Clinical trial vertical overview
Affiliate marketing covers all sorts of industries, and everybody can find a vertical to their liking. One of the socially important ones is the medical/clinical trial vertical. The mechanics of such offers are best described as themed lead generation. Medical institutions or medicine manufacturers who are interested in conducting a clinical trial launch promotional campaigns to attract participants. The task of an affiliate marketer is to bring in as many high-quality leads as possible. Let’s get into more detail.
What can be on trial
The concept of the clinical trial involves volunteers enrolling in research or test groups to help study and develop new kinds of medicine, to assess an existing treatment or screening procedure, or to advance prevention methods.
Male doctor working on desk with laptop computer and paperwork in the office. Medical and doctor concept.
There are different ways a medical trial can go.
Before a large-scale trial, there can be a feasibility trial (to find prospective scientists and patients and decide whether the big trial is possible at all) or a pilot trial (a small-scale trial for road mapping).
Prevention trials — tests of a preventive medicine or treatment on a group of healthy people.
Screening trials — looking for signs of a disease in healthy patients or in a high-risk group. Helps assess the reliability of test procedures.
Treatment trials — phase-specific trials of medicines and treatments on actual patients. The patients may be grouped at random to receive the tested medicine, an ordinary medicine, or a placebo.
Attracting participants
A landing page for a clinical trial offer should radiate a sense of authority because health is a serious matter and people like to trust the institution to know what they are getting into. An average lander for such campaigns would contain:
- CTA (call-to-action) buttons. It’s a good practice to place several CTAs in different places on the page, so the users will be reminded of the offer and be able to opt in as soon as they make up their minds.
- Information on the treatment/disease helps to raise awareness and give a sense of urgency to the study.
- Reference information and useful links to reliable sources provide more background knowledge about the trial itself and about its subject.
- General description of the course of studies and the procedures that will take place once the visitor has enrolled.
- Information about the institution and contact data provide even more reliability and greatly affect the CTR (click-through rate).
Once the visitor clicks on a CTA, they are redirected to a questionnaire. These usually cover basic information about the person’s medical history and preferences in relation to the prospective trial process (e.g. whether a person is fine with taking injections or not). The answers and contact data are then passed to the advertiser, while the visitor receives contact data of the medical institution for a follow-up if the doctors find them eligible.
Why this vertical is worth a shot
Pharmaceutical research, Scientist preparing a sample vial for analytical testing in the laboratory used in DNA, medical and pharmacology research.
The product of such offers — valuable medical evidence or a new treatment method/medicine — is socially meaningful and can potentially improve the quality of life for many people. Moreover, such trials make no promises of solving the problem under study: the landing pages often have an exemption clause stating that part of the patients will be receiving a placebo.
This is why clinical trial offers, are compatible with any traffic source Native advertising on medical websites and blogs, placements in social networks, themed mailing lists for those who are already interested in medicine are some of the possible acquisition channels. The average CPLs can reach $40–60 or higher depending on the advertiser.
If you have experience with lead generation, this vertical will be a good choice as it brings both profit and a sense of fulfillment to the marketer. Don’t hesitate to contact the Yep Ads team to get more information about the best-performing campaigns and Top Geos.