This article was written by Claire Wirtanen, Associate Director of Paid Media at Fathom, where she leads a team of paid media experts in creating tailored digital advertising strategies that fuel patient acquisition and service line growth. A results-driven marketer, she is known for uncovering insights that spark innovative approaches and for building strong partnerships that help clients achieve their goals. 

Healthcare marketers are under increasing pressure to drive service line growth, but the traditional playbook wasn't built for today’s digital-first world.  

With 75% of U.S. adults turning to the internet first for health information and 85% starting with a search engine (Source: National Library of Medicine), the patient journey has fundamentally shifted. A patient’s first impression is no longer your website, physicians, or referrals—it’s your search result. 

Paid media, especially paid search, has become the new front door to your health system. And success in paid search is about precise engagement, not empty impressions. To grow service lines in today’s competitive landscape, you need a smarter, more strategic approach to digital advertising that aligns with evolving patient behaviors and business goals. 

Below are three strategic shifts you can make to evolve your paid media approach and drive real growth.

Show Up Across the Full Patient Journey 

Patients no longer follow a straight path from awareness to appointment. Instead, they move between search engines, AI-generated answers, hospital websites, review sites, and social platforms. In fact, 86% of Americans used online platforms for medical advice instead of consulting a doctor (Source: Tebra). With 70,000 health-related searches happening every minute and 7% of all Google searches tied to healthcare (Source: MLC Works), digital touchpoints shape care decisions long before your brand enters the conversation. 

To be successful, you need to create visibility across the entire journey. Align your messaging and targeting with different levels of patient intent, from early research to appointment-ready moments. Paid search helps you intercept demand in real time, even when attribution is limited or delayed. 

Focus on Intent Instead of Reach 

Trying to market to everyone everywhere drains your budget and dilutes your impact. Not every service line or audience segment delivers the same value, and with differences in demographics, insurance coverage, language, and access, a blanket approach simply doesn’t work. 

Prioritize high-impact service lines and conversion-ready audiences, then tailor your campaigns based on geography, language, and population needs. Collaborating with partners like IQVIA can help you identify and activate the right audiences by grounding your strategy in real-world healthcare data. This level of precision leads to more meaningful engagement, a more relevant patient experience, and stronger ROI. 

Redefine Success with Smarter Metrics 

Clicks and impressions fail to capture the full picture of success. As privacy regulations tighten and patient behavior becomes more complex, traditional activity-based tracking grows less reliable. That makes it essential to measure performance by outcomes, such as appointment requests, referrals, and treatment starts, rather than surface-level activity. AI helps bridge this gap by uncovering deeper insights, from predicting patient search intent to estimating campaign results, so marketers can focus on what truly drives impact. 

Rethink how you measure and communicate impact. Set benchmarks tied to business goals like patient volume, margin, and market share. Leverage AI to uncover signals of high intent and use privacy-compliant data to optimize campaigns and inform budget conversations. By adopting smarter metrics, you not only improve performance, but you also strengthen marketing’s influence and credibility across the organization. 

Paid Media as a Growth Lever 

When used strategically, paid media becomes more than a lead generator, it becomes a growth engine. By aligning patient intent, media investment, and business outcomes, you can connect more patients to the care they need and demonstrate marketing’s value across clinical, operational, and financial priorities. 

See it in Action at HCIC 2025 with Houston Methodist 

Join us at HCIC 2025 for “Revolutionizing Paid Search for Service Line Growth: A Performance-First Approach to Patient Marketing,” featuring Rachel Ryan, Senior Digital Program Manager of Paid Search at Houston Methodist, and Claire Wirtanen, Associate Director of Paid Media at Fathom, an IQVIA business. You’ll hear how Houston Methodist is evolving its paid media strategy to meet today’s challenges, and gain takeaways to inform your own approach to service line growth.  

Interested in seeing how we’re helping leading health systems like Houston Methodist drive growth with precise digital strategies? Explore our expertise at fathomdelivers.com.