CPA optimization & growth using mass media
Operating in the US market, Nevro is in the business of selling a surgical pain management solution for people who’ve been unable to resolve chronic back and limb pain through other remedies (including other surgical options). The solution involves the surgical implantation of a spinal-cord stimulator and battery pack under the patient's skin. For many patients, this procedure can resolve persistent, debilitating chronic pain, allowing them to return to normal activities, and regain their former regular lifestyle.
As a highly specific procedure, appropriate for a small group of potential customers, sourcing leads for candidate patients has proven difficult and expensive since Nevro first began ‘direct-to-patient’ marketing and advertising. While Nevro had seen some success in patient lead generation through search and social channels (managed by another 3rd party), they faced two primary challenges with this approach:
Nevro had reached the limit of the scale of efficient recruitment through search & social channels, with increased investment resulting in significantly diminished marginal returns
Industry policy changes and the move away from cookie-based targeting was eroding the efficiency of existing social campaigns and driving up lead-gen costs in the company’s largest recruitment channel
Rebel & Thorn were enlisted in late 2020 to leverage programmatic display, video, and native advertising as a new medium for direct-to-patient lead generation.
Initial results in late 2020 were drastically far from meeting the business objectives of the campaign but showed rapid progress in improving. Over the initial months of the campaign, the testing plan allowed us to quickly hone-in on high-performing tactics that were quickly prioritized, while many others were discontinued based on these same early learnings.
Due to healthcare related targeting constraints, in Feb 2021 it was decided to shift ad-buying platforms, with a phased transition from one DSP to another. This decision initially caused a decrease in performance, which was quickly overcome with a short optimization period on the new platform.
With steady increases in performance over 11 months of dedicated testing and optimization, we achieved our business objective of delivering a sub-$50 average cost-per verified lead, at a scale of over 500 leads per month. This represented a decrease in the cost per lead of over 98% during that time period.
Over the past 7 months (to March 2022) we have maintained an average cost-per-verified lead of $47.58 delivering an average of 677 leads for every full month.
After almost 1 ½ years of campaign learning, we continue to test new ideas and campaign attributes to maintain and improve performance. As of March 2022 , programmatic display and Native continue to play an integral role in the direct-to-patient lead generation business at Nevro. Moreover – these new lead generation tactics have offset cost increases and a loss of efficient scalability seen in other channels.