Process
Four steps, one number.
Model the economics before any spend, test in structured form, qualify and route demand around the patient journey, and optimize against whatever downstream signal we can get back. The operating model changes by specialty; the performance discipline does not. Timings below are typical; a narrow protocol or a slow approval process moves them.
- 01
Weeks one to two
Audit & model the economics
We start from the enrollment target and the recruitment budget and work backwards: what an enrolled patient can cost, what that implies for a qualified lead, and which channels could plausibly clear that number in your geographies. We also read the protocol for the criteria that will do the most filtering, because those decide how much of the traffic is wasted before anyone sees an ad.
What we need from you
- Protocol synopsis, or at minimum the key inclusion and exclusion criteria
- Enrollment target, timeline, and active site list with catchment areas
- Recruitment budget, and any prior vendor performance you can share
What you get
- A written economic model: target cost per enrollment, and the implied cost per qualified lead
- A channel plan with a payback threshold per channel
- A shortlist of the criteria we can screen for before a lead reaches a coordinator
- 02
Weeks two to six
Launch & test in market
We launch a deliberately structured test rather than a broad always-on buy: a limited set of creative angles, audience or query definitions, and landing experiences, each sized so it can produce a readable signal. Health-category advertising policy constrains what can be targeted and said, so compliant creative is designed in from the first test. Where the work is clinical-trial recruitment, the study's required IRB or ethics-review process is part of that launch plan.
What we need from you
- Approved brand, messaging, and advertising inputs relevant to the program
- Any compliance, regulatory, clinical, IRB, or ethics-review requirements that apply
- Access to ad accounts, analytics, and the landing environment
What you get
- Live campaigns across the agreed channels with a documented test matrix
- Creative variants built for the applicable health-category and approval constraints
- An early read on which channels and angles deserve further budget
- 03
Runs alongside step two, typically live from week three
Qualify & route
We translate the protocol's most consequential criteria into a pre-screener that sits between the ad and the coordinator. Responses that clearly fail an exclusion never become a referral. This is the step that decides whether media spend produces work for your sites or wastes it, so it is engineered rather than bolted on — question order, phrasing, and drop-off are all treated as media variables.
What we need from you
- Sign-off on which criteria may be asked pre-consent, and in what language
- Your intake destination — CTMS, call center, site referral form, scheduling system, or another approved system
- A named contact at the sites, clinic, or call center for disposition feedback
What you get
- A live pre-screener with documented exclusion logic mapped to the protocol
- Routing rules that determine what reaches a coordinator and what does not
- Drop-off reporting per question, so the screener can be tuned rather than guessed at
- 04
Ongoing, from the first downstream data feed
Optimize & report
Whatever downstream signal the operation can share — EHR, CRM or CTMS exports, booking outcomes, referral status, call-center dispositions, or even a lagged weekly reconciliation — is matched back to source and used to guide targeting, bidding strategy, creative, funnel work, and budget allocation. A partial, delayed signal still beats optimizing to a form-fill. Channels that stop clearing their economic threshold get cut rather than defended.
What we need from you
- A repeatable downstream export or reconciliation, however lightweight
- A regular review slot with whoever owns the downstream acquisition outcome
What you get
- Full-funnel reporting from spend through qualification and the downstream outcomes available to us
- A standing optimization cadence with documented decisions
- A clear recommendation when a channel or funnel should be cut, fixed, or scaled
FAQ
What teams ask before starting.
We typically start with a one-to-two month test window and a media budget large enough to produce a useful read on qualification and downstream economics. The right threshold depends on the patient journey, geography, conversion rate, and value of the downstream outcome. We'll tell you honestly on the first call if the available volume or budget is too small to learn anything.
Yes. Clinical-trial recruitment is one of our specialties, so we can work with sponsors, CROs, site networks, or sites where the operating model makes sense. Across healthcare more broadly, the important question is the same: can the engagement give us enough downstream outcome data to judge acquisition on more than lead volume?
The patient journey, serviceable geographies, downstream outcome you care about, operating constraints, and acquisition budget are enough to start. Prior channel or funnel performance helps. For clinical-trial recruitment, we will also need the relevant protocol criteria, enrollment target, site model, and approval process.
Enrollment economics. Cost per lead is a checkpoint, not the goal. In clinical-trial recruitment we reconcile screening and enrollment outcomes back to source; in other healthcare models the equivalent may be a qualified patient, booked visit, completed consultation, treatment start, or another downstream outcome that actually determines the economics.
Through whatever approved system can provide it — EHR or CRM exports, booking status, CTMS data, referral outcomes, call-center dispositions, or even a simple weekly reconciliation. We use the lightest-weight pipeline that still lets acquisition decisions reflect real downstream outcomes.
A standing weekly view of spend, qualification, and the early downstream signals available by channel and campaign, plus a deeper periodic review that reconciles against business or clinical outcomes. Reporting should use the terms your operation already uses rather than forcing the business to translate an ad-platform dashboard.
We recommend cutting it. Every channel is launched with an economic threshold agreed up front, which makes that call a documented decision rather than an argument. We would rather concentrate budget in the channels that work than defend a broad media mix for its own sake.
Operational capacity is a constraint we design around, not an afterthought. We agree what a useful handoff looks like, avoid sending demand the operation cannot realistically serve, and ask for downstream dispositions in whatever format is workable. If acquisition is creating avoidable operational waste, we treat that as part of the acquisition problem.
Next step
Want to see step one for your acquisition model?
The economic model is the first thing we build, and it's the fastest way to find out whether we're a fit. Share the patient journey, geographies, operating constraints, and downstream outcome you care about.