DeepIntent’s Natalie Mancuso: Healthcare CTV Drives Better Performance Than General Online Video

Why It Matters

By tying CTV exposure to deterministic clinical outcomes, pharma brands can quantify media ROI, accelerate patient acquisition, and optimize spend across the entire treatment journey.

Key Takeaways

• CTV delivers double completion rates versus online video for pharma ads.
• Household-level frequency capping prevents overexposure across devices within families.
• Sequential creative moves patients from awareness to prescription, suppressing converted users.
• Deterministic NPI-level measurement links ad exposure to actual script lifts.
• Cohesive multi‑channel campaigns boost patient journey efficiency and adherence.

Summary

DeepIntent’s Natalie Mancuso explains how the company is reshaping pharmaceutical advertising by using connected‑TV (CTV) as an identity‑driven awareness channel rather than a generic, panel‑based medium. By matching CTV impressions to individual identifiers—NPIs, HEMs, IP devices and household signals—the platform can trace a single patient’s exposure across TV, digital carriers and endemic health sites, turning brand awareness into measurable clinical actions.

The data she cites shows CTV delivering roughly twice the completion rates of standard online video and generating two‑times more new‑to‑brand prescriptions, with a 2.5‑fold lift over display ads. Key tactics include household‑level frequency capping, sequential creative that evolves the story, and automatic suppression of users who have already converted, ensuring spend is focused on the next stage of the journey.

Mancuso highlights deterministic, NPI‑level measurement that links an ad view directly to physician actions such as script fills, a stark contrast to modeled click‑through metrics. She points to oncology and rare‑disease campaigns where exposure correlates with faster diagnoses and adoption of new therapies, illustrating the platform’s ability to close the loop between media spend and health outcomes.

For pharma marketers, the implication is clear: budget should be allocated to the patient journey, not isolated channels. Cohesive, multi‑channel sequences that pair CTV with endemic digital layers and audio can accelerate conversion, improve adherence, and provide concrete ROI signals that were previously unavailable in the fragmented advertising ecosystem.

Original Description

Not all digital video yields equal results. Case in point: DeepIntent’s Natalie Mancuso points to internal findings that connected TV advertising in healthcare generates twice the new-to-brand prescription rate compared to online video alone when combined with sequential messaging and clinical conversion tracking rather than traditional click-through metrics.

“We see CTV drive two times higher new-to-brand prescriptions than online video alone,” Natalie Mancuso, SVP, Data Partnerships at DeepIntent, told Beet.TV Editorial Director Lisa Granatstein. “We also have some ongoing statistics that really support a two and a half times higher rate than within display.”

DeepIntent resolves CTV and digital exposure to individual patients using identifiers including NPIs, HIMs, IP device, and household signals rather than modeling lookalike audiences for pharmaceutical targeting.

Three-step patient journey handoff

Successful healthcare advertising follows sequential progression from CTV opener through digital carriers to endemic environments, with each touchpoint advancing patient action rather than repeating identical messaging.

“We really think about this as being a bit of a three-step handoff. You’ve got CTV as an opener, you’ve got these digital carriers and then endemic bundles,” Mancuso said. “CTV completion rates are nearly double online video.”

Digital serves as a carrier for next best actions including “talk to your doctor” messaging and savings cards that move patients forward through treatment consideration phases.

Household-level frequency management

Relevant messaging without overwhelming patients requires household-level frequency capping rather than device-level limits, sequential creative storytelling, and suppression of converted patients who achieve desired objectives.

“A family of four shouldn’t be hitting their frequency cap independently. Second touch isn’t the same as that first touch,” Mancuso said. “Once a script is filled, we stop spending against the person and really shift into another phase of that journey.”

This approach includes channel rotation from CTV through online video to audio to prevent frequency burn while maintaining message progression.

NPI-level deterministic measurement

Clinical conversion tracking operates at physician NPI level to determine whether advertisements drive actual prescription behavior or patient requests for therapy, providing deterministic rather than modeled insights.

“Did a physician actually take an action as a result of seeing an advertisement as a result of a patient coming in and requesting therapy?” Mancuso said. “Having this be a deterministic and not a model insight for our brands is really something that’s important in closing the loop.”

Script lift measurement compares exposed versus control groups to identify behavioral changes including faster diagnosis, specialist referrals, or new treatment adoption patterns.

Concurrent campaign strategy

Smart brands run cohesive sequential campaigns targeting both healthcare providers and patients simultaneously rather than separately, recognizing that prescription decisions require willing prescriber and patient request alignment.

“You can’t just speak to the HCP or the patient. That is a conversation of many and ensuring that they are running concurrently these types of campaigns,” Mancuso said. “I have to have a willing prescriber met with a patient request.”

Success requires budgeting the patient journey rather than individual channels while establishing script lift measurement before campaign launch.

“Planning is one consolidated campaign, ensuring that you’re setting up script lift measurement before that first impression,” Mancuso said. “What are you trying to achieve as opposed to a retrospective analysis?”