Thinking Meta: Successful clinical trial recruitment while navigating Facebook’s advertising policies
“Let’s advertise on Facebook!”
We’ve all heard it: social media advertising is a great way to reach your audience on an app they use every day. And it’s true. But when it comes to posting ads on Meta’s platforms (that’s Facebook and Instagram), it can be tough to actually get your message in front of the people you want to see it most.
Meta’s ad policies have changed a lot over the last couple years—they have specific rules about what you can say, how you say it, and to who. This can be especially challenging if you’re recruiting participants for a clinical trial, considering Meta has strict regulations when it comes to any health care-related content.
So, does digital marketing still work for clinical trials? In our experience, yes—but only if you go into your campaign with a solid understanding of Meta’s advertising policies and a plan to meet them. From reaching a target audience to writing ad copy to running a campaign, we’re sharing the key lessons we’ve learned to successfully recruit clinical trial participants on Facebook.
Targeting your audience on Meta
Before you start writing ads and choosing images, you want to think about your audience. Start by asking yourself, “Who are we trying to reach?”
Meta will offer targeting parameters that fit into three different categories:
Demographics
Show ads to people based on traits like age, gender, relationship status, education, job title, etc.
Interests
Show ads to people interested in specific topics and events.
Behaviours
Show ads to people based on their past activity (pages they frequent, purchases they have made).
While interest- and behaviour-related targeting can be useful, we’ve learned that it’s best to start with very broad parameters focused mainly on demographics like age and geographic region. Even if your clinical trial has a narrow focus with many exclusion criteria, we still recommend starting with those broad targeting parameters. This might seem counterintuitive, but Facebook’s advertising platform is algorithm-based. The algorithm needs a large data set to analyze in order to start finding the right potential participants.
So, rather than using hyper-specific targeting, use the language in your ad and visuals to speak directly to the people who are most likely to be eligible for your research study. Once people are interested, your ad can link them to a website and ask them to fill out a pre-screening form. This way, you bring all potential participants to your site, and the form filters out ineligible applicants, making the clinical trial team’s job easier.
Writing Facebook ads
Before you set up your digital advertising campaign on Meta, you’ll write ad copy—that’s your post text, headline, and description. These are the messages that will appear alongside any visuals you use in your ads, and this copy needs to align with Meta’s Advertising Standards.
Meta has an automated review system (check out section 3 on that Advertising Standards page), which means bots scan your images and text to ensure they meet regulations. But these bots can make mistakes—they might reject your ad right away, or it might run for a few weeks with no issues and then get pulled. And it’s not easy to get ahold of technical support via phone or online chat to get your ad reviewed and approved.
We’ve been down that road…and learned some useful “dos and dont’s” for writing clinical trial recruitment ad copy that meets Meta’s policies.
DO
Start with research. Pay close attention to Meta’s standards on Health and Wellness, and Personal Attributes, as these policies often apply when advertising for clinical trials
Use positive language by focusing on people’s goals and motivations rather than symptoms or things that may be distressing to them.
DON’T
There are certain phrases and topics that typically trigger Meta to reject an ad. As much as possible, avoid mentioning:
Personal health and appearance
Weight loss, dieting, fat, or dietary supplements
Negative emotions and mental health concerns, such as stress, fear, anxiety and depression
Drugs and prescription medication (That said, we’ve had ads using the term “medication” get approved, so consider testing terms and find out what Meta will approve)
Large sums of money (Even if you’re just using statistics, Facebook might flag your ad as a “get-rich-quick” scheme)
Financial compensation or volunteer opportunities (Facebook might flag and reject these as employment ads, even if you clearly mention clinical trial recruitment)
“You” or “your” or direct questions such as “are you _____?”
Meta considers these questions too invasive, especially if you’re asking about people’s personal health. If you’re looking for participants with a certain condition, it’s better to describe potential symptoms rather than asking if they have the condition directly.
Age or people from a specific age group.
For example, ads that mention “youth” or “seniors” are often rejected for age discrimination. Get creative when talking about your audience. We’ve had success replacing “seniors” with “older adults.” And by the way, it isn’t always necessary to bring up age, especially if you have a pre-screening form that will filter out ineligible applicants.
By the way, we know this is a lot to consider… if you’re looking for some expert support, can we recommend Marketing Martian? ;)
Pro tip for selecting ad images:
A lot of the policies that apply to ad copy also apply to images. For example, not only should you avoid mentioning prescription drugs in your ad copy, you should also stay away from imagery of pills and medical/cosmetic procedures and equipment. In one of our campaigns, we were able to use a close-up illustration of a needle in a Facebook ad, but any imagery related to medical equipment needs to be tasteful.
Running your Facebook ad campaign
When it comes to getting a campaign up and running, one of our biggest lessons has been to embrace experimentation. You can’t always predict what ads Meta will approve or which ones will resonate with your audience. So test different targeting parameters, images, and messages to find out what gets approved and reaches your audience. Don’t be afraid of a little trial and error—it’s part of the process.
A couple of campaign pro-tips:
Only launch two or three ads at a time. Even if an ad is approved at first, it can be flagged for a second round of review, which can take up to a week. We’ve had ads that were initially approved get pulled a few days later. While you can appeal these decisions, if too many ads get rejected at the same time, your ad account will be temporarily shut down. Never launch five ads at once, unless you’re positive they’ve run before and will be approved. Our policy is to add new ads for the same campaign only after the first set of ads has been approved and running for at least ten days with no issues.
Be aware of ad fatigue. Your audience will stop paying attention if they keep seeing the same ads. It’s important to cycle through different sets of ad visuals and creative copy to keep people engaged!
Check out our work building a recruitment campaign for the HeLTI Canada Study. Using Meta advertising, we were able to get the team on track to meet their recruitment goals for one of the largest preconception trials in the world.
Ultimately, Facebook remains a powerful platform for recruiting participants to clinical trials. By getting creative with your ad copy, setting up broad targeting parameters, and patiently testing different ad sets, you can not only get your ads approved by Meta, but get your audience engaged in your study.
Want an expert on the job? Our team can support you through the entire process, from crafting creative to launching and running a successful campaign. Reach out to get the conversation started.
