Change Agent: Effective Measurement Through Partnership

At PHM, embracing change and innovation in our day-to-day work is part of our DNA. Enter the Change Agents—thought leaders who are experts in their respective fields, helping to guide PHM and our clients through an ever-changing industry and media landscape. This series aims to highlight these thought leaders and their unique point of view as it relates to health media.

This edition’s Change Agent—Tyler Nall, SVP, Business Intelligence on how measurement strategy works best when integrated from day one of the campaign planning process.

As health marketers, we know that effective measurement can present unique challenges. Patient journeys are often long and winding, with many touchpoints occurring over months or even years. Add in an ever-evolving policy and data landscape, as well as market and consumer behavior shifts, and it becomes clear why measuring campaign success can be anything but straightforward.

This is why we prioritize integrating Business Intelligence (BI) into campaign strategy conversations from the outset. At PHM, our BI teams are experts in measurement for health, working in tandem with brand leads and partners to align priorities with the right KPIs and measurement tools. Using information and insight to determine the most relevant focus area vs. pursuing “red herrings” is how BI truly drives value for brands.

For example, one of our clients was looking to launch a campaign for a treatment that primarily affects women, with a KPI of increasing site visits. Upon investigation into search behavior, we realized that, due to stigma around the condition, the target audience was not looking for information on how to treat their symptoms. Instead, they were only focused on how to live with them, making any messaging around the treatment itself irrelevant. This key insight encouraged us to broaden our KPIs, shifting focus from connecting an existing audience to health solutions to increasing awareness of the condition for those with symptoms. This approach, paired with a comprehensive, multi-media content strategy, drove a +875% increase in monthly search volume for treatment options, empowering this audience to search for treatments that they were previously not aware of.

As we work in tandem with our partner teams, we are able to align on critical components of a campaign—KPIs, reporting structure, etc—from the start. Having clarity and line of sight into what we’re measuring enables us to create thoughtful guides and dashboards for each tactic, evaluating uniquely and specifically for each. This allows us to get granular with how each tactic is performing and make sure we are always laddering up to our overall campaign goal.

An example of this in action—our client had historical data to indicate that specific types of in-platform engagements would drive long-term success. With this information in hand, we partnered with our buying teams to apply this key insight, collaborating on clear guidelines for which tactics we should be prioritizing, from both a performance and efficiency standpoint. We then worked together throughout the buying process, collaborating to evaluate partners on three key factors: ability to drive desired in-platform engagements, ability to structure day-to-day monitoring process and ability to provide required data for measurement. This approach drove operational clarity across all stakeholders and eventually increased annual revenue by 24% for the brand.

As BI practitioners, it is also our responsibility to be creative and diligent with bringing new solutions forward as the market shifts. In some instances, this requires us to challenge the status quo and dig deeper into long-held beliefs about how we approach measurement. With such a rapidly changing landscape, we must continue to evaluate whether our metrics are telling the story of how our target audience is responding to our messaging. Effective measurement requires effective partnership. By working together from the beginning, we ensure that we’re staying true to our campaign objectives, accurately capturing audience behavior and optimizing accordingly.

Connect with Tyler on LinkedIn.

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