Case Study - Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

Key Takeaways

At the completion of the phase 1 study effort, the sponsor looked to BBK Worldwide to support the recruitment of 80 additional patients for the phase 2 clinical study, in hopes of reaching a total enrollment goal of 250 patients.

Support for the EMBOLD study began by developing a branded look and feel to garner patient interest, which carried through all digital advertising, the study website and the prescreener.

Challenges

A limited number of participating sites (five) opted in for media recruitment support.
During the media recruitment effort, Facebook announced that it would begin removing ad-targeting features for “sensitive” topics such as clinical trial recruitment. Previously, Facebook allowed for targeting of users that had indicated interest in health-related conditions (e.g., delivering a multiple sclerosis study advertisement to someone who expressed interest in “multiple sclerosis awareness”).
There was an anticipated high screen-fail rate.

Solution

Google SEM and Display campaign generated the largest number of ad impressions (1.8M+) and clicks to the website (13,574); however, the tactic has not generated any prequalified referrals.

Because the majority of PPMS and SPMS patients are already quite knowledgeable about their condition and / or have strong relationships with their existing care team, they were visiting the study website and predetermining the study opportunity was not for them.

BBK recommended optimizing digital outreach by removing support for Google and reallocating those resources to further support Facebook to allow for the greatest amount of advertising flexibility and return on investment.

Facebook advertising resulted in the largest amount of qualified referrals (59) for the EMBOLD Study digital ad campaign, accounting for 66% of all referrals generated.