And when is the best time of year to run them?
Interested in encouraging more of your patients to come in to your clinic for preventative health checks, but aren’t sure which campaigns to run and which season to run them? To help, we thought we’d share the results from our Inform Promotions campaigns over the past year.
Background on the data
The results we analysed come from over 165,000 HotDoc patients who voluntarily clicked a display ad to learn more about a specific preventative health campaign.
These display ads were run through HotDoc’s Inform Promotions product. Inform Promotions are soft-touch display ads, which can be set to appear after a patient has booked an appointment or confirmed an appointment reminder through HotDoc, or checked in via a HotDoc Check-In Kiosk.
Above: A 45 second video explaining how HotDoc Inform works
At the time of this article, HotDoc clinics were running the following preventative health campaigns using HotDoc Inform Promotions: skin checks, flu clinics, cervical screening tests, bowel cancer, fall prevention, asthma, shingles vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine, heart health check, and travel vaccines.
We broke these campaigns down into click through rates (CTR), which is the number of people who clicked a display ad to learn more about a specific preventative health campaign. We then broke these CTRs down into seasons. Below we showcase the most successful campaigns for Summer, Winter, Autumn and Spring.
The top performing campaign of the year
Looking at the entire year, the most successful preventative health campaign was the cervical screening test. The campaign received an average click through rate (CTR) of 2.5%. This means for every 100 people who saw the display ad, 2.5 people clicked the ad to learn more.
While this may not sound like a lot, it’s actually right on the industry standard for a successful CTR. Think about the last time you saw a display ad in an app or on a webpage that you actually clicked to learn more. Often people see such ads and make a mental note of the message without clicking to learn more.
In other words, CTR doesn’t take into consideration all of those patients who saw a display ad and decided to talk to a receptionist or their GP about the campaign the next time they came into the clinic.
In the above graph, you can see that the best month to run a cervical screening campaign is January (3.1%) and the least effective month to run a cervical screening campaign is September (1.8%).
Summer: the top performing campaigns
The most successful preventative health campaigns to run in Summer are:
- Cervical screening
- Shingles vaccine
- Skin checks
Across Summer, cervical screening (2.8%) was again the highest performing campaign, peaking in January (3.1%). As mentioned above, January was in fact the best month across the year to run a cervical screening campaign.
Shingles vaccine also peaked in January (2.9%). Again, January happened to be the best shingles vaccine performed all year.
Skin checks were most effective in December (2.3%) and January (2.6%) before falling from February (2.1%) onward.
The big takeaway here is that January proved to be the most successful month for all 3 of the top performing campaigns. So, if you want to target patients with any of the above campaigns, choose January.
Autumn: the top performing campaigns
The most successful preventative health campaigns to run in Autumn are:
- Flu clinics
- Bowel cancer
- Cervical screening
Across Autumn, flu clinics (3.2%) was the top performing campaign. Although the campaign wasn’t run by HotDoc clinics in March, it proved substantially more effective than the other campaigns in April (3.3%) and May (3.1%).
Following flu clinics, bowel cancer (2.6%) and cervical screening (2.6%) placed in equal second for performance in Autumn.
While both campaigns remained relatively consistent throughout the season, it’s worth noting that bowel cancer performed better in Autumn than any other time of the year. So, if you’re looking to boost bowel cancer screening appointments, Autumn is the best time of year to run your campaign.
Winter: the top performing campaigns
The most successful preventative health campaigns to run in Winter are:
- Flu clinics
- Cervical screening
- Bowel Cancer
Similar to Autumn, flu clinics (2.5%) proved to be the most effective campaign for Winter. This said, the campaign was substantially less effective than in Autumn (down 0.7%).
It’s worth noting that if you do want to run a flu campaign, you’re likely to get the best results early in the year. The campaign peaked in April (3.3%) and fell each consecutive month (ie. May – 3.1%, June – 2.7%, July – 2.3%). Obviously the caveat here is that vaccinating patients too early means people aren’t properly protected for the entire duration of flu season.
Cervical screening (2.4%) was the next highest performing campaign for Winter. Although similar to flu clinics, it’s performance dropped (by 0.2%) from Autumn.
Bowel Cancer (2.2%) was the third most successful Winter campaign. Again, however, we saw a drop in performance (by 0.4%) from Autumn.
Spring: the top performing campaigns
The most successful preventative health campaigns to run in Spring are:
- Cervical screening
- Bowel Cancer
- Skin Cancer
Across Spring, cervical screening (2.1%) was the top performing campaign. This said, Spring still proved to be the worst time of year to run the campaign. The average fell substantially from its peak in Summer (0.7% drop).
It’s also worth noting that the cervical screening campaign climbed quickly throughout the season, starting low in September (1.8%) and climbing steadily through October (2.1%) to November (2.6%). So, if you do want to run a cervical screening campaign in Spring, you’re best saving it for the tail end.
Bowel cancer (1.8%) was the second highest performing campaign for the season. Although again, Spring proved to be the worst time of year to run the campaign. Similar to cervical screening, the bowel cancer campaign had its lowest month for the year in September (1.6%) and increased steadily through October (1.8%) to November (2.0%).
The third highest performing Spring campaign was skin checks (1.2%). While the campaign was fairly consistent throughout the season, it too saw its lowest performance for the year; performing worse than even Winter. Summer proved to be the best time of year to run a skin check campaign followed by Autumn, Winter, and finally, Spring.
How other preventative health campaigns performed
Interested in how the other campaigns not mentioned above performed? Fall prevention proved most successful in Summer and least successful in Winter. Asthma awareness proved most successful in Autumn and least successful in Spring.
Shingles vaccine proved most successful in Summer and least successful in Spring. And, pneumococcal vaccine proved most successful in Autumn and least successful in Spring.
Unfortunately, our heart health check and travel vaccine campaigns only had enough data to cover Winter and Spring, so we were unable to analyse these results over the course of a full year. We can confidently say, however, that both campaigns performed twice as well in Winter as they did in Spring.
Key takeaways
Run most campaigns early in the year
Almost all campaigns peaked in Summer (more specifically January) and dropped over the course of the year. Although it makes me cringe to say it, perhaps there is some truth to the idea of ‘New Year’s resolutions’. After all, the data shows that people tend to engage most with preventative health campaigns early in the year before interest wanes. Typically interest falls a little each month until it troughs in September. From November onward, interest begins to improve again.
Run a bowel screening campaign in Autumn
Bowel screening was one of the few campaigns that didn’t peak in Summer. It saw its highest engagement in Autumn. This makes Autumn a great month to run an initiative around your bowel screening program.
Run flu clinics as early as possible
The earlier you can start advertising flu vaccinations, the better, as engagement peaks in April and falls a little each subsequent month. As mentioned above, the caveat here is to make sure you aren’t running campaigns so early that patients don’t receive the benefits of the vaccine for the entire duration of flu season.
Want to start using HotDoc Inform in your clinic?
If you’re a HotDoc clinic, speak to your Customer Success Manager. If you’re not a HotDoc clinic, call 1300 468 362 or email [email protected] and we’ll be happy to provide you with a free no obligation demo.
