Seven ways to help your health advertising creative shine

Many consumers take their health and wellness purchases seriously–they’re deciding what vitamins or supplements to put in their body, after all. This is why it can be important for brands that are creating healthcare ads to share their brand messages more clearly. In a recent Kantar study, 60% of health and wellness shoppers said brand name was an important factor for their purchases1. And in the ad creative itself, there are a few more things to consider for healthcare ads. We’ve put together seven tips for helping your healthcare ad creative stand out and engage your audiences.

Based on insights from Amazon DSP static ads and design elements run in the US, Amazon Ads developed tips to help marketers craft healthcare ads that feature their products and make them relevant for audiences. To check which product categories these recommendations are relevant for, refer to the list of audience segments at the bottom of the page. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for these tips include average click-through rate (CTR), detail page view rate (DPVR), purchase rate (PR), and return on ad spend (ROAS), which are important metrics for helping ad creative to resonate with audiences. Here’s how using insights to select imagery and text could help brands create brand marketing campaigns featuring the health and wellness products that will appeal to their audience.

Explore ad examples of health ads

Here are examples of what optimized healthcare ads could look like. We also have seven tips to get you started, and there’s more information and tips on display advertising available, too.

Healthcare ad example showcasing how recommendations for CTR might be implemented

Tips in action for CTR driven campaigns

Healthcare ad example showcasing how recommendations for DPVR might be implemented

Tips in action for DPVR driven campaigns

Healthcare ad example showcasing how recommendations for PR/ROAS might be implemented

Tips in action for PR/ROAS driven campaigns

Consider these seven tips to improve your healthcare ads

graph visualizing 10% increase in average CTR

Creatives with 10 or less words had a 10% increase in average CTR

graph visualizing 11% increase in average DPVR

Creatives with 10 or less words had an 11% increase in average DPVR

1. Try to be concise

Even if it can be tempting to gush about your product, try to refrain from using more than 10 words in your ads. Creatives with 10 or less words had an average CTR that was 10% higher than those with 19 or more words.2 Additionally, the creatives with the low word count also had an 11% higher average DPVR than the creatives with the high word count.3 Remember that this includes all the words in the ad, from the copy to the CTA to the disclaimer–it all counts toward your total word count.

2. Consider your word choice

What’s one word that could help increase KPIs across the board? “Feel.” Creatives that included the word “feel” saw an increase in average CTR by 14%, an increase in average DPVR by 50%, and an increase in average PR by 45%.4 In contrast, one word to avoid is “new.” Healthcare ads with the word “new” had a decrease in average DPVR by 11%.5 Ads that focused on how the products make customers feel performed better than ads that mentioned if the products were new.

graph visualizing 11% decrease in average DPVR

Creatives with the word "new" had an 11% decrease in average DPVR

graph color for CTR: orange

CTR

graph color for DPVR: light blue

DPVR

graph color for PR: petrol green

PR

Graph visualizing average increases in  CTR (14%), DPVR (50%), PR (45%)

Creatives with the word "feel" had an increase in average CTR of 14%, average DPVR of 50%, and average PR of 45%

3. Use discretion with discounts

Whether or not to use discount messaging in healthcare ad creative depends on your primary KPI. Adding discount messaging such as “Save XX%” saw an increase in average DPVR by 16% and an increase in average PR by 20%.6 However, creatives with a discount also had a decrease in average CTR by 27%.7 So, if your goal is to increase click-through engagement on the ad, it may be worth skipping the discount shout-out.

graph color for CTR: orange

CTR

graph color for DPVR: light blue

DPVR

graph color for PR: petrol green

PR

Graph visualizing average decrease in CTR (27%) and average increases in  DPVR (16%), PR (20%)

Creatives with discount messaging had a decrease in average CTR of 27%, and an increase in average DPVR of 16% and average PR of 20%

4. Focus on the product

Try not to cram too many elements into your healthcare ad imagery. Ads with five or fewer objects had an average DPVR 12% higher than those with nine or more.8 Those objects or components aren’t limited to the products within the ad image itself, either. It also includes the background, the logo, the text, or anything else that can be clearly identified as a separate element based on its color, outline, or shape.

graph visualizing 12% increase in average DPVR

Creatives with five or fewer objects had a 12% increase in average DPVR

graph visualizing 13% increase in average PR

Creatives with low complexity imagery had a 13% increase in average PR

5. Keep it simple

Alongside a lower word count and fewer objects, it also helps to keep the imagery itself simpler in healthcare ads. Use imagery with low complexity, which means a lower number and variance of colors and textures. You could achieve that by avoiding lifestyle imagery, using a solid-color background, and limiting the number of font colors and sizes. Creatives with low image complexity had average PR that was 13% higher than those with high image complexity.9

6. Consider the CTA sizing

If you’re including a call-to-action (CTA) in your ad, keep it on the smaller side. The height of the CTA should take up no more than 10% of the overall ad height in rectangle and taller formats. Ads with a smaller CTA size (2% of the total ad height) had an average CTR that was 10% higher than bigger CTA that reached beyond 11% of the ad height.10

graph visualizing 10% increase in average CTR

Creatives with low CTA height had a 10% increase in average CTR

graph visualizing 9% increase in average CTR

Creatives with light background and foreground had a 9% increase in average CTR

graph visualizing 12% increase in average PR

Creatives with light background and dark foreground had a 12% increase in average PR

7. Take care with colors and lighting

Using a lighter-colored background and foreground in your ad is likely to be more appealing to customers. This covers all components of the ad, including text and logo. Creatives with a brightly lit background and darker foreground saw an increase in average PR by 12%.11 Also, having a lighter, brightly colored background along with a lighter foreground saw an increase of 9% in average CTR.12

How Amazon Ads sourced these insights

The category insights used here were generated by capturing design elements from 22,000 creative image files from within the US from 2018 to 2021. Creatives were separated into verticals according to their audiences. Statistical and machine learning models then looked at the impact of design elements on awareness, consideration, and purchase KPIs. Creative performance was adjusted to remove the contribution of confounding effects such as placement and serving frequency.

Audience segments included in the analysis: over the counter medical/pain relief, vitamins/supplements/herbal, nutrition bars/drinks, health/beauty/personal care, exercise & fitness, fitness/yoga entertainment, first aid supplies, sleep/snoring, health/mind/body books.

Learn more

Want to find out more about optimizing your advertising creative? Explore other ways to improve ad campaigns for a variety of other types of categories, including supermarket goods and groceries and beverage marketing.

1 “Healthcare Consumers Path to Purchase,” Kantar & Amazon Ads, US, July 2021
2-12 Amazon internal, July 2021, US