Healthcare Digital Marketing: How to Reach and Retain Patients Online

How patients search for and select healthcare providers will never be the same again. Today, 77% of patients use search engines leverage search engines when booking an appointment and 60% want to schedule visits online healthcare digital marketing or risk losing patients to competitors who appear highest in search results, social feeds and programmatic ad placements.

Digital marketing for healthcare is not all about getting pages on a website up and running anymore. It’s about reaching patients where they already are, which can be running through symptoms on Google, reading Facebook or watching health videos on connected TV.

Let’s explore how digital marketing in healthcare works today.

The Digital Transformation of Healthcare

Five years ago healthcare organizations could ignore digital marketing, not so much today. Patients want the same convenience online from their doctor as they get from their bank or favorite restaurant.

Search behavior tells the story. People Google symptoms before they call a clinic. Before selecting a specialist, they read reviews. They shop around for elective procedures on hospital websites. And they want clear answers, quick responses and to easily book an appointment.

The stakes are clear: Medical digital marketing now determines which practices thrive and which struggle to fill schedules.

Proven Digital Channels That Help Healthcare Brands Grow

The layers of strategy in a digital marketing for hospitals initiative include the selection of channels that fit your goals and budget. Channels are different, each serves its purpose — from the first touch to conversion to retention. Here’s what works in 2025.

Search Engine Optimization

When a potential patient types “pediatrician near me” or “best orthopedic surgeon in Chicago,” you want that web search to show your practice among its top results. SEO makes that number work for you by fine tuning your website content and local listings, as well as by making technical improvements (for the search engines) to better communicate what you have to offer.

The overwhelming majority of patients never click beyond the first page, so the rank matters. Start with local SEO, as most healthcare searches are local oriented.

Content Marketing

Trust me, patients trust those who educate them.” There are many ways blog posts answering common health concerns, video explainers about procedures and downloadable guides for managing chronic conditions all serve to position your brand as useful and trustworthy.

Content also fuels your SEO (search engine optimization) strategy by focusing on the keywords patients are actually looking up. The bonus? BalakrishnanBad content can also be repurposed for email, social media and paid campaigns.

Social Media Engagement

Facebook, Instagram and YouTube enable you to communicate with patients before they need you. Post patient success stories (with permission), health tips, staff spotlights and community involvement.

CMO by FerdinandWolf / GettySocial media humanizes your brand and helps you keep in mind of your followers. They will remember the practice they followed when someone finally does need care.

Email & Retention Campaigns

It costs five to achieve a new patient as it does to keep the patients that you do have. Email campaigns This lets you stay connected with your existing patients in a personalized way, providing them with appointment reminders, wellness tips and information regarding the new services available.

Segmented campaigns work best – send diabetes management information or reminders to those who need it, pediatric tips and tricks to keep health on the right path for your youngest family members for their parents, and age/history specific preventive care reminders. This could be made scalable thanks to automation, with no workload added.

Programmatic Advertising

For you, healthcare providers, programmatic solves a big problem: reaching patients without wasting money on people who will never need your services. You can target by demographics (age, location and income), behavior (whether they recently searched for health topics) and context (reading health content). The bidding is automated through a demand-side platform (DSP), which constantly ensures the lowest cost per appointment or queries are made.

The format flexibility matters too. Launching video ads on streaming services explaining a new procedure, display ads on health care websites or mobile ad programs targeting certain zip codes. All from a single platform, all optimized in real time.

Reputation Management

Online reviews drive healthcare decisions. Patient reviews on platforms like Google and Healthgrades frequently carry more weight than fancy websites or big ad budgets. Reputation management means: paying attention to review sites, commenting on — and learning from — feedback (good or bad), and asking happy patients to tell their stories. A five-star average based on hundreds of reviews is a sign of quality that even the most masterful marketing can’t conjure up.

Expert Insight: Programmatic Advertising in Healthcare

Dmitriy Iliashenko, CTO at BidsCube, sees programmatic as a game-changer for healthcare marketing.

“Healthcare providers need precision. You don’t want to burn budget by serving diabetes ads up to teenagers or pediatric ads back at retirees. Our targeting features allow hospitals and clinics to reach the right people at the right time for their needs, without wasting spend. We’ve witnessed providers reducing acquisition costs by 40%, and doubling appointment volume, all because of the shift from broad social to targeted programmatic.”

The lesson?

Digital marketing for medical practices requires both sophisticated technology and ethical guardrails. Partners who understand healthcare’s unique requirements deliver better results.

How BidsCube Empowers Digital Marketing in Healthcare

Healthcare companies require ad tech that can support their unique restrictions. White-Label Programmatic solutions by BidsCube empower hospitals, clinics and healthcare marketers to run automated campaigns with efficiency, compliance and control.

The supply-side platform (SSP) helps healthcare publishers and medical content sites monetize their traffic. With 85-100% fill rates and fraud scanning on 100% of traffic, publishers can trust their inventory is being sold to legitimate healthcare advertisers at fair prices. The platform processes 3.5 million requests per second, ensuring ads load instantly without disrupting user experience.

For healthcare advertisers, the DSP provides access to 102 million impressions monthly with 55+ campaign settings for precise targeting.

The white-label ad exchange joins up both sides, processing billions of operations per second with a 2 ms latency. Healthcare brands can also execute campaigns against display, video, mobile and connected TV all from one platform.

The video ad server specifically supports CTV and OTT campaigns, perfect for reaching patients during their streaming time with educational healthcare content.

Conclusion

Busy patients want to be able to discover providers online, research their choices, and book an appointment electronically. The providers who facilitate that journey are leaving the laggards behind — the ones still caught in word-of-mouth and yellow-page thinking, giving up ground every quarter.

The best hospital digital marketing strategy uses multiple channels working together.

BidsCube’s solutions make programmatic accessible for healthcare organizations of any size. Whether you’re a single clinic or a hospital network, the platform scales to your needs. Check out real-world feedback from healthcare marketers on G2 who’ve used the platform to grow their patient base.

Ready to modernize your digital marketing for clinics strategy?

Contact us to explore how programmatic advertising can lower your acquisition costs while filling your appointment calendar.

FAQ

What is medical digital marketing?

Simply put, it’s using search engines like Google (or Bing if you’re into that kind of thing), Facebook, Twitter, email and programmatic digital ads… to market your practice. It can replace or add to conventional modes, for example, print advertisement and regular mail.

Why is a healthcare digital marketing strategy important for healthcare providers?

Patients are looking online before selecting providers. Otherwise, you are losing potential patients to competitors who rank ahead in searches and have active social channels. Digital marketing for healthcare professionals is also cheaper and provides more solid targeting and measurement, compared to traditional advertising methods.

How can programmatic advertising be used in healthcare marketing?

Programmatic advertising is being used by hospitals and clinics to target specific demographic groups, areas, and interests. In recent years, it has proven to be a game-changing strategy out there.

What are the best digital marketing channels for hospitals and clinics?

Local SEO, content that answers patient questions, email for retention, review platform reputation monitoring and programmatic advertising to drive targeted awareness is where things get interesting. Most good strategies rely on more than one channel, and not only on a single channel.

How can healthcare organizations measure digital marketing for healthcare providers?

Track the site traffic, how many online appointments are booked (or leads generated), cost per patient acquisition, lifetime patient value and ROAS. Specific reporting on what campaigns performed: You shouldn’t have to guess which tactics are most effective and when.