Increase in the number of conversions for proctology direction

The Client

Medical center “Klinika Dobrogo Doktora”, which is located in a residential area of ​​Kyiv. Services provided:

• consultation of family doctors and narrow specialists;
• diagnostics;
• outpatient surgery.

Client Target audience:

• residents of nearby areas.

Work period:

• from 11.08.21 to 31.01.2022

Our task:

A task for the first stage of cooperation was to ensure patients’ regular appointments with proctologists.

Preamble:

At the time of the cooperation started, the client had already conducted advertising campaigns on Google to promote the direction of proctology and the campaigns were set up at a fairly good level. But it still did not give the desired result.

From 11.01. 202 to 10.06.2021 53.5 conversions were received.

Optimization and tuning in the first period.

After an audit of the advertising account, we came to the conclusion that the low efficiency of the chosen strategy for obtaining the maximum number of conversions was associated with several factors:

• a limited budget for clicks;
• a very high cost per click in the proctology direction;



• competition with large networks of medical centers.

It was decided to divide all the “Proctology” direction services into two ECs by marginality:

• consultation appointments;
• surgical interventions.

Also, launch ads for branded and general queries to increase visits to the medical center.

For promotion, the “Target Impression Share” strategy was chosen, the choice of which was not the most obvious at first glance.

From Google Ads help we know:

“Target Impression Share can be useful for campaigns with brand terms. For example, let’s say you want your ad to show 100% of the time when a user searches for your brand. You can set the Target Impression Share to 100% and the system will then try to show your ad on 100% of auctions in that campaign. This bid strategy can also be useful in raising awareness of your brand.”

It may seem that this strategy does not fit the client’s goals at all. Still, in this particular case, the strategy had a number of advantages:

• the ability to control the cost per click (which is fundamentally important with a strictly limited budget);
• display above the ads of larger competitors.

During the first month of work, 29 conversions were received in the direction of proctology and 24 conversions for brand queries.

After two months of testing and optimizing the operation_procedure average cost per conversion for the surgery advertising campaign was still too high (UAH 1,552.09), so it was decided to suspend it.

An important step in working with the client was to determine the subtleties and features of interactions with target audience for this taboo to discuss in Ukraine topic. Monitoring of medical forums and websites was carried out. The key point was the discovery that potential patients are not in a hurry to see a proctologist for an appointment and may put off visiting for years. Consequently, the sales funnel here is much longer in comparison, for example, with therapy or dentistry. Therefore, it is necessary to interact with a potential client at different stages of decision-making.

To this purpose, advertising campaigns were launched on the display network.

Targeting for remarketing audiences in Google ads in medical topics is limited. So, we gathered audiences on purpose (based on analysis of search queries and competing sites), as well as the audience of visitors prone to proctological complications (such as pregnancy).

Ads on the Display Network had a good increase in traffic and conversions, but over time the effectiveness of Ads has declined due to Google’s restrictions on advertising for medical services and the constant rejection of individual ads.

In the following periods of maintenance and optimization, the launch of the following advertising campaigns was tested::

• an advertising campaign with maximum efficiency (Performance Max) received conversions on average 364% cheaper than in the Search AC. However, for the effective operation of the AC, a sufficient amount of accumulated statistical data in the account was required;
• Smart ads showed good performance and conversions with an average cost 3 times lower than Search ads;
• ACs with dynamic search ads did not deliver the expected results and were suspended due to poor performance.

During each maintenance period, regular optimization tasks were carried out:

• analysis of the effectiveness of account spending, redistribution of budgets between advertising campaigns;
• elaboration of user search queries, exclusion of inappropriate ones;
• optimization of the semantic core of advertising campaigns based on a detailed analysis of keywords and search queries;
• regular review and removal of sites on which impressions are carried out – by CTR, cost per conversion, content, and structure of sites.

Google Ads promotion results:

Also, for the period of work from 11.08.2021 to 10.01.2022, the number of visitors to the proctology landing page by 419.87%. The decrease in the conversion rate is due to the launch of advertising campaigns in the Display Network.

Due to war in Ukraine, work on the project has been suspended.

Advertising in social networks

In order to interact with potential customers at all stages of decision-making, as well as to involve new audiences of users, it was decided to launch advertising campaigns on social networks (Meta).

When setting up targeted advertising for the direction of proctology, three target audiences were tested. As It is impossible to target the interests of medical topics, we chose the following types of activities most prone to proctological complications:

• Sedentary lifestyle;
• Pregnancy;
• Athletes.

As a result of testing, the “Sedentary Lifestyle” audience worked the best.

Social networks (Meta) do not have a ban on the promotion of medical topics, however, there are many restrictions to protect the users’ privacy. For this reason, creatives and ads should be as neutral as possible to avoid account bans.

Advertising campaigns were set up:

• for traffic (landing page visits) to redirect users to the landing page and then create lookalike audiences;
• sending messages to the messenger (communication using chats is becoming more relevant every year).

The goal “sending messages to the messenger” showed good performance: in 2 months, 80 requests were received at an average price of $7.

But at the initial stage, almost all appeals did not transform into patients of the clinic. The communications of clinic managers-visitors in the messenger were analyzed and the following importsint features were identiified:

• managers did not provide information directly in the chat, but offered only telephone communication;
• many visitors were interested in the topics of preparing and holding the reception, but they were not comfortable discussing it directly with the manager.

Recommendations were given:

• to provide information to customers exclusively in a chat, taking into account the specifics of the direction and not to insist on personal communication so as not to confuse users;
• provide the most detailed answers to the most common questions about preparing and conducting an appointment on the landing page, for self-acquaintance of patients.

Conclusions

As a result of working with the Google Ads account, the following results were achieved:

• the number of conversions increased by 166% (from 53.5 to 142.3 conversions);
• the average cost per click decreased by 67% (from UAH 16.89 to UAH 5.54);



• the number of assisted conversions (conversions that are received by other traffic channels, but where google/cpc is involved in the way) was increased by 65.38%.

As a result of promotion in social networks Meta for 2 months of work, the following was received:

• 88 calls to the messenger;
• 2,543 link clicks;
• 96 reactions to the publication;
• 16 reposts.

Medical topics in general require caution in promotion due to many restrictions. In the proctology direction, distrust and inconvenience of patients to consult a doctor are added to this, which significantly lengthens the time for making a decision. Therefore, it is important:

• to use all possible channels of promotion, to popularize the services of the proctology direction;
• to remove the prejudice against “inappropriate” topic;
• provide maximum information on the site in order to minimize communication with the administrative staff of the clinic, and to preserve the privacy of each patient.

Google Ads tools used in the project:

Types of advertising campaigns:

• Search network campaigns;
• Display network campaigns;
• Smart campaigns;
• Campaigns with maximum efficiency (Performance Max).

Bid Strategies:

• Target impression share;
• Maximum conversions;
• Target cost per conversion.

Meta tools used in the project:

Types of advertising campaigns:

• advertising campaigns with the goal of Traffic (visiting the landing page);
• advertising campaigns with the goal of the Message (the beginning of correspondence in the messenger).

Project participants:

Project managers: Yulia Myrna, Oleksandra Nesina

PPC-specialists: Oleksandr Shylin, Maryna Pylaeva

Head of contextual advertising department: Halyna Lyman