Google's Big Leak, Meta Trends, & PMAX Strategies

Mid-year pulse check – how are we doing?

If you feel like you’re juggling too many balls… you’re not alone.

The healthcare marketing landscape is changing every day. But staying on top of the digital landscape is crucial for growth.?

Now is the perfect time for a mid-year check to reassess your business goals and digital strategies so you can finish the year off strong.

We’re here to help you stay current with marketing innovation and channel updates so you can attract more patients.

Vital Signs: What’s Inside this Month’s Newsletter

?? Ideas to help you grow: PMAX strategies, brand-building secrets, & how to turn consumers into patients

?? Industry news & resources: Google’s big algorithm leak & TikTok/Meta trends you need to know

?? Flock features: Leveraging new data sources to reach consumers

??? Past & upcoming events: Dykema DSO Conference + FREE Giveaway

?? Regulatory update: AHA v OCR ruling explained

Ideas to Help You Grow

Podcast: Google’s Performance Max: What Healthcare Marketers Need to Know

Google's Performance Max offers a promising way to optimize your marketing efforts across multiple channels. Machine learning guides campaigns across all Google properties, including YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. This gives marketers broader reach and better audience targeting, but it's not an out-of-the-box solution. It requires some configuration to achieve optimal performance.

Here are the top 5 tips you need to know:

1. Set Realistic Expectations: Understand that PMAX is an audience-based buy rather than a search-based buy. It leverages signals like prior search behavior, demographics, and proximity to your clinic.
2. Put the Right Conversion Actions in Place: Track qualified actions, such as offline conversions from sales or revenue, to avoid wasting budget on low-quality leads.
3. Leverage the Correct Inventory: Don't just rely on text ads. Make sure to upload high-quality videos, display banners, and dynamic creative elements. This ensures you are making the most of the diverse inventory PMAX offers, from YouTube to display placements.
4. Run Experiments and Monitor Performance: Conduct A/B tests to measure conversion lift and understand the incremental value PMAX adds without cannibalizing your existing search efforts.
5. Think Holistically Across Channels: Integrate PMAX into a broader multi-channel strategy, evaluating where to best allocate your next marketing dollar for the highest ROI.

For a more in-depth look at how to get the most out of your PMAX campaigns, check out the full episode with Alex Kemp , Director of Applied Analytics. LISTEN HERE.

Podcast: The Secrets to Building a Successful Healthcare Brand with Kelly Meigs of Tanner Health

“Positioning your leaders and clinicians as being experts in what they do is important. A lead physician had been doing 10,000 of these surgeries before he ever came to Tanner and has a great star quality about him. We used him as the lead of most of our advertising and promotion around open-heart” — Kelly Meigs , VP of Marketing Strategy & Planning, Tanner Health

Building a healthcare brand isn’t just about ads; it’s about creating a story that connects with the community and highlights your clinicians as the heroes they are. Discover the secrets of building a robust marketing team, harnessing CRM for targeted outreach, and using video and PR to elevate service line brands. LISTEN HERE.

Blog: How to Turn First-Time Visitors Into Lifelong Patients with Insights from Melanie Basile

“What is motivating patients? What are the decision drivers? What are the fears? What are the concerns? And then how do we adapt our voice and our brand and our content to be authentic and be an authority across every single channel?” — Melanie Basile , Chief Growth Officer, The Smilist Management

Patient-centric marketing is key to growing your business. Learn how The Smilist (60+ location DSO) is using digital to improve patient care, simplify the patient journey, and create a cohesive brand across channels. READ HERE.

Industry News & Resources

Google’s Search Secrets Exposed: What Really Influences Rankings

Well, the cat is out of the bag. Google’s secret playbook for ranking content has been revealed to the public. Here’s what’s important:

?? Bounce Rate: Start with engaging headlines and valuable content at the top of the page, and place a compelling video just below the fold to maintain visitor interest. Prioritize location pages—they drive the most patient leads.

?? Quality Links Are Crucial: Aim for high-value links from healthcare publications, universities where your doctors speak, top awards, and reputable news sources.

?? Author Credibility Counts: Ensure your blogs are correctly tagged and feature unique, MD-reviewed content to stand out from generic AI-generated material.

?? Google Chrome: Google cares about Chrome performance. Make sure your site looks good and loads fast on the browser.

?? Internal Links: Avoid anchor mismatches by keeping internal links consistent, including in your navigation and SERP landing pages.

? Updated Content: You’ve gotta stay fresh. Regularly update your best-performing blog articles to maintain their ranking power.

Meta's New Budget Flex: Spend Smarter, Perform Better

Meta has made daily budgets more flexible, allowing for up to 75% more spending on high-performing days within your weekly limit.?

This change means you won't miss out on prime opportunities while still keeping overall budget control. While lifetime budgets might still be the best option for monthly optimization, this update is great for those who prefer strict weekly spending or use daily budgets to schedule delivery based on weekday availability.

Meta Introduces ‘Site Links’ for Enhanced Ad Performance

Why include just one landing page on your Meta ad, when you can have up to 20? With Meta’s new update, you can finally have multiple landing pages in Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns, just like with Google Ads.

This new site links feature can showcase different categories, highlight special deals, and offer easy sign-up options within one ad, giving potential patients more reasons to click and explore. It can help boost conversions by guiding them to the info they care about most. This is a game-changer for creating more informative and user-friendly ads.

Meta's New Ad Controls Make Targeting Easier

Healthcare marketing is no easy feat with all the restrictions we face. But here's some good news: Meta has rolled out new audience controls at the ad account level for location and demographics. This means you can now set restrictions directly within your ad account settings to ensure your ads are only shown in specific geographic areas to a specific age range. These settings will apply to all your campaigns.?

This is especially helpful for groups with legal restrictions on advertising to specific locations or age groups.

Flock Features

Continued Testing: Enhancing Lead Quality with 3rd Party Audiences

Our team is continuing to experiment with 3rd Party (3P) Audience Testing to boost lead quality. By tapping into insurance-based data sources and using 3P audiences from providers like PurpleLabs and DSP Illumin, we're tackling the challenge of too many Medicare/Medicaid leads and varying reimbursement rates.

This HIPAA-compliant gives us new capabilities to reach the right people where they spend time online.

Don't Miss a Beat: Past & Upcoming Events

We’re Headed to Dykema!

Things are tough in the dental space… with new HIPAA rules, weaker demand, and tighter budgets.?

That’s why we’ll be at Dykema (July 10-12 in Denver) to help DSOs drive growth through omnichannel marketing , scale efficiently with custom media strategies for complex brands, and meet capacity goals.?

Swing by Cardinal’s booth (#14) for a chance to win a YETI Tundra 35 Hard Cooler or a YETI Rambler 30oz Tumbler. Visit us at the event and enter to win. Can’t wait to see you there.

Regulatory Update ?

AHA v OCR Ruling: What It Means?

You may have seen the recent news about the AHA v. OCR lawsuit ruling and might have questions about how it impacts HIPAA requirements for marketing teams using GA4, Meta, or other pixels previously deemed non-compliant.

While this judgment may prove decisive in terms of rowing back some of the requirements around the use of pixels, it’s too soon to say. The US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has 60 days after the judgment to appeal. HHS may also modify its guidance to meet some of the ruling's objections without rowing back all the restrictions on the use of these pixels.?

Even if this ruling provides a temporary reprieve for healthcare providers, you should continue to prioritize patient privacy, BAAs, and good data governance practices. There are 16 state privacy laws in place, with more expected. Notably, Vermont recently passed the Vermont Data Privacy Act (VDPA) in May 2024, one of the strictest to date. The ruling also does not prevent private class action lawsuits for alleged wiretapping or eavesdropping violations due to tracking technologies.?

The regulatory landscape is complicated and everchanging; we recommend consulting with your compliance and legal teams to assess your risk tolerance and privacy stance. As an agency, we’re committed to helping providers build a martech framework that allows them to measure the impact of their marketing investments and continually improve performance.

You’ve reached the end of the newsletter.

As always, don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or need assistance.