It Pays to Be a Winner: Google RSA Insights for Pharma Marketers: # of Headline Variations
Search engine marketing is often the number one traffic driver to Rx brand websites. And Google is by far the dominant search engine. So the Google Ads migration to Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) in June is a significant shift that pharma marketing strategists need to adapt to in order to succeed in the this new machine-learning-driven marketing world.
Data above through June 2021. Pharma campaigns lag the above overall trend, but by June 2022, Google is requiring 100% of new search ads to be Responsive Search Ads (RSAs). This means pharma marketers must adapt quickly to this new world of machine-learning based campaign optimization, or lose out to competitors who adapt first.
Since PranifyRx has search ad data on over 600 Rx pharma brands, we are in a unique position to understand and help predict what types of creative messaging strategies Google’s RSA machine-learning algorithm will favor.
Using PranifyRx data from January - October 2021, we compared the number of unique search ad headlines with average ad position detected for each brand on its primary condition treatment-specific keyword.
For example, for Vyvanse we looked at data for keyword “ADHD treatment” and for Biktarvy we looked at data for keyword “HIV treatment”. This focus allows us to filter out noise associated with keywords where certain brands might not focus their attention and thus tolerate ad positions lower on the page compared to their primary indication treatment term.
When we look at a range of individual Rx treatment categories, we see the same story emerge over and over: brands that test more unique headlines tend to get better ad position.
(We won’t go deep into goodness-of-fit statistics in this post. Instead, we’ll show you the blinded data for several condition categories along with the trendlines, so you can see for yourself and maybe develop your own conclusions.)
HIV-1 Treatments
(Biktarvy, Dovato, Symtuza, Descovy, Cabenuva, Rukobia, Pifeltro, Juluca, Symfi-lo, Trogarzo, Kaletra, Norvir)
HIV-1 Treatments: Avg. Ad Position vs. # of Unique Google Ad Headline Variations on Keyword “HIV treatment” (Jan - Oct 2021 PranifyRx proprietary data)
The trendline here is pretty clear: Rx brands that tested more unique headlines from Jan-Oct 2021 achieved a better average ad position compared to brands that tested fewer unique ad headlines.
2. Asthma Treatments
(Fasenra, Nucala, Xolair, Spiriva, Cinqair, Digihaler, Symbicort)
Asthma Rx Treatments: Avg. Ad Position vs. # of Unique Google Ad Headline Variations on Keyword “HIV treatment” (Jan - Oct 2021 PranifyRx proprietary data)
Again, the trendline here is clear: Asthma Rx brands that tested more unique headlines from Jan-Oct 2021 achieved a better average ad position compared to brands that tested fewer unique ad headlines.
3. Multiple Sclerosis Treatment (MS)
(Zeposia, Vumerity, Firdapse, Mavenclad, Mayzent, Ocrevus, Aubagio, Tysabri, Lemtrada, Kesimpta, Bafiertam)
The trendline here isn’t quite as strong as the first two examples above, but it is consistent: MS treatment brands that tested more unique headlines from Jan-Oct 2021 tended to achieve a better average ad position compared to brands that tested fewer unique ad headlines.
Category after category shows the same story to varying degrees: number of unique headlines is correlated with ad position. And since ad positions higher on the page can generate up to 7x higher engagement and website traffic than ad positions lower on the page, testing more headlines appears to be a relatively easy way to get more and pay less on Google.
PranifyRx premium platform users can see the actual ad headline counts and copy for each brand across over 100 specific conditions and 600 brands and easily generate more copy tests quicker.