Hey there,

I've got a theory that whatever music you listened to in high school is THE music of your life. If you were listening to a particular genre at 18, you're gonna listen to it at 28, 48, 68, and so on. I'm personally stoked about the thought of blasting Can't Be Saved when I'm 85 and in a nursing home. 

I'm bringing this up only because I'm currently listening to the best playlist (don't reply to this email if you're gonna disagree with me) on Spotify while writing this newsletter and I couldn't come up with a more relevant intro. 

Anyway...without a better transition, let's just get into today's newsletter.

Last week I added a new recurring section to the newsletter: a poll question. The question I asked was, "What’s your biggest challenge in healthcare marketing today?" I got a lot of interesting responses, but I'm going to leave a cliff-hanger here and not put your responses in this intro...they're further down the newsletter.

But here's this week's question: For your biggest marketing challenge, what’s the biggest barrier preventing you from solving it?

• Lack of internal buy-in
• Insufficient budget/resources
• Lack of the right technology/tools
• Regulatory restrictions
• Difficulty proving ROI

Submit your answer here

On to the rest of the newsletter, here's what we're talking about:

• Google Tag Manager changes
• Freshpaint is going to Dallas
• Marketing funnels with Freshpaint
• The data from last week's question
• News from HHS

Let's get into it...

Product Update

Google Tag Manager may have just made data privacy a little less...private. Starting April 10, 2025, GTM will automatically load the Google Tag if a Google Ads, Floodlight, or Conversion Linker tag is in your container – even if it’s paused.

This essentially means more reliable data tracking for Google and less control for you. If you’ve carefully managed how and when your tags fire, this change could override your setup, prioritize Google’s data collection, and impact privacy compliance.

Fortunately, Freshpaint customers who have fully migrated to Freshpaint's GTM tags will not be impacted by this change.
 

But if you haven't made the switch and are still using Google Ads, Floodlight, or Conversion Linker Tracking Inside GTM, we have more details in this LinkedIn post. 

Upcoming Events

Event Replay 

Unlock Improved ROI With Full Visibility From Ad Click to Patient Visit

On-Demand Webinar 
In this on-demand webinar, we’ll show you how to enhance ROI by linking appointment data to your campaigns, supercharge your Google Ads performance with accurate data for better bidding, and gain end-to-end insights into the patient journey. You'll also get a chance to explore how to optimize your marketing budgets with privacy-compliant ROI insights to help secure growth.

The State of Payer Marketing: 2025 Insights on Budgets, Funnels & Privacy

On-Demand Webinar

Join marketing and healthcare strategy leaders as they explore the results of an insightful survey on payer marketing, shedding light on how payers are allocating budgets, implementing funnel strategies and tackling privacy challenges to drive growth and compliance in an evolving landscape. Watch the webinar here.

Freshpaint's Compliant Corner

​A leading nonprofit health plan aimed to expand into new markets while maintaining its mission of improving member well-being. But, they faced major challenges in tracking the full member journey due to fragmented data and compliance concerns with legacy tools like Google Analytics. ​

They turned to Freshpaint to solve this problem. Since implemention, the organization has been able to:​

• Target the Right Audience: Utilize programmatic DSPs like StackAdapt and Basis to run awareness campaigns, with Freshpaint capturing data to track impressions and clicks compliantly.​
• Educate and Engage Members: Monitor website interactions to understand which content resonated most and identify where potential members dropped off.
• Drive Enrollments: Track user behavior on enrollment platforms, tying ad impressions to actual conversions, providing a full view of marketing efforts.​

This move not only protected member privacy but also empowered the health plan's marketing team to operate with renewed confidence and efficiency.​

Get the full story here: How a Leading Nonprofit Health Plan Built a Seamless Marketing Funnel with Freshpaint​

Digging into the data

Last week, I asked the question: What’s your biggest challenge in healthcare marketing today?

Attribution and conversion tracking was, far and away, the most common answer. And that's not surprising. Fragmented data living across different systems is a problem that healthcare marketers everywhere face. That problem makes attribution nearly impossible. 

Coming in second was Reaching the right audience. This suggests marketers struggle with precise targeting, likely due to challenges such as data privacy regulations or fragmented audience data.

Here's what else people said...

This week's question: For your biggest marketing challenge, what’s the biggest barrier preventing you from solving it?

• Lack of internal buy-in
• Insufficient budget/resources
• Lack of the right technology/tools
• Regulatory restrictions
• Difficulty proving ROI

Submit your answer here

Industry News

A recent federal court ruling has mandated that HHS, along with the FDA and CDC, restore public health information previously removed from their websites.

The data, which included treatment guidelines and research on common illnesses, had been taken down following executive orders from President Donald Trump that banned references to "gender ideology" and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content. 

Regardless of how you feel about this decision, it's clear that healthcare marketers will have to navigate a world of constant whiplash for the foreseeable future.

Read more here: Judge orders HHS agencies to restore health information

Thanks for reading, see you next week! 

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