In a recent podcast episode, Ollie and I spoke about why search marketing is still so undervalued in some areas of healthcare, so for this week’s op-ed I thought I’d explore this topic in a bit more detail.

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Why Search is still so undervalued in healthcare marketing

The disconnect in healthcare marketing priorities

There’s a puzzling disconnect in how many healthcare brands, especially those with substantial marketing budgets, approach their digital strategy. While marketing teams invest in traditional media and complex targeting strategies trying to identify people with specific health conditions, they’re simultaneously underinvesting in the one channel where consumers are literally raising their hands and declaring their health concerns: search marketing.

This oversight is particularly prevalent among established healthcare brands accustomed to traditional media buying. These organisations often allocate enormous resources to demographic targeting, contextual advertising, and broad awareness campaigns, all in an attempt to find the proverbial needle in the haystack: consumers actively dealing with the health conditions their products address.

Search: Where Consumers Self-Identify Their Health Needs

What makes this oversight so perplexing is that search is fundamentally different from other marketing channels. When someone experiences concerning symptoms or seeks treatment for a health condition, their first action is typically turning to Google. In that moment, they’re explicitly telling you exactly what they’re dealing with and precisely what kind of solution they’re seeking.

Consider what happens when someone searches for “best allergy medicine for children” or “how to treat persistent joint pain.”

They’re not just browsing, they’re actively seeking solutions for a specific health concern. This self-identification is marketing gold, yet it’s routinely undervalued in healthcare marketing budgets.

Unlike social media or display advertising, where marketers must infer health interests from behavioural signals (often with questionable accuracy), search provides crystal-clear intent. The consumer is raising their hand and saying, “I have this specific health concern right now.”

The Regulatory Advantage of Search in Healthcare

Healthcare marketing operates under strict regulatory constraints. Privacy regulations and platform policies severely limit how marketers can target individuals based on health conditions through most advertising channels. Facebook and Instagram, for instance, have increasingly restricted health condition targeting, making it harder to reach relevant audiences.

Search elegantly sidesteps these limitations. Since users are voluntarily entering their health queries, appearing in these results doesn’t raise the same privacy concerns as tracking or targeting based on sensitive health data. This regulatory advantage alone should make search a cornerstone of healthcare marketing strategy.

The Budget Misalignment

Despite these clear advantages, we routinely see healthcare brands with misaligned budgets. A typical scenario: a major brand might spend 95% of their budget on TV/VOD advertising, 4% on social media and other visual channels, while allocating just 1% to search, despite search delivering their highest ROI, most qualified leads and being an unsung touchpoint in 98% of consumers journeys.

This imbalance often stems from organisational structures where traditional media buyers hold budget authority, or from the mistaken perception that search is merely a “performance” channel rather than a strategic asset.

Some marketing leaders also fall into the trap of viewing search as a “solved problem” once basic campaigns are running, missing opportunities for sophisticated optimisation.

Search as a Strategic Healthcare Asset

For healthcare brands, search isn’t just another digital channel. It’s a strategic asset that serves multiple critical functions:

Immediate intervention at the moment of need: Being present when someone is actively searching for symptom information or treatment options
Trust building: Establishing authority through helpful, accurate content when consumers are most receptive
Competitive defence: Preventing competitors from capturing attention during crucial decision moments
Market intelligence: Gaining invaluable insights into consumer health concerns, language, and decision journeys

When viewed through this lens, search becomes less about simply “capturing demand” and more about strategic positioning at the most critical moments in the consumer health journey.

Maximising Your Healthcare Search Strategy

If you’re managing marketing for a healthcare brand, particularly one with larger budgets, here’s how to realign your approach to search:

Audit your current search impression share: Are you fully present for all relevant health queries related to your products? Many brands are surprised to discover they’re missing significant portions of their potential search visibility.
Evaluate budget allocation: Compare your search investment to other channels, then compare the ROI. If search is delivering superior results but receiving disproportionately less funding, it’s time to rebalance.
Expand beyond branded terms: While bidding on your brand name is important, the real opportunity lies in capturing category and symptom searches where consumers haven’t yet decided on a solution.
Integrate organic and paid strategies: A comprehensive search approach coordinates SEO and SEM efforts, ensuring consistent messaging and maximum visibility.
Leverage search insights across channels: The language and concerns revealed through search data should inform content creation across all marketing touchpoints.

The Bottom Line: Stop Searching for What Search Already Gives You

The irony is striking: healthcare marketers spend enormous resources trying to identify and target people with specific health conditions, while simultaneously underinvesting in the one channel where consumers explicitly tell you what conditions they have.

If you’re still allocating the majority of your budget to channels where you’re guessing who might need your products, while underinvesting in search where consumers are actively telling you they need solutions like yours, it’s time to reconsider your strategy.

For healthcare brands with substantial marketing budgets, search isn’t just another digital channel. It’s the most direct connection to consumers at their moment of greatest need. It’s time to stop treating it as an afterthought and recognise it as the strategic cornerstone of effective healthcare marketing.