Protecting the Patient

Privacy, personalization, and other digital challenges for healthcare marketers.

Healthcare marketers face a landscape defined by two key challenges: privacy and personalization. These two forces shape the way we engage with patients and consumers, pushing us to adapt our strategies and rethink how we use data in a highly regulated space. If you work in healthcare marketing, there’s no doubt your work life has been heavily impacted by evolving HIPAA regulations over the last few years, specifically around the definition of Protected Health Information (PHI) and what that means for our marketing efforts. Likely, you’re searching for ways to deliver personalized, data-driven campaigns without violating HIPAA. So, what do these shifts mean for healthcare marketers, and what can we expect going forward? Let’s dive into the trends that are driving change and how marketers are adapting to meet the demands of privacy and personalization.

For those not deeply involved in healthcare marketing, let’s take a step back and explain the situation. Digital advertising relies heavily on data. Marketers gather information about customer behavior, demographics, and interests through platforms like social media, search engines, and websites. This data helps us serve the right ads to the right people at the right time—whether it’s based on online behavior, offline activities like shopping patterns, or even loyalty program participation.

However, when it comes to healthcare marketing, the stakes are higher. HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) has placed strict guidelines around how patient data is collected, used, and shared. These regulations are becoming even more stringent, forcing marketers to rethink their digital strategies.

What you can know and what you can’t.

While there are many variables and exceptions around the impact of HIPAA regulations like these, here are a few examples of what regulations meant for digital advertisers in the healthcare space:

Limited use of tracking technologies: Tracking pixels, cookies, and other data collection methods used to monitor user behavior online are under scrutiny. The challenge here is to avoid collecting PHI (patient health information) through these methods.

Data de-identification: When using patient data for marketing, it must be anonymized so that it cannot be traced back to an individual. This ensures compliance with HIPAA.

Third-party vendor compliance: If you work with external vendors, such as Google or Meta, they must sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) to ensure they comply with HIPAA regulations.

What does this mean for marketers? First, you can no longer target ads based on sensitive health information, such as specific medical conditions. For example, if a patient visits your page about diabetes, you can’t target them with additional diabetes-related ads based on their browsing history. You also can’t use tools like Google Analytics without anonymizing the data first, as Google isn’t signing BAAs. This creates significant gaps in tracking and performance measurement, making it harder to optimize and assess the ROI of digital marketing campaigns.

The quest to balance privacy and marketing effectiveness.

As challenging as these privacy restrictions may seem, the healthcare marketing industry has risen to the occasion. At the 2024 Healthcare Internet Conference (HCIC), this theme came through loud and clear. Many healthcare organizations have embraced these changes, even going as far as to say that the stricter regulations have ultimately led to better, cleaner data and a more focused approach to digital marketing. Some of the solutions healthcare marketers are adopting include:

Investing in new technologies: Some organizations have invested in advanced technologies that allow them to anonymize patient data while still delivering targeted, relevant marketing messages. These solutions are often expensive, but they are key to navigating the new privacy landscape.

Building compliant tech stacks: Healthcare providers are increasingly building or rebuilding their tech stacks to ensure full compliance with HIPAA and other regulations, ensuring patient data is protected across all digital touchpoints.

A renewed focus on patient trust: As one speaker at HCIC pointed out, these changes have forced healthcare marketers to re-evaluate how they capture, track, and use patient data—and many are finding that these efforts have led to better, more transparent relationships with their patients.

While these shifts require time and resources, many marketers are discovering the benefits of a privacy-first approach. In fact, some believe that healthcare marketers could actually lead the way in setting industry standards for how to safely collect, use, and manage consumer data.

Personalization: a balancing act between data and compliance.

While privacy remains a top priority, personalization is equally important in 2025 healthcare marketing. Patients increasingly expect personalized, relevant experiences across their digital touchpoints—from websites to ads to email campaigns. The challenge, of course, is delivering that personalization without violating privacy regulations. So, how can we create personalized experiences while remaining HIPAA-compliant?

Audience segmentation: One of the keys to personalization is segmenting your audience based on factors such as location, age, interests, and behaviors. With the loss of detailed health-related data due to HIPAA restrictions, many healthcare marketers are getting creative with other types of audience segmentation. For example, marketers are using demographic and behavioral data to create segments that are likely to engage with specific content, such as general health tips or preventative care information.

Dynamic creative: Personalization also requires dynamic creative—ads or content that can adjust based on the audience segment. This could mean showing different types of healthcare services or content to different groups, such as offering wellness tips to general consumers or rehabilitation advice to those recovering from surgery. By making the creative dynamic, marketers can ensure they’re offering relevant content without needing to rely on sensitive patient data.

Ethical use of data: It’s essential to strike the right balance between personalization and data privacy. Ethical data use ensures that marketers aren’t overstepping by using personal health information without consent.

The road ahead: navigating the challenges of privacy and personalization.

Looking ahead to 2025, healthcare marketers will continue to face a complex, shifting landscape of regulations and patient expectations. The combination of privacy and personalization will undoubtedly remain at the forefront of our strategies. But as we’ve seen over the past few years, there are solutions available, even if they require a significant investment in technology and process changes. So what do healthcare marketers need to do?

• Work closely with legal teams to navigate the complexities of HIPAA and other privacy regulations.
• Embrace new technologies that enable privacy-first marketing.
• Focus on delivering personalized experiences that prioritize patient trust.

When we live with this awareness, everything changes. The love, gratitude, and connection I saw at the conference weren’t a fluke—they were the fruits of years of intention, collaboration, and trust. And while there’s always more to do, it was a powerful reminder of what’s possible when we embrace unity in all we do.

We may not have all the answers yet, but by working together, staying informed, and continuously adapting to new challenges, we can continue to lead the way in delivering ethical, effective marketing in the healthcare space.

Privacy and personalization are more than just buzzwords in healthcare marketing—they are the defining trends for 2025. While the road ahead may be challenging, the opportunities for marketers to embrace ethical data use and personalized experiences have never been greater. Whether you’re rethinking your digital strategies or rebuilding your tech stack, one thing is clear: patient privacy and personalization are no longer optional—they’re the future of healthcare marketing. And LOOMIS can help.

CHRISTINA MCKINNEY is a group account director at LOOMIS, the country’s leading challenger brand advertising agency and a top Dallas advertising agency for digital, social, mobile and user experience. For more about challenger branding, advertising, and marketing, leadership, culture, and other inspirations that will drive your success, visit our blog BARK! The Voice of the Underdog and catch up on all of our posts.

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