GenesisCare, a cancer treatment specialist with 14 centres throughout the UK, wanted to highlight its services to patients in the UK, while also reducing costs. Therefore, in 2020, it partnered with digital performance marketing agency, Tug, to boost its search marketing strategy through a hyper-local approach that both increased ad relevance and campaign reach, transforming its pay-per-click (PPC) performance.
As a result, GenesisCare was able to raise awareness of its presence in the UK – as well as in local areas – and drive enquiries to its centres which house the most technologically advanced cancer care equipment. It also meant it could react quickly to lockdown, helping patients find treatment during uncertainty.
Objectives:
GenesisCare has a complicated list of treatments across multiple sites, making it difficult to bid on the right search queries in the right locations. It also competes with various national and local UK competitors, as well as with non-profit and government websites for visibility on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). It therefore needed to raise awareness of its presence to better compete online.
Moreover, once lockdown started, access to routine screening and cancer treatments was either not available or severely restricted, so GenesisCare wanted a strategy to let people know its services were still available, and how they could access them.
But getting their message out via search marketing was challenging. Google’s policy on healthcare keywords prevents retargeting patients who have already visited the site, as it implies knowledge of personal medical information. GenesisCare therefore needed another way to ensure people requiring treatment were able to find the necessary information.
The Execution
GenesisCare has a long list of treatments and services, so there was a lot of scope to build out keywords – like “urology” and “breast”, as well as identify new ones. The PPC account was restructured and separated by location, with ad copy tailored to each specific centre, along with the unique services performed at each. This improved ad relevance.
The challenge of not being able to remarket to users meant Tug had to think outside the box to target the consumers most relevant to GenesisCare. Data from YouGov was therefore used to understand which new audiences would improve campaign performance on Google Ads, and these were subsequently targeted in campaigns, driving efficient conversions.
Results including metrics and insights:
● From January 2020 to August 2020, conversion rates rose from 4.18% to 9.87%, and cost-per-action (CPA) was reduced by 79% year-on-year.
● In London, CPA improved by 50% and conversion rates rose by 4.6%, driving further enquiries for this specific centre.
● Updates to ad copy for GenesisCare’s prostate and breast cancer campaigns reduced CPA by 94% and 64% respectively.
The hyper-local approach used, combined with overlaying audiences and analysing conversion data, meant GenesisCare was ultimately able to increase its ad relevance, campaign reach, and achieve efficient conversions without remarketing.