The Value of Programmatic in Health: Takeaways from Chris Neuner

Recently, PulsePoint’s Chief Strategy Officer, Chris Neuner, shared valuable insights from his career encompassing more than 30 years in healthcare marketing (and a decade diving into programmatic) during the Precision and Programmatic Marketing for Pharma Event.

And in case you missed his key takeaways about how focusing your programmatic advertising strategies using real time performance, client data and patient centricity can enhance your healthcare marketing campaigns—and how you should rethink how you look at programmatic, too—we’ve rounded up some of Neuner's most sage advice.‍

The more you know, the further you’ll go ‍

It used to be that a certain healthcare provider would visit your brand and leave a trail of anonymity behind them, as Neuner explains—an outdated form of information gathering that lacks the critical component of real-time data. 

Thanks to programmatic’s ability to now use real time data around NPI targeting that’s actionable, the whole concept of programmatic has been rewritten to give you more information than ever on which HCPs are visiting your brand’s sites and campaigns—and the exact path they took to get there. 

Not only are you able to get a much bigger picture of your potential customer via their NPI, but you can then marry that information with other details about them. These 1:1 level insights make it possible to know, for example, whether an HCP is an active-information seeker who stays ahead of new science and would be best reached via digital campaigns or if they’re someone who might be better targeted by your in-person sales force, instead. 

Programmatic advertising strategy, as Neuner explains, has changed from being based around claims data and whether an HCP is a high or low subscriber to being used as a strategy for gleaning insights for a far more complete digital and medical view. Now, it can tell you things like whether the HCP has high switching potential, if they need more information on clinical trials or if you should switch up your tactics from non-personal promotion to increased rep-driven activity. 

After all, when you ensure HCPs are getting the information they want the way they want it,  you’re truly resonating with your target audience. And you’ll see the results in your campaign ROI. ‍

Informed programmatic helps develop your brand strategy, too ‍

In addition to the importance of campaign ROI, today’s programmatic potential does wonders for brand planning, too. Using valuable insights to help develop your brand strategy, messaging and audience outreach based on your target audience’s true interests, whether that’s a desire for more information or an intent to purchase. 

Neuner refers to it as the personalization imperative—something seen across customers of all types that’s entirely relevant in healthcare marketing, too. 

Customers today expect brands and companies to understand their unique needs and expectations, as demonstrated via a salesforce statistic shared by Neuner. 

And it’s no different in healthcare marketing. 

Programmatic allows you to fulfill that personalization imperative, creating strategies around business rules at the place “where the magic happens around these real time insights,” as Neuner explains it. 

You can then follow the process downstream, he says, to targeting and activation—knowing full well whether your efforts will be best served by things like in-person promotion, search ads, native content, or something else entirely. ‍

Real-time data has the power to transform healthcare‍

As Neuner puts it, there’s a definition of programmatic in the healthcare space that’s just not serving it justice. 

And now is the time to think of programmatic advertising not in terms of how it stacks up to your endemic budget but rather to consider the larger, multi-faceted picture of the benefits it can deliver.

By using real-time data to set up triggers and information that sequence an HCP through their journey, you’re pre-empting their needs -- and delivering the information they need at the precise moment they’re seeking it. 

And therein, says Neuner, lies the uninhibited power of programmatic in healthcare that’s all yours to tap. ‍

Learn more about PulsePoint’s health-focused programmatic solutions and get started today.