3 Ways Health & Wellness Brands Can Do More with Data

In the saturated wellness market, ensuring audiences take action is pivotal for health and wellness brands hoping to maximize their ad spending. While metrics like click-through rates (CTR) provide valuable insights, the real challenge lies in breaking through the clutter and truly resonating with potential customers.

Most health & wellness categories like sleep, skincare, and nutrition are quite broad, and a brand’s goal is to ensure they reach the most appropriate audience subset for their products. To boost action while keeping campaigns cost-efficient, marketers need a way to identify the specific, high-intent audiences most relevant to their brand. 

Using data, here are three ways brands can go deeper, beyond traditional targeting methods, to achieve visibility and impact for their specific audience segments in an overcrowded market. These are just snapshots of the multiple angles and approaches brands can use. 

1. Build Personas Based on Data-Driven Correlations

Example Category: Skincare

Data Tool: Personas based on data correlations. The skincare audience on Healthline.com consists of multiple distinct personas with different interests and intentions. Our zero and first-party data provides a rich, nuanced understanding, as we can look at which users are over-indexed for other categories, compared with the average Healthline.com user, and therefore recognize correlations that would otherwise go unnoticed. 

Take a look at three trending personas: 

• Treatment Seeking: Looking for help with skin conditions. 

  • 355% more likely to read about eczema 

  • 366% more likely to read about acne

• Beauty and Maintenance: Focused on beauty procedures, supplements, and haircare. 

  • 464% more likely to read about beauty 

  • 120% more likely to read about haircare

• Self-care and Wellness: Over-indexes on broader wellness topics. 

  • 151% more likely to read about aromatherapy

  • 43% more likely to read about herbal supplements

Brand Benefits: With personas built on data correlations, you can focus targeting and ad spending on the most appropriate subsets of people for your brand, whether you sell acne products or eczema treatments. You can also adjust campaign messaging to resonate with their specific interests and needs, such as tying your product to current beauty trends.

2. Reach High-Intent Audiences in Your Specific Vertical

Example Category: Nutrition 

Data Tool: High-intent audience segments. Predictive data science models make it possible to identify segments of users with a high likelihood of making a future purchase or taking an action in a specific product category. 

Looking at the diet and nutrition audience on Healthline.com, content consumption trends provide a glimpse into whole-person health concerns and interests, with the group over-indexing for content about meal kits, diabetes nutrition, cleanses, skin care supplements, and even mobile apps. But understanding engagement is just the first step. 

Using first-party data at scale, natural language processing (NLP), and machine-learning capabilities, we gain insight into audience intentions. This allows marketers to target those most likely to take action or click on an ad — not just within the general nutrition vertical but within a more specific product category, like meal kits.

Brand Benefits: Drilling down on intention could help you boost CTR. One of our high-intent shopper segments is 74% more likely to click out to a retailer’s site to buy a product than the control user group. A lot of people are interested in nutrition — but now you can target people who are in the right mindset to buy your product, whether protein powder or vitamins. 

3. Drive Campaign Results Using Recency and Relevancy

Example Category: Cold & Flu 

Data Tools: Recency and relevancy. Advertisers who want to reach audiences interested in their cold & flu products need to be relevant at the right moment. The cold & flu audience on Healthline.com exhibits seasonal trends, which call for flexible, data-driven targeting strategies to activate this segment.

• Relevancy: During the cold & flu season, this audience over-indexes for symptom content — but certain symptom content is especially relevant. The audience is 20x more likely to look at sore throat content but only 5x more likely to look at cough content, which is a significant difference. Your targeting methods (and messaging) should focus on the more relevant content for your treatment focus, whether COVID-19 or RSV vaccines, or OTC symptom relief.

• Recency: Flu shot guidance is most in demand during September and October, and of course, once someone gets a flu shot, they won’t need another one soon. Targeting for this segment needs to be recent in order to have an impact, so marketers should be sure to prepare campaigns to run during this time.

Brand Benefits: By aligning your strategies with consumer health journeys, you can tap into a deeper level of engagement, catering directly to the consumers’ immediate needs and concerns. Show up in the right place at the right time, for the people who are looking for cold & flu relief solutions right now! This approach can boost your conversion rate while improving the cost efficiency of your ad spend. 

Make an Impact in Wellness with a Smarter Data Approach

In today's crowded wellness market, relying solely on traditional targeting falls short. Regardless of your brand's wellness category, you can make a more impactful connection by being smarter with data.

Brands can optimize ad spend and boost action through data strategies that fit their business goals, including and beyond the three explored above. You’ll also gain audience insights that empower you to tailor campaigns for a more profound impact. 

In a market where precision matters, embracing these data tools is the key to unlocking the potential of consumer engagement. 

Contact your Heathline Media representative to learn how smarter data strategies could take your marketing to the next level.