Pharma Brands’ Online Marketing Efforts Credited With Lift in Offline Conversions

July 14, 2014

This article is included in these additional categories:

Brand Metrics | Digital | Display & Rich Media | Mobile Phone | Paid Search | Pharma & Healthcare | Search Engine Optimization | Tablet

comScore-Online-Pharma-Mktg-Effectiveness-July2014Online pharmaceutical marketing continue to produce results, says comScore in its latest annual “Online Marketing Effectiveness Benchmarks for the Pharmaceutical Industry” study. The study – based on a review of 163 pharmaceutical studies conducted on behalf of various brands – indicates that visits to branded pharma sites not only fuel greater brand awareness and favorability, but also impact prospect conversions. For example, there was an average 9.4-point lift above control in new patient starts among prospects who had recently visited a branded website. That refers to the propensity for prospects to begin treatment with the branded medication and become a patient.

That lift was slightly less than seen in last year’s study, but still substantial. The lift was even greater among patients: there was a 14.7-point lift above control in prescription refill activity among patients who had recently visited a branded site.

As with last year’s study, this year’s report indicates that natural search-referred traffic had the highest lift (+13.9 points) in terms of prescriptions filled by prospects. Incremental conversion for prospects was lower for paid search-referred traffic (+9.3 points).

Separately, the study reveals that pharma enjoys the highest viewability rate of any industry. Based on a study of billions of pharmaceutical online ad impressions across 15 brands, comScore determined that 51% were viewable, meaning that 50% or more of the ad appeared in the viewable frame of the web browser for at least one second. That was slightly higher than the comparable rates for travel (49%) and health (48%), among others.

Finally, the study notes a 36% year-over-year increase in visits to health-related content via mobile devices. As of January of this year, comScore data indicates that half of online time spent with health-related content occurs via smartphones and tablets, while a recent Millennial Media report revealed that pharma brands increased their mobile ad spending on the platform by 481% year-over-year during Q1.

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