New Pharma Digital Marketing Benchmarks Reveal Significant Increase in Effectiveness in Recent Years

RESTON, Va., June 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results from its seventh annual Online Marketing Effectiveness Benchmarks for the Pharmaceutical Industry, conducted in partnership with marketing innovation consultancy Evolution Road LLC. Based on comScore's permission-based panel of one million U.S. online persons and survey data from 139 pharmaceutical studies, these benchmarks show that online pharmaceutical marketing continues to have a positive impact on brand awareness and conversion among patients and prospects. The study also introduces new insights into conversion lift rates across various medication categories.

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"Our annual benchmarking study has shown through the years that various online marketing methods have had a positive impact in increasing awareness and favorability toward pharmaceutical products, with branded website visits consistently generating the highest lifts in conversion," said John Mangano, vice president for comScore Health Solutions. "Interestingly, we've observed a significant increase in brand and conversion lift over the past two years, suggesting that the value of online marketing for pharmaceutical brands is continuing to grow."

To download a copy of the report, please click here.

Historical Trend of Site Conversions Reveal Recent Campaigns Show Higher Rate
In previous studies, branded website visitation has driven the highest lifts for prospects and patients in influencing awareness, favorability and conversions. The most recent benchmarks show that site visitation continues to have this impact, influencing new patient starts and adherence or refills. When comparing the results of campaigns from the past two years (2011 to 2012) to those from 2010 and earlier, it was found that the more recent studies delivered significantly higher lifts across a variety of metrics. Most notably, a 10.6 percentage point increase was seen in campaigns driving discussion of treatments with a medical professional. Several other actions, such as discussing a brand, receiving a prescription, filling a prescription and taking a prescription, achieved increases of approximately 5 percentage points versus earlier studies.

New Targeted Category Benchmarks Show Variation in Conversion Lift Rates Across Medication Classes
The study also introduces new insights on online marketing effectiveness on a more granular level across brand subgroups. Recent analysis of pharmaceutical study data according to ten different categories indicated that various groups of brands produce differing conversion rates for both patient and prospect groups. The brands studied were broken out into the following sub-categories: Chronic, Painful, Branded, Launch, Sensitive Condition, Blackbox, Lifestyle, OTC Competitors, Injectable and Specialty.

A comparison of lifts in conversion for Lifestyle and Blackbox drugs highlights variability seen across categories. Online marketing tactics for Blackbox drugs, which are defined as drugs that carry warnings about significant side effects, showed higher conversions for discussing treatment and a particular brand than Lifestyle drugs. These results make sense given the context of Blackbox medications having greater side effects. However, both Blackbox and Lifestyle drugs showed the same conversion lifts when it comes to patients actually receiving a prescription.

To download a copy of the Seventh Annual Online Marketing Effectiveness Benchmarks for the Pharmaceutical Industry, please click here.

About comScore Health Solutions
comScore Health Solutions delivers in-depth information needed to understand the impact that brand, condition-specific, and health websites have on consumers' brand awareness, conversion, and patient compliance as well as insights into health care professionals' online usage. comScore products deliver actionable insight to help refine consumer profiles, identify key alliances, optimize interactive marketing initiatives, benchmark against the competition and accurately measure the ROI of website and online marketing programs. For more information, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/Industries/Healthcare.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in digital measurement and analytics, delivering insights on web, mobile and TV consumer behavior that enable clients to maximize the value of their digital investments. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

About Evolution Road
Evolution Road is a marketing innovation consultancy focused on helping brands leverage digital channels to drive their business. Evolution Road is bringing its vision to life - that digital marketing will dramatically improve how pharmaceutical brands are marketed for the benefit of consumers, physicians and healthcare brands. To that end, Evolution Road has helped millions of consumers and healthcare professionals make more informed healthcare choices and has delivered over $1 billion dollars in incremental top-line revenue for its clients at an ROI of over 4:1. For more information, please contact Paul Ivans at [email protected], or visit www.evolutionroad.com.

SOURCE comScore, Inc.