Opportunity to Transform Pharma Commercial Decision-Making

Ipsos MMA’s Unified Commercial Effectiveness Measurement Solution

By Surya Pandruvada, EVP Healthcare Analytics

The pharmaceutical industry stands at a pivotal moment—ready for a groundbreaking shift in how commercial decisions are made. As healthcare marketers navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, where patients and healthcare providers are more connected and informed than ever, the opportunity to harness advanced data analytics and AI has never been more critical.

Ipsos MMA’s Unified Commercial Effectiveness Measurement solution offers a game-changing approach that moves beyond traditional marketing methods, integrating cutting-edge tools and real-time feedback loops. This revolution empowers companies to optimize every aspect of their campaigns, driving higher marketing ROI and, ultimately, better healthcare outcomes. Are you ready to transform your commercial strategy and stay ahead in this competitive, high-stakes industry?

Complex Healthcare Commercial Ecosystem

The healthcare industry operates within a highly complex ecosystem, unlike many other sectors. In this model, consumer decision-making is influenced by multiple stakeholders, including physicians, payers (insurance companies), pharmacists, and patients.  These stakeholders interact across different stages, such as pre-diagnosis, diagnosis, treatment, and maintenance. Each influencer impacts the patient journey in unique ways, making healthcare marketing far more intricate than a typical linear funnel.

Today, patients have unprecedented access to information, and their decision-making processes are more involved, leading to a more complex engagement landscape that demands sophisticated data strategies.

The Opportunity to Transform Decision-Making

The healthcare marketing landscape has drastically evolved from the days of simple personal selling and traditional marketing. In the past two decades, the focus has shifted from in-person interactions with healthcare providers to a much more comprehensive, omnichannel approach that reaches multiple stakeholders digitally and across various media.

This shift presents a unique opportunity for healthcare companies to leverage advanced data analytics and AI to better understand their customers—both healthcare providers and patients. To seize this opportunity, healthcare marketers must move away from legacy siloed models and embrace an integrated framework.

Ipsos MMA’s unified commercial effectiveness measurement approach, which combines both top-down marketing mix modeling and bottom-up patient/HCP level attribution, enables companies to plan, execute, and measure their campaigns with greater precision. By aligning salesforce efforts with media campaigns and digital interactions, marketers can ensure a more seamless and effective outreach to healthcare providers (HCPs) and patients alike.

“Working with Ipsos MMA has completely transformed our approach to commercial decision-making. By leveraging their Unified Commercial Effectiveness Measurement solution, we’ve been able to integrate our data across all channels and stakeholders—unlocking insights we never thought possible. This real-time feedback and optimization have driven a substantial increase in conversion rates, helping us reach more patients needing treatment. Ipsos MMA’s advanced analytics and AI-driven tools have truly set a new standard for success in healthcare marketing”

– Ashutosh Katiyar, Executive Director, Regeneron

Unified Measurement Framework

Ipsos MMA’s Unified Commercial Effectiveness Measurement solution connects all promotional touchpoints into a cohesive framework. Siloed measurement approaches often lead to disjointed decision-making, where marketing impact is measured in isolation—limiting the ability to optimize efforts across different channels. Ipsos MMA’s approach is marketing mix solution-agnostic, allowing for the seamless integration of internally developed or vendor-provided MMM tools into its comprehensive framework. By combining these with Ipsos MMA developed individual touchpoint-level HCP and patient-level attribution solutions, Ipsos MMA delivers a more holistic and actionable view of marketing effectiveness.

In the unified model, patient and physician attribution models are integrated with marketing mix models via a Bayesian framework, where each marketing touchpoint (digital ads, in-person meetings, sales calls, etc.) is connected to one another. This system enables real-time feedback loops that can adjust promotional strategies on the fly based on in-market performance. As a result, healthcare marketers can efficiently allocate their investments, optimize audience targeting, and refine media placements to drive both brand performance and better healthcare outcomes.

For instance, by integrating data from various channels, marketers can understand how different tactics—such as physician education, digital advertising, or TV campaigns—contribute to script generation (NBRx) or prescription refills (RRx). This allows for a more strategic allocation of marketing resources, where underperforming areas can be improved or re-optimized quickly, leading to higher marketing ROI.

Omnichannel Optimization for Maximum Impact

With the integration of digital data, including from TV, CTV (connected TV), OTT (over-the-top streaming services), and other digital sources, healthcare brands can optimize their promotional activities across multiple platforms and stakeholders. AI-based tools allow for deep analysis of audience behaviors and preferences, and by using Bayesian models, companies can simulate future scenarios and adjust their strategies dynamically. This enables real-time optimization, ensuring that the right audience is targeted with the right message at the right time.

The omnichannel approach doesn’t just focus on digital channels. It also integrates in-person engagements, such as sales calls or physician meetings, into the broader marketing mix. This ensures that all efforts are measured and aligned to the same goals—whether it’s building brand awareness, driving new prescriptions, or improving patient adherence.

Ipsos MMA’s approach helps commercial teams prioritize HCP engagement by leveraging “next best action” models that determine the optimal sequence of interactions (calls, emails, meetings) that would most likely drive an increase in prescription volume. By analyzing historical data and future projections, marketers can ensure that HCPs receive the most relevant information at the right time, thereby boosting conversion rates.

Real-World Case Studies Demonstrating Impact

Ipsos MMA has witnessed several real-world examples of how this unified, data-driven approach has yielded significant results for healthcare brands. One such project showed how monthly optimizations using this integrated model led to a 20% increase in conversion. This was achieved by continuously analyzing audience data and refining the targeting and placement of marketing messages, ensuring that only the most relevant individuals were reached. By using AI to optimize digital placements and sequence patient or physician outreach, healthcare teams were able to realize substantial gains in demand and prescription volume across key campaigns. Read more case studies here.

AI and Advanced Analytics for the Future

AI plays a pivotal role in driving this transformation by enabling the constant analysis of in-market performance and recalibration of strategies. AI-based ad tracking allows healthcare companies to capture granular data about customer interactions across devices and publishers, which is then linked back to health claims data through identity resolution techniques.

AI-driven feedback loops help uncover new opportunities for optimization and plan adjustment. For example, AI tools can recommend optimal media placements or message sequences based on real-time performance, ensuring campaigns are always fine-tuned for maximum impact.

Creating a Future-Proof Healthcare Marketing Strategy

As the media landscape evolves and more launches target rare diseases, companies must adopt agile, adaptable, and forward-thinking strategies. By harnessing predictive analytics, healthcare teams can model future scenarios, anticipate challenges, and proactively refine their plans to stay ahead.

The overarching goal is to move away from backward-looking, reactive approaches to marketing and instead adopt proactive, forward-looking strategies that can handle the complexities of the modern healthcare environment. As healthcare marketing continues to evolve, companies that embrace AI, advanced analytics, and unified measurement frameworks will be best positioned to succeed in this competitive landscape.