Digital Paid Media: Maximizing Reach to Vulnerable Populations

Background:  In 2003, the Tobacco Control Research Branch of the National Cancer Institute launched Smokefree.gov, a Web-based smoking cessation resource. That resource has since evolved into a series of mobile-optimized websites, smartphone applications, text message programs, and social media channels. With cessation content and resources personalized for vulnerable populations, NCI wanted to better understand how to effectively reach these groups. 

Program background:  In 2015, NCI planned a national paid media campaign to help vulnerable populations quit smoking by generating more awareness of, and engagement with, Smokefree.gov resources. Each smoking audience – males, females, pregnant, LGBT, teen, and Spanish-speaking – required a unique approach.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  First, we used consumer and media consumption data to learn more about each group's behaviors. Second, we filtered data based on points relevant to smoking (socioeconomic status, habits, location, hobbies) to create targeted audience profiles with overarching attributes. Third, we used the profiles to create “personas” for each audience, with names, photographs, and detailed identities - “real” people with distinctive physical, emotional, and cognitive attributes. Fourth, we developed a comprehensive, highly efficient paid media plan to reach each audience. Fifth, we selected elements in our plan by evaluating which options would work best for each audience based on geography, time of year, and individual traits such as online behaviors and media consumption. The result was a tailored media mix – including online videos, display banners, convenience store geofencing, native advertising, paid social, paid search, and opt-in marketing emails – to drive awareness, engagement, and action. We used key performance measures including click-through rate, cost-per-session, and cost-per-click to iteratively evaluate and adjust our approach with each of our target audiences.    The campaign ran December 28, 2015 - August 4, 2016, and resulted in more than 3 million web sessions, more than 33,000 adult and 1,336 teen SmokefreeTXT signups, 23,554 total downloads of SFGI apps, and 23,000 engagements with paid social media ads. Different approaches worked better for different audiences. For example, while search ads had very strong overall performance according to industry averages, Hispanic-targeted clicks in particular were the most cost efficient ads with a $1.02 cost per click and a cost per session of $1.24.

Conclusions:  The campaign’s results highlight the value of building audience profiles and personas in targeting vulnerable populations with a healthcare intervention. They also highlight the importance of maintaining a diverse media mix, which enabled us to effectively reach multiple audiences while optimizing performance for each audience in real time. Using these strategies, nearly every medium performed at or above industry benchmark rates for ad engagement, cost efficiency, and web engagement, suggesting that campaign elements were both cost-efficient and effective in reaching our target audiences.

Implications for research and/or practice: 

• Search, Google Display, and Native were the three most cost-efficient mediums for driving sessions
• Email marketing is a great tool to not only engage web users but to more thoroughly highlight particular tools/resources
• A diverse media mix with channels geared toward the media consumption habits of specific audiences improves the ability to optimize in real time and efficiently reach these audiences