As cookies fall completely into consumers’ hands, health systems must adopt privacy-first tactics to build trust and authentically engage audiences.
For years, Google has announced plans to phase out third-party cookies across its platform, allowing advertisers time to adjust their targeting strategies. After several delays, it began restricting third-party cookies for 1% of users in January 2024, with plans to eliminate them by 2025. To replace cookies, Google tested a new interface called Topics, part of its broader Privacy Sandbox project, which aims to create new digital standards that balance user privacy with the needs of developers.
However, in mid-2024, the tech giant reversed course. Instead of entirely eliminating third-party cookies, Google opted for a hybrid approach where users actively manage cookie preferences, allowing third-party cookies to remain in play. For healthcare marketers, this new model—where users control how their data is used online—demands a balanced approach. It requires prioritizing user privacy and choice while integrating diverse data sources to engage audiences effectively.
Key Strategies for Shifting to Privacy-Forward Healthcare Marketing
Blending traditional targeting with privacy-first tactics like contextual advertising, first-party data, and consent-driven interactions helps health systems build trust while delivering impactful, relevant messages that don’t feel intrusive. Let’s examine these approaches in more detail.
1. First-Party Data
Building first-party data sources becomes increasingly important as consumers gain more control over their cookie preferences. Data collected from patient interactions allows marketers to personalize messaging and maintain consistent engagement across digital touchpoints. In fact, 78% of brands have already adopted first-party data strategies, according to a 2024 Adobe study. This transition marks a shift from reliance on cookies, with only 49% of brands depending on them in 2024, compared to 75% in 2022.
Pro tip: Ensure your campaign is HIPAA-compliant by discussing it with your system’s legal team before undertaking targeting based on first-party data.
2. Contextual Advertising
Unlike behavioral tracking, which targets ads based on user activity, contextual advertising places ads alongside content users already engage with, reaching consumers interested in relevant topics. For example, if a prospective patient is reading about managing heart disease, your health system can display ads for your cardiology services within those articles.
Contextual ads are not only more relevant to users but also more effective. According to an IAS study, they drive 2.5x higher viewability than non-contextual ads. Additionally, contextual marketing helps build customer trust, as 86% of consumers in a KPMG survey cite data privacy as a significant concern.
Pro tip: Embrace contextual advertising to comply with stricter data privacy regulations and demonstrate that your health system values transparency and security. Healthgrades can be your perfect partner in executing contextual advertising strategies, ensuring your brand appears in the right place, at the right time, to engage patients meaningfully.
3. Consent-Driven Interactions
Today, websites often prompt users with pop-ups asking for consent to use cookies, but many accept or decline without fully understanding the consequences. Recent research from eMarketer shows that over half of U.S. consumers accept cookies without knowing what this decision means. As this practice becomes more widespread, particularly with Google, health systems must educate patients on how cookies are used in marketing and provide clear options for consent and control to avoid leaving them feeling blindsided.
Pro tip: Create opt-in strategies that allow patients to consent to data usage at each stage of their healthcare journey and make it easy for them to adjust preferences as needed.
Balancing Cookie-Based and Privacy-Driven Methods
With privacy-focused approaches now essential, it’s time to refine your marketing strategy to minimize reliance on cookies while addressing patient concerns and demands.
Start by building a privacy-first digital infrastructure. A robust consent management system should empower patients to control their data and easily adjust their preferences, in line with Google’s new user-focused cookie model. As the use of cookies fluctuates, consider using cookieless analytics tools to maintain real-time insights into campaign performance and audience engagement.
Next, develop high-value, health-specific content to draw consumers to your brand naturally. Prioritize wellness, preventive care, and condition management topics to build genuine relationships with prospective and current patients, independent of cookie tracking. For greater visibility, optimize content with relevant, consumer-friendly keywords so patients find your health system through organic search rather than oversaturation of ads.
Lastly, expand your health system’s reach with multi-channel and CTV strategies. The simplest (and most effective) way to do so is through Healthgrades Brand Solutions, ensuring your brand reaches the right audience wherever they are without sacrificing scale or efficiency. As America’s leading site for connecting doctors and patients, we leverage our platform and proprietary predictive models to deliver your message at the right time without cookies. Our Brand Solutions include:
- PatientConnect: Delivers hyper-targeted display advertising on healthgrades.com to drive brand awareness with an engaged, relevant audience at the time of most impact.
- PatienTarget Connected TV: Uses Healthgrades Audience Intelligence to find and engage your desired audience across CTV platforms, ensuring your message reaches them wherever they are.
- PatienTarget: Strategically places omnichannel advertising across web, video, and audio platforms to extend your reach and eliminate wasteful impressions.
So, how does it all work? Healthgrades proprietary data combines billions of consumer behavioral site interactions with HIPAA-compliant, anonymous claims data and exclusive machine-learning modeling techniques. With our solutions, your brand can prioritize patient privacy while remaining fully prepared for whatever role cookies will play in the near future. Healthgrades also works directly with your marketing team or agency to develop a plan that aligns with your media and branding goals, maximizing your investment and driving valuable conversions.
Adapt to a Landscape of Flexibility and User Control with Healthgrades
As digital advertising continues to evolve in response to user privacy preferences, healthcare organizations need to adapt their strategies. Healthgrades’ suite of solutions empowers you to connect with patients in a way that respects their autonomy while ensuring your brand stands out.
Our Advertising Solutions position your health system front and center, with clear calls to action on healthgrades.com and our partner sites, driving conversions and brand visibility. We also position your brand and medical staff as alternative options on competitor profiles, keeping your system top of mind for consumers. Additionally, by enhancing your SEO and SEM strategies, we improve your relevance in search results, attract commercially insured patients, and bring attention to key service lines.
To further support your outreach, our Brand Solutions leverage targeted advertising across multiple platforms—ensuring your health system reaches the right audience, wherever they are, while respecting their data preferences.
Don’t rely solely on a cookie-driven strategy—connect with us today to interact with patients in a more intuitive, authentic, and memorable way.
