Powerful
One of the main reasons to use Google Adwords in clinical trial recruitment is that Google AdWords is a powerful marketing tool. As a recruitment method, Google AdWords is a convenient, fast, cost-effective, efficient, and most of all, popular advertising system. Researchers can benefit from the mind-blowing audience Google offers.
Google can help researchers reach eligible and diverse samples – simply by implementing Google Adwords in their recruitment methods. Although in some countries, such as Russia and China, Google is not the main search engine, Google AdWords still leads to better results in clinical trial recruitment. For instance, scientific findings show that Google AdWords can facilitate recruitment among Russian, Spanish, and Chinese speakers (Gross et al., 2014). Experts claim that results are even more impressive when research campaigns are monitored. When ads are monitored, the total number of impressions clicks, and enrolled participants increases, while the costs of the study decrease. For instance, a study showed that managed Google AdWords led to an increase in clicks of 34.82% (Gross et al., 2014).
Google AdWords has been approved as a recruiting tool that follows crucial ethical and privacy regulations (“Google AdWords & Clinical Trial recruitment”). As that’s one of the main milestones in research, all professionals need to consider consent forms, safety, and confidentiality.
Cost-effective
Google offers a variety of products, such as Google Drive, Maps, and Gmail, for free because its huge advertising platform pays off. As Google AdWords is Google’s advertising system, businesses can advertise openly and bid on certain words.
What’s more, it’s been proven that digital recruiting and Google AdWords, in particular, are cost-effective. When compared to standard methods, such as boards in clinics and radio ads, digital recruiting offers better results for a lower cost.
In research, Google AdWords can help experts target specific keywords, geographical areas, and diverse samples (Gross et al., 2014). However, note that due to the competitive nature of Google AdWords, popular markets, such as the English-speaking space, need higher expenditures. Thus, multilingual research can take advantage of the wide spectrum of languages throughout the world. Most of all, when researchers design a medical ad, they should consider various factors, such as cultural differences.
Specific
As mentioned above, Google AdWords is an advertising platform that gives researchers the chance to target specific groups and samples. For instance, researchers can specify the desired location. Geographical targeting can give some valuable insights to researchers, and as a result, location-targeted online advertising can benefit science.
Although there might be some data contamination and minimal levels of information leakage, figures show that Google AdWords is still an efficient and cost-effective method. A strategy to resolve any location-related issues (that might occur due to contamination) is combining Google Analytics with self-reports with postcodes entered by the actual participants. On top of that, when it comes to geographical targeting, researchers suggest running separate campaigns for different areas. This practice can help researchers monitor ads easily (with the smallest radius available in urban places). When location is combined with personal information and health-related interests, research can easily lead to success.
Controllable
Perhaps one of the most appealing aspects of Google Adwords is that the system can help you take research under control. Usually, Google AdWords offers two options: unmanaged clinical trial recruitment and managed recruitment. By managing campaigns, deleting underperforming ads, and adjusting keywords, researchers can manage to increase the number of participants (Gross et al., 2014).
What’s more, researchers can control the costs of their studies. As Google AdWords runs actions for ad space, experts can decide on their bids. Note that costs are calculated based on clicks, not actions.
In fact, a very effective method to track the success of each campaign is period analysis, which is one of the many helpful features of Google Analytics. By comparing metrics, you can get valuable insights and transform them into action and real ROI.