Case Study: Compass Connects Patients to Breakthrough Vaccine with Machine Learning
The Challenge
A leading pharmaceutical company developed a groundbreaking, targeted solution for an underserved patient population. Despite offering an innovative market solution, the brand’s organic visibility remained low, with most customers acquired through branded paid campaigns. Due to a lack of contextual brand awareness, the company struggled to attract new customers unfamiliar with the brand name, preventing patients most in need from accessing the treatment. Additionally, the brand lacked insight into site-specific SEO data, leaving them without a clear strategy to increase visibility and contextual search volume. They needed to understand the specific factors driving rankings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for their industry.
Actions
Arcalea began by assessing the brand’s Share of Voice (SOV) within the competitive landscape. By analyzing disease state-relevant keywords grouped into key topics, the team measured the brand’s online presence based on total search volume, keyword ranking, and click-through rate. This gave a clear picture of the brand’s current visibility and its competitors’ market share. The analysis revealed that while the brand ranked highly for specific targeted keywords, it was significantly outmatched by larger, authoritative sites like cdc.gov and mayoclinic.org, which had a broader footprint due to their high domain authority and long-established contextual relevance. To increase its organic visibility, the brand needed a more comprehensive SEO strategy that expanded its keyword coverage and targeted broader topics within the medical field.
To address these challenges, Arcalea utilized its proprietary machine-learning tool, Compass, which conducts an in-depth, data-driven assessment of search ranking factors. Compass begins by generating a set of industry-relevant search queries and then scrapes thousands of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to gather both qualitative and quantitative predictor variables. These variables are analyzed to identify the elements that most influence search rankings, such as content relevance, meta descriptions, and backlink profiles.
Using statistical modeling and machine learning algorithms, Compass ranked the top 15 factors that most impacted page-one ranking probability for the industry. Unlike generic SEO checklists, Compass provided a customized, data-driven analysis that was specific to the pharmaceutical industry’s search landscape. It also employed Named Entity Recognition (NER) to identify the most commonly referenced topics and phrases, ensuring that the brand’s content would align with the contextual relevance needed to compete in the SERPs.
Finally, Compass leveraged a clustering technique to group keywords into distinct topics based on shared search results. This clustering method provided insights into how the brand could improve its content creation by targeting broader topic areas while still maintaining relevance to the disease state keywords. By understanding these keyword clusters, the brand was able to align its strategy with the most relevant and competitive topics for its audience, increasing its potential to rank across a wider range of search queries.
Results
Traditional methods of competitor identification and search ranking factor analysis fail to deliver precise, actionable insights. However, through innovative data analysis, Arcalea identified counterintuitive market elements and factors. The SOV analysis highlighted unexpected sites that captured market share despite not being direct competitors. Similarly, the Compass findings uncovered unusual factors influencing visibility. These combined insights led to an increase in digital relevance by focusing on three dynamic elements: off-page, content, and technical recommendations.
With a prescriptive plan detailing exactly what actions to take and to what extent, the brand improved its search presence and acquired new customers. The results included:
- 32% increase in organic search traffic
- 27% growth in new customer acquisition
- Improved ranking on 22 competitive industry keywords
- Significant increase in visibility across targeted disease state keywords
Moving Forward
By enhancing organic rankings and search volume, the brand successfully reached its targeted patient population. As both the market and search algorithms evolve, the company plans to continue leveraging Compass to evaluate and adjust its implementation strategy, ensuring they maintain their lead in rankings and market share.
