By Eric Christophersen, SVP Integrated Media and Bobby Coltharp, Senior Analyst
“Are people really looking for clinical trials on Black Friday?”
“Should recruitment ads be scaled back over the long Thanksgiving weekend? How about between Christmas and New Year’s when ‘everyone is out’?”
Seasonality and the impact on clinical trial enrollment is a topic that comes up regularly within the (mostly virtual) halls of Continuum Clinical, especially around this time of year.
Accelerating enrollment can’t happen when you slow down, but at the same time we are sensitive to efficiency. If holiday advertising doesn’t produce, then holding off and spending more in the new year would seem like a better option.
So what should you do?? We standardized 27 recent campaigns within our MERIS™ Total Engagement Solution to find the answer.
Top of the Funnel: from viewing an ad to entering prescreening
Clinical trial ads are not alone in fighting for shopper patients’ attention around the holidays, especially on social media. So, as one might expect, ad placement costs (eCPMs in media lingo) are 5-10% higher on average.
However, we’re seeing more efficiency when it comes to CPCs (cost per click), especially within search platforms. This stronger engagement with ads during the holidays balanced out. When we look at one of our key metrics, Cost per Inquiry (CPI), we see that December traffic performs in line with other months:
Down the Funnel: site performance
We also looked at what’s happening with study sites. We know they may have less capacity during the holidays – and our advertising won’t matter much if the sites don’t bring referrals in for screening visits.
And in fact we did see longer times from referral to consent during December. But – importantly – holiday referrals made it into the trials at higher rates.
The Bottom Line: Outreach during the holidays will benefit enrollment
It could be the result of a bit more “me time” experienced when not working, when you finally decide to see if you qualify for that trial you’ve seen numerous times before. It could be that added family togetherness highlighted a loved one’s worsening symptoms. Whatever the causes, media and site data point to there being no need for your enrollment to take a holiday nap!
