Are you struggling to generate returns with your healthcare social media ads? Then you’ve come to the right place.
While social media is undeniably powerful for acquiring new customers, it’s a bit trickier to navigate when you’re selling healthcare products and/or services. More often than not, new advertisers find themselves bleeding through their ad spend or facing disapproval after disapproval when launching their initial campaigns.
If you’re in the same boat, you’re not alone — and there are ways to overcome these challenges to deliver the results your brand needs.
Here at Inflow, we’ve helped dozens of healthcare clients successfully advertise their products or services on social media by uncovering the secret recipe for this industry.
Today, we’re sharing a few of those secrets with you.
Keep reading for some of the top strategies, tactics, and tips we recommend for brands in this space. Want some personalized guidance for your social media campaigns? Schedule a free consultation with our team anytime.
3 Things To Keep In Mind When Getting Started
If you’re completely new to the social media marketing space, we highly recommend stepping back and looking at the big picture before launching your first ads. Otherwise, your campaigns will quickly run through your valuable marketing dollars — with little results to show from it.
Regardless of the platforms on which you plan to advertise, we recommend keeping these three themes in mind:
1. Healthcare social media ads come with additional restrictions.
Most social media platforms have specific rules that govern the advertisement of health and wellness products, especially those that claim to treat a specific symptom or condition.
For example, Facebook prohibits advertisers from promoting specific categories of supplements (including steroids and hormones) and severely limits what these ads can or cannot say.
Run afoul of these rules, and your ads will get disapproved. Do it often enough, and you can get yourself banned from the platform.
We recommend researching each platform’s policies in depth to familiarize yourself with these requirements before launching any campaigns:
- Facebook’s Advertising Standards
- LinkedIn Healthcare Ads Policy
- TikTok Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals Ad Policies
If you’re brand-new to this kind of advertising, it’s best practice to partner with a skilled healthcare marketing agency. They can set your ads up for success from the start, minimizing the likelihood of disapprovals and the wasted time and money that comes from testing on your own.
2. Give platforms time to work.
While social media advertising is one of the quickest ways to scale your healthcare brand growth and revenue, it still takes a significant amount of time to deliver true results.
When you launch ad campaigns for the first time, the social platform (whether it’s Meta, LinkedIn, or something else) begins a “learning period,” during which its algorithm seeks out the right audiences for your audiences, tests the best creative to serve them (as well as when and where customers see your ads), and uses that data to build a stronger targeting strategy over time.
For Meta, this learning phase can take up to a few weeks, depending on the amount of data you have to work with. If you make changes to your targeting strategy or creative before your ads leave that learning phase, you restart the process — setting the timeline for results back even further.
Unfortunately, too many marketing teams lack the patience required to get through this learning phase and simply let the platforms’ AI systems do their thing. In fact, it’s one of the top reasons that clients ask for help — because their ads are not delivering the “results” anticipated in just a few hours after launch.
So, here’s our biggest piece of advice:
Give the ad platforms as much data as possible from the start (allow for broad audience targeting, invest significant ad spend, etc.), and then leave it alone.
Let the platform do the heavy lifting of finding the right recipe for success. Most times, it will optimize much faster (and much more efficiently) than your internal team could.
3. Take platform reps’ advice with a grain of salt.
Most social ad platforms provide you access to in-house representatives. They’re often available for virtual consultations, during which they review your campaign setup and offer recommendations to improve your results.
While these platform reps can be wonderful resources, especially for those new to the social advertising world, their initiatives may not always align with your specific advertising needs. Remember: Their end goal will always be to make more money off of advertisers like you, which means they often suggest budget increases — even if those increases don’t support your specific advertising strategy.
Our recommendation: Be mindful when deciding whether or not to implement suggested optimizations from ad reps. Consider running those recommendations past an external digital marketing agency (such as Inflow) for an objective opinion on their efficiency.
The “See, Think, Do” Full-Funnel Model
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of running social media ads for the healthcare industry, let’s talk about the most important factor in your future success:
Using a multi-touch, full-funnel strategy when structuring your social ad campaigns.
Whether you’re selling healthcare products as an eCommerce retailer or looking for leads as a service provider, most customers won’t make a purchase after just one ad. To help them overcome their buying objections, your social media ad strategy needs to usher them through the purchase funnel using appropriate targeting and ad creative.
We call this the “See, Think, Do” method — and it’s the single factor that, above all else, turns our client’s floundering campaigns into revenue-driving powerhouses.
You can read more about this approach in our case studies, but here’s the gist of the idea:
- Top of Funnel (“See”): Target a broad audience of those new to your brand with creative focused on brand/product awareness and education.
- Middle of Funnel (“Think”): Target a subset of your top-of-funnel audience that has shown intent (i.e. engagement with your ads) with creative focused on product education and value propositions.
- Bottom of Funnel (“Do”): Target a subset of your middle-of-funnel audience that has shown intent (further engagement with your ads) with creative focused on conversion (i.e. discounts, promotions, patient testimonials).
With this funnel-based strategy, you keep new audiences moving through the buying journey and generate more sustainable results over the long term — compared to a campaign focused solely on conversions from the get to, which will quickly lead to a fatigued audience and ever-increasing ad spend for diminishing returns.
Learn more about tailoring your ad creative to this full-funnel strategy with our social ad creative best practices today.
Tips for Running Healthcare Ads on Facebook & LinkedIn
There are countless channels on which you can launch your healthcare social media marketing campaigns — but, today, we’re going to focus on those that deliver the best results for our clients: Meta and LinkedIn.
In our experience, these platforms are two of the more established for healthcare ads, meaning that any industry-specific restrictions have been tried and tested, advertising options remain comparably set in stone, and new advertisers can enter the fray and start generating leads/revenue in a shorter amount of time.
If you’re interested in testing your campaigns on these social networks (or any others), schedule a chat with our digital marketing experts to see how we can help.
Meta (Facebook/Instagram)
Best for: eCommerce, lead generation, and brand awareness
Estimated ad costs: $$
As the OG of social media ad platforms, Meta (which includes Facebook and Instagram) is a great way to test the waters for your healthcare brand.
However, as mentioned above, the rules and regulations for advertising health and wellness products/services are quite strict, so make sure to do your research before launching any campaigns.
Note that while advertising on Meta is cheaper than on platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok, successful campaigns still require a significant amount of ad spend to perform well. We recommend that our clients invest at least $3,000 a month (not including social media management fees) into their campaigns for the best possible results.
If you’re not ready to invest that much money, launching Facebook ads for your healthcare brand may not be the best option for you at this time.
If you are prepared for that investment, follow the tips from our experts below to maximize your campaign performance.
Funnel Stage Goals
Most healthcare brands can use Facebook advertising as a stand-alone strategy that targets every stage in the buying funnel.
While top and middle funnel campaigns will be similar across industries, the goal of your bottom-funnel campaign will vary based on your desired action (a product sale, a request for information, an appointment booking).
Like most social ad platforms, Meta allows you to set goals for each ad group, which will help you maximize their effectiveness.
For example:
- Top/Middle Funnel: Set a goal of awareness/reach. This will expose your ads to as many people as possible, growing your brand awareness and building an audience to which you can remarket later in the funnel.
- Middle Funnel: Set a goal of engagement/landing page views. Meta will serve your ads to those most likely to engage and/or click through to your website.
- Bottom Funnel: Set a goal of form fills (for lead generation) or purchase (for eCommerce). If you’ve used the proper targeting strategy for the earlier funnel stages, this ad group should deliver the ROAS you’re looking for.
Audience Targeting
Meta’s ad platform allows you to target audiences using several demographics, including:
- Job Titles: Healthcare organizations focused on lead generation will find job title targeting useful in delivering higher-quality leads. For example, a nonprofit focused on advancing equity in healthcare may target medical professionals (“doctor,” “registered nurse,” etc.) to promote their training programs.
- Location: If you run a local healthcare clinic, you can (and should!) target audiences within your service area. Location also allows you to exclude regions where you don’t wish to sell your product/services, which is equally important.
- Interests: Tap into your audience research to find out what overlapping interests your audience has. For example, if you’re selling protein powders to improve muscle gain, consider targeting audiences with an interest in bodybuilding. (Note: Meta has limited the specific health interests advertisers can use in their campaigns; you can no longer target specific health issues, considtions, or diseases and instead must use general interests such as “health and wellness” and “physical exercise”.)
Don’t be afraid to target the same audiences across multiple objectives/funnel stages. Meta’s AI will serve the appropriate campaign to the user based on their behavior trends. (For example, an ad with a Reach goal will be shown to those individuals more likely to just view the ad, whereas any ads with Landing Page Views will be shown to those audiences more likely to click into your website.)
Bottom line: The broader you can make your audience, the more successful your targeting will be. (However, if budgets are tight, make sure to turn off the audience network option, which serves your ads to audiences beyond Meta’s platform.)
You can also upload any customer lists you have to enhance your audience data and create lookalike audiences of your most valuable customers, such as past purchasers.
Creative
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Your creative can make or break your Facebook ads campaign performance.
Meta loves flexibility with creative. The more options you can provide its AI machine, the more testing it can do to identify the best placements and ad types for your specific audience.
Remember that your ads (especially those at the top of the funnel) will reach audiences who are not usually researching your product/service at the moment they see them. Your ad creative should draw their attention with an eye-catching design and answer the questions they didn’t know they had.
Some other recommendations for your Meta ads creative:
- Experiment with a mix of social media content. It’s best to have a solid mix of creative types; Gen Z audiences expect high-quality “aesthetic” images, Millennials want more “authentic” influencer-style videos, and Gen X/Boomers respond best to more traditional ad styles.
- Repurpose organic posts and creative from other channels. What resonates with your audiences there may also resonate on Meta.
- Feature pictures or videos with faces visible. At its heart, healthcare is about making people feel better — so highlight the customers your product/service is trying to help, not just the product/service itself. User-generated content is a great option for this.
If your ad creative is underperforming, review your competitors’ ads in Facebook’s Ad Library for inspiration.
You can also use some of our client examples (including creative that generated a 318% increase in Facebook ads revenue) to help brainstorm your own creative strategy.
The video below is hosted on YouTube. If you need assistance with viewing the video, please contact info@goinflow.com.
Best for: Brand awareness and lead generation
Estimated ad costs: $$$
While overlooked by many digital marketers, LinkedIn offers untapped potential for many healthcare companies, especially those with a target audience of medical professionals.
The vibe here is vastly different from Facebook. Ads are typically more professional and polished, with a focus on generating leads through form fills to request more information, sign up for events, or download promoted content. InMail messages can also be used as a form of direct advertising on the platform.
LinkedIn advertising is also much more expensive than Meta on average. The platform itself recommends a daily budget between $50 and $100, which can quickly add up to thousands of dollars each month. In our experience, the best results are generated with an even higher budget to overcome competition.
If these costs are prohibitive to your business, you can always run campaigns focused solely on brand awareness, which will be cheaper than acquiring leads. (Of course, make sure that you’re advertising on other channels to account for those later stages in the buying cycle.)
Note: If you are trying to sell products such as over-the-counter drugs or medical devices on LinkedIn, you will need to obtain prior authorization from a LinkedIn representative before launching any campaigns.
However, we’d advise against using LinkedIn as an eCommerce marketing platform; the lower cost of retail products rarely justifies the cost of advertising here.
Funnel Stage Goals
If your brand can afford a full-funnel strategy on LinkedIn, your approach will look very similar to that on Meta:
- Top Funnel: Set a goal of awareness. Because you are introducing your brand to previously unaware audiences, you have a bit more freedom with creative. Consider testing lower-production-value video to help your ads blend into the native feed and catch potential customers’ eyes.
- Middle Funnel: Set a goal of website visits/engagement/video views. Like with your Meta campaigns, your middle-funnel goal is to separate those audiences who show interest in your product for later retargeting. With this campaign goal, LinkedIn will serve your ads to the target audience most likely to take the next step.
- Bottom Funnel: Set a goal of lead generation or website conversions. Note that we typically don’t recommend LinkedIn ad campaigns for eCommerce brands; these campaigns generate much better returns when they target lead generation, either on or off the platform.
Audience Targeting
Because of its status as a professional and career growth network, LinkedIn is a boon for targeting professionals based on their roles — which is especially helpful if you’re advertising B2B healthcare services or products.
Like with Meta, you can target customers using:
- Locations: Again, this is a key demographic if you’re marketing a healthcare organization that only serves clients in a specific geographic region.
- Audience attributes: These include details like company, job experience, education, professional demographics, interests, and traits. You can easily tailor your audiences to include titles like “doctor” or industries like “healthcare”; just be aware of how these specific targeting choices may impact your overall audience size.
You can also create custom audiences on LinkedIn using your own first-party data. For example, if you have a list of past webinar attendees, LinkedIn will take that list and make similar audiences for future retargeting.
As always, make sure that your LinkedIn ad targeting abides by the platform’s restrictions. Many healthcare-related ads can only be targeted toward healthcare professionals. Target a general audience of consumers, and you risk disapprovals or bans.
Creative
Unfortunately, LinkedIn limits how much flexibility you have with creatives. Many campaigns are limited to one or two creative formats at a time, which makes it difficult to test A/B test creative strategies on a large scale.
That said, carousels and videos are typically the strongest-performing creative for our clients. Lean into professional, graphic-heavy content that both attracts the user’s eye and (depending on the funnel stage) educates them about your medical practice/services or motivates them to take the next step toward conversion with a clear call-to-action (CTA).
To skirt certain restrictions, you may have to get creative (pun intended) with what you present in your ads. Take the example below, in which we helped client Layla Martin advertise a webinar focused on self-pleasure (a subject that most advertising platforms are fairly strict about):
Many of the same creative recommendations apply here: Use human faces and patient stories in video ads, build trust by using authoritative figures (such as doctors or scientists), and refresh your creative often to avoid viewer fatigue.
Creating Your Healthcare Social Media Strategy
Don’t let the restrictions fool you; there are plenty of opportunities for healthcare providers and retailers to advertise on social platforms — as long as you do it correctly.
For the best chance of success (and to reduce the likelihood of disapprovals and wasted ad spend), consider teaming up with a healthcare advertising expert like those at Inflow. They can help you create an effective marketing strategy, keeping these regulations and restrictions in mind, and deliver quicker results for your brand.
If you’re interested in learning how Inflow’s team can help, we offer free digital marketing consultations for those exploring this marketing channel.
Reach out below for more information, or schedule your appointment today:
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