a newsletter, then identify how many new registrations should be generated each week to declare success. Note, I recommend setting weekly goals for paid search campaigns so performance can be measured before too much time or money is spent. Remember, unlike many other forms of advertising, paid search campaigns can be adjusted or changed on the fly (new ad copy can be implemented, new landing pages can be targeted, keywords can be added or removed, etc.).
Establishing goals is a useless exercise if you don’t have a way to measure progress towards them. Therefore it’s critical to have the tools in place to count visitors, or registrations, or whatever it is your goals are based on. These tools need to be available in real-time, or as close to real-time as possible, so adjustments can be made to the campaign on the fly as necessary. There are numerous analytical tools on the market for this purpose, but make sure you choose a tool that can accurately track all key activities. Some analytical tools that rely on server log files have limitations in their ability track all visitor activity since a significant percentage of Internet users are coming through proxy servers, such as AOL or MSN, which obscure accurate visitor counts and other key statistics. I recommend using a tool that tracks activities through a cookie placed on individual PCs, such as WebSideStory’s Hitbox tool, or other similar tools. Google is now offering a free cookie based analytics tool called Google Analytics (formerly known as Urchin) which is capable of tracking a wide range of visitor and site activities. But before you get too excited, contact Google to see if they are accepting new accounts. Due to the popularity of this free service, they have limited the number of new clients they are accepting until they can increase their load capacity.
Once you have the campaign objectives and goals defined, and your tracking tools are in place (or soon will be), its time to identify the keywords or keyphrases to bid on. The selected keywords/keyphrases should be aligned with your target audience. There are seven primary categories of keywords to consider for pharmaceutical/healthcare products and services, including: condition, brand, symptoms, treatment, management, lifestyle, and general. If you are targeting undiagnosed patients, then keyphrases related to symptoms will drive new visitors to your site. For example, the keyphrase “kidney disease symptoms” is a good search term for a paid search listing for services or treatments for kidney disease. .
Many factors should be taken into account when choosing keyphrases to bid on, such as:
- What are the most commonly used search terms current visitors are using to find your website?
- How well do you rank in natural search results for important keyphrases?
- Where do your competitor’s rank for your important keyphrases?
- What are the bid prices for the top positions for key keyphrases?
- How many times do Internet users search on my important keyphrases?
If your budget limits the scope of the campaign, there are several options to consider, including:
- Bidding for lower positions for a keyphrase (you will sacrifice visitor traffic but you costs can be considerable lower).
- Don’t bid on high price, high volume keyphrases (they don’t always generate the best quality visitors anyway).
- Place bids on keyphrases containing multiple words. In general, the more words in a keyphrase, the lower the cost per click.
After the keyphrase list has been developed, its time to focus on the key message you want to communicate. The ad text of a paid search message needs to be seventy characters or less (the standard set by Google, and more recently adopted by Yahoo) so the wording needs to be fairly precise. Communicate key differentiators between your product or service and your competitor’s products and services.
The next key step is choosing the page on your website that you want visitors to see when they click on your paid ad listing. Make sure this “landing page” clearly communicates the information you want your visitors to see or the action you want them to perform.
Well I’ve run out of space for this article so my next article will pick-up from here…
