Genentech: Using Data to Reach Patients More Efficiently

Genentech knew they had a blind spot when it came to measuring their marketing campaigns. “We had all of these media investments, but we didn’t quite understand how they were performing after they were live,” says Andres Diaz, head of experience services and digital innovation at Genentech. “It was a massive gap for us.”

Working with Veeva Crossix, Genentech now has data to measure marketing performance and optimize its campaigns. The company has also improved audience quality and enabled its brands to better connect patient engagement with triggers for the field. By using data in these ways, the brand teams execute campaigns efficiently and use their media more effectively to deliver impactful messaging to the right HCPs and patients.

Optimize for more efficient and effective campaigns

Genentech works with Crossix to measure media across its full portfolio of brands. “We wanted to understand how media was performing in the real world, and the Crossix measurement platform allows us to do that,” says Diaz. As soon as they went live with a publisher, brands could quickly get insights on performance. “Just a few weeks into the campaign, we understand whether we are targeting the right patients and whether those patients are interested in our therapies,” says Diaz. “In about 10 or 12 weeks, we can really see whether they were engaging with our brands.” Having immediate access to this data helped Genentech teams make timely optimizations, making the most out of their budgets and improving campaign performance. “With investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, every optimization makes a big difference,” says Diaz.

As a result, Genentech has experienced a significant increase in media value across all of its brands. “One way we quantify this is the incremental number of patients we’ve been able to reach through our media investments by making the optimizations we do,” says Diaz.

Improve audience quality

For Genentech, a strong foundation of connected health, consumer, and media data also allowed them to build out several other use cases. “I’m really passionate about health audience targeting,” says Diaz. While broad reach is still an important strategy for awareness, Genentech incorporated Crossix Prime Segments to reach qualified audiences across platforms and at specific points of their treatment journey. These high-quality segments can be up to 10 times more targeted than standard health audience segments.

“Over the last year, we’ve seen three times improvement in the quality of our audiences,” says Diaz. “We’re also seeing up to a 40% reduction in media costs by using health audience segments.” As advertisers get lower in the funnel, these precise segments can help reach relevant audiences closer to the point of conversion with very specific messaging.

Connect patient engagement with triggers for the field

Genentech is also finding success in bridging the gap between sales and marketing by connecting patient engagement data with triggers for the field. Genentech was an early adopter of HCP Trigger Data, which allows them to understand where a specific patient is in their journey and take action to improve new patient starts and adherence. They know which patients are going to their brand website and whether those patients are currently on the brand’s treatment or have been diagnosed but are not on the brand’s treatment. This trigger data is a strong signal that a patient is ready to convert.

Marketing then uses this information to alert the sales team that a potential patient might be coming to the practice of one of their HCP customers. If the patient is being treated, this information helps the field partner know they need to double down on adherence while marketing continues consistent messaging to the customer. “This data has enabled our field teams to have meaningful and engaging conversations with our customers as we create a personalized experience to help get patients on treatment,” says Diaz.

Making these data connections between marketing and sales is also helping Genentech with its omnichannel strategies. “At the core of omnichannel is data,” says Diaz. “We use data to understand who we’re reaching and how we’re influencing the rest of their journey.”

Working with Crossix has helped Genentech close the gap it felt around the performance of its media campaigns. It also allowed the company to expand its use cases to improve audience quality and drive synergy between sales and marketing. “You need dedicated focus and activity around media measurement and optimization if you want to do it right, but the benefits are enormous,” says Diaz.

Learn more about how a modern foundation of connected data can help marketers improve campaign performance.