An addiction medicine treatment center wanted measurable results for their marketing efforts. We proposed a new approach through Google Adwords that got their inquiries soaring.

The Situation

The Shands Vista Florida Recovery Center (FRC), an 81-bed psychiatric hospital, is one of two specialty hospitals affiliated with Shands HealthCare. Three years ago, FRC decided to promote its full range of comprehensive treatment programs via the web. Specifically, FRC planned to re-allocate funds to a Google Adwords campaign promoting programs for substance abuse. There were several reasons why:

  • Consumers are now more likely to turn to the web for medical information than any other medium.
  • Drug and alcohol addiction carry a stigma, making patients self-conscious about seeking treatment. The online environment provides a private, non-threatening avenue to learn more about FRC and the services it provides.
  • Online programs offer the potential to easily track ROI. With shrinking budgets, knowing what works was more important than ever to FRC.
  • On line programs provided better targeting of the geographic location.

The Process

The first step in developing a Google Adwords strategy was to set concrete, verifiable goals. These goals would guide the campaign initiation process and ensure proper follow-up and tracking. The goals followed a logical progression and were somewhat contingent upon each other.

1. Develop an understanding of the campaign process, and measure current (pre-campaign) site activity with Google Analytics: This provided comparative data that would later be used to gauge the success of our strategy and measure ROI.

2. Increase traffic: Although the existing website clearly conveyed why the Florida Recovery Center was the best choice for addiction recovery, we needed better ways to drive potential patients to that information. Specifically, they wanted to be the first paid-search ad to pop up on Google when their search terms were entered.

3. Increase brand awareness: As a result of the first two goals, we also hoped to see an increase in overall brand awareness.

4. Generate leads: The last goal was to recoup the ad costs and generate revenue through immediate lead contact that would ultimately add patients. Therefore, we needed to drive traffic to the website, provide relevant content and develop a measurable tool for turning these prospects into patients. By making improvements to the site content, such as adding interactive elements, we hoped to drive additional traffic and in turn, increase admissions.

Once these goals were established, the next step was to define the geography of the target audience we hoped to reach. The last step in the development process was to make the necessary site enhancements to attract and retain our now geographically-defined visitors. We accomplished this by matching key search words with the landing pages that provided the most relevant content. This way, visitors were taken directly to the content they were seeking, reducing the likelihood of leaving the FRC site.

To improve the conversion rate of these leads, we added a “Contact Us Now” form. The submission of this form became our ultimate goal and, once received, the forms were delivered directly to FRC.

The Deliverables

Once the campaign went live, text ads were displayed across the Google platform using contextual targeting and Google sponsored search results, and paid for on a cost-per-click basis. These ads were also targeted to the previously determined geographic locations.

Through weekly SEO analysis, we achieved strategic and sustainable competitive advantages through ongoing optimizations. These included keyword substitutions, refinements to visitor geography and budget enhancements.

In addition, page popularity and relevant content showed us where visitors were going once they reached our site. This allowed us to beef up the desired data and cut underperforming pages. It also made the site easier to navigate. Additional analysis of referring sites helped us measure the success of contextual advertising.

The Results

The ease of tracking results is a hallmark of a Google Adwords campaign. During the seven-month campaign period, the Google Analytics Dashboard made it easy to follow the results. Using the analytics, we measured an incredible 467% increase in the traffic to the FRC pages of the Shands.org website. Of this, 280% could be directly traced to the Google Adwords campaigns. The same data also implies an increase in awareness of FRC overall.