Building Marketing Investment Accountability Across a Healthcare Network

TL;DR

I partnered with the CMO of a private-equity-backed healthcare network to establish a clearer basis for evaluating marketing investment across approximately 90 corporate-owned clinics. I connected acquisition performance with patients per day, service-line demand, and financial estimates informed by historical averages supplied by the CMO and CFO. I brought recommendations to marketing executives and the board chairman associated with the private-equity partnership, then worked with my PPC colleague to implement campaign adjustments with CMO alignment. The result was a shared approach to evaluating corporate marketing and acting on the findings.

The leadership challenge

The organization operated approximately 90 corporate clinics alongside roughly 300 franchise locations. Its internal marketing team supported franchise owners and their agencies, while corporate locations had their own acquisition needs and substantial paid-search investment.

Leadership wanted corporate locations to help establish which growth approaches were worth pursuing. Campaigns, landing pages, software, and agency approaches could be tested in corporate operations, with useful findings subsequently informing support for franchisees.

That required a way to evaluate investment across clinics with different operating conditions. Leadership needed to understand where the money was going, what the business was observing in return, and which questions warranted a change in marketing strategy.

The engagement focused on corporate clinics, where we had access to the relevant advertising data. Within that scope, I worked with the CMO to connect marketing evaluation with the business’s operating priorities.

Establishing how marketing would be evaluated

The CMO and I developed the approach together. I identified how we could make advertising performance more useful for business decisions. He helped expand the available information through the business intelligence team and supplied financial context with the CFO.

We organized the evaluation around individual clinics, campaign categories, and the Northeast and South operating regions. Alongside marketing spend and response, we examined patients per day and service-line activity.

This gave us a basis for asking more specific investment questions:

• Where did marketing response and clinic activity move together, and where did they diverge?

• Which locations or campaign categories needed closer investigation?

• Was the timing of our marketing consistent with the services patients were seeking?

• What did the financial assumptions imply about the value of the activity we were generating?

I developed the supporting reporting capability, but my responsibility also included interpreting the findings and recommending what the team should do with them.

Bringing clinic economics into the discussion

Healthcare acquisition needs to account for what happens after someone responds to an ad. A call, a reservation, and an actual clinic visit represent different stages. Patients per day and the mix of services provided add operating context that advertising metrics alone cannot supply.

The CMO and CFO provided historical operating averages and financial assumptions. I incorporated those inputs into estimates of financial contribution using the organization’s EBITDA and ROI framework. The estimates sat alongside observed marketing and clinic activity, giving leadership a common basis for discussing the economics of the program.

Those financial outputs were modeled from the organization’s business history. They were not a direct accounting attribution of every clinic’s profit to advertising.

I also took responsibility for checking the assumptions behind the calculations. In a documented review, I reconciled the reporting formulas with the organization’s marketing investment calculator, identified changed operating inputs, and requested leadership approval before updating them. This helped keep the interpretation of marketing performance aligned with the financial assumptions the business was using.

Turning executive review into campaign decisions

I reviewed performance with the CMO, VP of Marketing, and the board chairman associated with the private-equity partnership. My role included explaining relevant changes in the business environment and recommending adjustments.

Service-line patterns were one practical example. Sports physicals, school requirements, and cold-and-flu demand created different opportunities through the year. If the data suggested a service was gaining traction earlier, I could recommend moving the relevant messaging forward and coordinate the change with the team.

My PPC colleague and I had substantial ownership over campaign optimization, with CMO alignment. We could investigate a pattern, recommend a response, and implement the adjustment. Executive review and day-to-day acquisition decisions were connected through that working process.

We also used differences in location performance to identify questions for further testing. Comparing spend with patients per day helped direct investigation; interpreting those relationships required attention to seasonality, service mix, and measurement changes.

What changed for the business

The engagement established a shared view of corporate marketing investment across approximately 90 clinics. Leadership could compare locations and regions, examine acquisition alongside clinic activity, and discuss estimated financial contribution using business inputs supplied by the CMO and CFO.

For the marketing team, it created a repeatable basis for optimization and experimentation. I remained involved in the actions arising from the analysis, bringing executive priorities into the work we were running.

In my experience, the stronger evaluation process and paid-search foundation also helped support later discussions about broader multimedia investment. That subsequent campaign was a separate initiative with its own scope and results.

This case reflects how I work with growth-stage businesses: define the commercial questions with leadership, connect the relevant operating information, and take responsibility for turning findings into action. The tools support that work. The value comes from making investment decisions clearer and carrying them into execution.