Patient recruitment ads on Google: how much should you pay?

Advertising on Google and other search engines can be an effective patient recruitment tactic. However, it can deliver a poor return on investment if you don’t understand how to get the pricing right.

Before I show you how to do this, it’s worth summarizing the pricing model used by Google, Yahoo and Bing.

When you recruit patients via traditional media (e.g. TV, radio and newspapers) you typically pay a fixed fee regardless of how effective your ads are. In contrast, when you advertise on a search engine, you only pay for results. In particular, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Importantly, you decide how much you’ll pay every time someone does this. You do this by bidding on a certain keyword. For example, if you want your patient recruitment ad to appear when someone searches ‘metastatic melanoma’, you tell Google how much you’re prepared to pay if that user clicks on your ad.

Given that other organizations also want their patient recruitment ads to appear when someone searches for ‘metastatic melanoma’, you have to bid against them. The more you bid, the higher up the page your advertisement will appear compared to your competitors (in practice, another factor known as your Quality Score also determines your position).

If money is no object, you’ll probably pay anything to outbid your competitors in order to beat them to the top position. After all, the top position typically enjoys the most clicks.

However, an effective search engine advertising campaign isn’t just about getting lots of clicks. To deliver value, it obviously must result in eligible patients going on to sign an Informed Consent document. The percentage of patients who do this determines your conversion rate.

The higher your conversion rate, the better. After all, as the conversion rate goes up, the amount you have to spend to consent each patient goes down.

According to Google, two identical ads will generate the same conversion rate, regardless of where on the page they appear relative to each other. However, as the one higher up the page will generate more clicks, it will also generate more enquiries.  And, therefore, more enrolled subjects. But, as the one higher up the page will have a higher cost per click, the cost of acquiring each subject will be higher. In fact, it may be so high that it isn’t commercially viable for you.

On that note, how do you select an appropriate cost per click? The answer lies in following these steps (Note: the random values I’ve used are for explanation only – they don’t reflect real world numbers):

Step 1: Identify the value of a consented subject

Let’s say its $1000. With this figure in mind, you must work out how many patient enquiries you need before you get one consented subject. Let’s say you need 10 enquiries. That means each enquiry is worth $100.

Step 2: Identify the value of a click

Knowing that an enquiry is worth $100, you must next work out what percentage of patients clicking on your ad will enquire. Let’s say it’s 10%.

You then multiple $100 x 10% = $10. In other words, the value to you of a click on your ad is $10.

Step 3: Decide how much you’ll pay to receive that $10 click

To do this, identify how much advertising money you’re prepared to spend to acquire a consented subject worth $1000. Let’s say you’ll spend 20% of the subject’s value (i.e. $200).

Next, multiply the value to you of a click ($10) by the amount you’re prepared to spend on advertising to generate one subject (20%): $10 x 20% = $2.

$2 is the maximum you should spend per click. This may or may not result in your ad appearing at the top of the page. However, it will ensure you enjoy the position that best meets your business objectives.

If you have a question for me about any of the above points, please leave it in the comments section below.