CLiMB Clinical Trial Patient Recruitment

Helio Health (formerly known as Laboratory of Advanced Medicine Inc. (LAM)) is an oncology diagnostics provider that has developed a simple blood test to catch cancer early.

They needed to recruit patients for CLiMB, a clinical trial for the detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and engaged Audacity to help create a digital campaign for Facebook and Instagram to target eligible patients. The goal of this digital media campaign was to entice qualified patients who were ages 21-84 with liver cirrhosis and at risk for HCC to join the study. Target audiences included 1) patients who earned a lower income and faced limited access to healthcare and 2) patients who may not have faced as many income or healthcare access challenges. For the first group, messaging included information around receiving payment for trial participation as well as otherwise difficult to access medical care. For the second group, messaging centered around the important role they could play in saving lives in the disease area.

The creative featured a diverse and relatable group of individuals alongside a custom liver icon personalized to their style. The tone of the ads intended to seek out ‘livers with experience’ or ‘warriors’ to portray these individuals in a positive manner. In this way, patients who are eligible not only saw themselves represented in the imagery, but they also saw a “superhero” element alongside them, showing the truly unique contribution they could make to the study. This ownable superhero element in addition to the blue gradient treatment tied the campaign together in the newly refreshed experience of the Helio brand.

The campaign targeting strategy included geo locations around the clinical trial sites as well as associations with liver disease diagnostic and therapeutics claims data. The differing patient segments were targeted leveraging income and ethnicity data as well. This campaign was very successful in engaging the target audience and was able to achieve an overall cost per click under $2 for individuals interested in joining the clinical study, demonstrating success in a key performance indicator.