4 Tips for Thriving in the Evolving Digital Advertising Landscape

Changing privacy laws and cookie deprecation are top of mind, but they won’t be the last disruptions in healthcare advertising. Planning for a broader impact on advertising as we know it today will allow marketers to execute without delays and extra costs. With a strong marketing analytics foundation, you can successfully navigate these challenges and prepare for future shifts. Here are four tips to help you confidently implement campaigns and meet your goals.

1) In times of change, focus on the fundamentals

If you’re feeling unprepared for a cookieless world, remember the fundamentals. An objective, privacy-safe measurement framework is still essential for making unbiased optimization decisions. Jason Patterson, chief analytics officer at Publicis Health Media (PHM), is working with his clients in preparation for these challenges. “From a measurement perspective, using an objective third party is critical because that’s about methodology and using the same currency as we work with publishers across the media plan,” says Patterson.

Make sure you also have a full view of what’s behind the analytics. At Crossix, we encourage our customers to open up the hood and take a look inside at the methodology, metric definitions, statistical significance, privacy protections, and sample sizes. Familiarity with these details can help your team feel assured that they are making business decisions based on accurate insights. “When we say something is not performing, we want to know that information is grounded in a true third-party, transparent methodology,” says Patterson.

2) Future-proof for inevitable shifts in ad technology

To keep up with ongoing changes in ad technology, marketing analytics partners also need to go beyond this core foundation and make ongoing investments in future-proof innovations at scale. This includes partnerships with publishers and media channels to provide direct media feeds to support measurement after cookies go away. Direct media feeds, for example, allow continued, holistic media measurement across digital and connected TV channels for both DTC and HCP campaigns.

3) Rely on partners to help you navigate a cookieless world

Remember, you don’t need to navigate these challenges on your own. Your media agency and marketing analytics partners have been monitoring and preparing for these changes and may already have solutions in place. Tap into their expertise, ask questions, and work together to address gaps so you can act on insights quickly and confidently. “As the media landscape evolves, we’re going to see different opportunities to connect with patients,” says Patterson. “Using analytics, we can understand what’s working and what’s not and adjust the media plan.” Leaning on your partners will help your team react quickly to these ongoing changes.

Bringing analytics upstream as part of the planning process – with your media agency, marketing analytics, and brand teams – aligns everyone on the goals and direction of campaigns. That way, when it comes time to make decisions and optimizations, your team can have confidence and act quickly.

4) Use data as a competitive advantage

My advice for using data as a competitive advantage comes down to a few key components. Focus on the right internal operations and experts who can use data to its full potential – whether it’s to tell a story or uncover actionable insights. Layering on the right processes lets you act on those insights with speed. Rituals like looking at data regularly and executing experimental designs and test-and-learns can help ensure your message reaches the right people in the best way possible.

2024 will be a disruptive year, but healthcare marketers can succeed and set themselves up to handle other inevitable changes. Remember to pay attention to what’s happening, look at the benchmarks, and course correct on expectations if you need to.