Measuring Digital Channels’ ROI in Pharma Marketing
Praveen Radhakrishnan, Manager- Strategic Initiatives, Indegene
Digital channels are more and more being used to reach HCPs, along with traditional channels like reps, to complement and in some cases, replace them. This trend accelerated post-COVID and has continued to grow ever since. One critical challenge for marketers is quantifying the impact of these sources. This article gives the outline of a data-driven framework to track the ROI of the digital channel spend.
Why Measurement Matters
Marketing in pharma is no longer just confined to the face-to-face interactions Healthcare Practitioners (HCPs) have with the sales representatives. Digital channels have also been entering this ecosystem, with COVID accelerating the adoption. What started out as an additional channel is now being viewed as a complementary option. Some firms even segment the HCPs into face-to-face and digital targets to optimize their marketing spend. From brand websites being a common destination to webinars, email, professional platforms, paid search, and programmatic media, all are being employed to capture the limited HCP attention.
With adoption moving at a steady pace, the question of measuring their impact has always persisted. But the answer is not so straightforward. Unlike a traditional ecommerce site where a purchase can be attributed to the campaign success, things in pharma are fragmented due to the limitation in connecting prescriptions to what’s being considered as a conversion or High Value Action (HVA) within the digital channels. These HVAs could be a form completion providing contact details for further communication, a video view completion, or even a download of a drug-related file. The privacy and compliance requirements in a sensitive pharma landscape also add further complexity to the equation.
A comprehensive data-driven measurement plan is a very critical component to address this. It primarily delivers on two fronts: deciding how much to invest in digital channels and where within the different channel options available that budget should be allocated to. This needs to be approached with the precision of attribution in e-commerce channels while accounting for the long sales cycle, along with compliance and regulatory requirements typical for the life science industry.
Challenges with the Measurement
The primary challenge with understanding the performance of digital channels is their fragmented nature. Each digital channel has its own performance metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) reported separately. For example, metrics like total sends, open rate, and click-through rate for emails; impressions, viewable impressions and clicks for banner ads; pageviews, scrolls, video downloads, and form completions, etc., on websites and there on.
On top of that, all these channels are typically run by different teams within the firm or likely by different agencies or digital partners in most cases. They present their performance reports separately and, in some cases, provide readouts as well. The only place where a consolidated view across all the channels and their KPIs are available are usually through centralized dashboards built around this. But as these are developed in an isolated manner, it’s difficult to get a consistent, comparable and holistic view of digital-channel performance. Adding on to it is the mapping of this channel performance to actual commercial outcomes.
The Solution
A useful measurement architecture to measure the ROI accurately is a 5-step process as below:
1. Define the Brand Questions
This starts with identification of Key Business Questions (KBQ) the brand team needs answers to make decisions on channel and budget allocations. A few of the questions that brands usually have are the following:
1. Has the campaign reached the intended targets- HCPs/caretakers/patients?
2. Are they reached targets engaging with the brand or its campaigns in a meaningful way?
3. Are there any behavioural changes in HCPs who have engaged with digital content alone, sales representatives alone or both together?
4. Which channel is suitable for each different kind of communication?
5. What type of content assets drive the intended audience engagement?
2. Map Outcomes and KPIs
The next step in this process is to identify the actual outcomes that will answer the KBQs. The following are the outcomes a measurement plan should support:
- Content Outcomes: The type of content which leads to increased engagement across banner ads, websites, emails etc.
- Engagement Quality: Is there a measurable improvement in the quality of HCP engagement with these channels, enquiries with reps initiated by these channels etc.
- Commercial impact: New-to-brand prescriptions, market share increases, new treatment starts etc.
- Based on the measured outcomes, we need to map the KPIs that need to be tracked and reported on to measure the outcomes that will answer the KBQs. A significant challenge in this is to coordinate with different teams who will be able to provide individual data points for their respective tools and capabilities.
3. Apply Attribution and Incrementality Methods
Once the measurement foundation is in place along with an accurate mapping to outcomes, attribution will help in understanding how different channels contribute to the outcomes. Industry typically relies on a last-touch attribution model, with the entire credit for a digital HVA like HCP signup to marketing emails being credited to the last session’s source. That often ignores the contribution of all the touchpoints prior to the last touchpoint, which contributed to the final conversion. A few other simple methods include first-touch, position-based, and time-decay attribution.
Data Driven Attribution (DDA) models based on logistic regression and Markov chains are superior in identifying and attributing the conversion credit in a better manner but require more data points and effort. A combination of simple and DDA models is often suitable, selecting the appropriate model based on the availability of data.
4. Convert Findings into Decisions
The next step in this process is to turn the outcomes of previous steps into actionable decisions. The brand teams should be able to make decisions around channel mix, total and individual channel budget allocation, content choices etc., based on the answers to the KBQs supported by KPIs identified.
A detailed readout of the campaigns’ performance for the duration under consideration, often with a supporting presentation, helps brand teams in making these decisions. Dashboards should be treated as a complementary resource and will also aid in the decision-making process if the brand teams want details or specifics beyond what’s provided in the readouts.
5. Formulate and Test New Hypothesis
The final step in the process is to develop new hypotheses based on the outcomes observed and decisions made. Let’s say that email campaigns are found to be more effective in driving desired results than a paid search campaign, and a decision is made that budget allocation for email campaigns will be increased.
A sample hypothesis will be made along the following lines: Email campaigns for an additional 3 HCP target groups with at least 2 follow-up emails for users not interacting initially, using content type A, will yield a>30% increase in HVA conversions through email channels on brand websites. Campaigns will then be designed around this and results observed.
Conclusion
While it might not be possible to accurately map each additional prescription to a particular digital channel or its interaction, a disciplined approach to measurement of omnichannel ROIs will be able to answer the broader questions around quality of engagement, behavioural changes caused by it, incremental commercial or patient outcomes and ultimately the financial value. In pharma, we have moved from the question of whether the digital channels work to a point where brands want to know how and where it created value for HCPs, patients, and caretakers respectively, under what channel mix, and how it contributed to the overall commercial success of the brand. To answer these questions and maximise the outcomes from digital channels, a structured measurement strategy and its execution is fundamental.
Praveen Radhakrishnan is a Digital Strategy Professional working with Indegene, having over 7 years of experience in the life sciences industry, specializing in commercial excellence, digital enablement, and measurement strategy. He holds an engineering degree in Biotechnology and an MBA in Strategy and Marketing. He has worked with 10+ different life sciences firms in digital analytics and measurement area.
