Nicklaus Children's Hospital
Their Story
Nicklaus Children’s Hospital is a beloved, Miami-based pediatric hospital system whose mission is “to inspire hope and promote lifelong health by providing the best care to every child.”
With a well-established digital presence, NCH had already built a mature, cross-channel marketing program spanning paid social, programmatic, paid search, and SEO.
The Challenge
Despite a strong foundation, shifts in the digital marketing landscape introduced new challenges.
Inconsistent search demand for healthcare services, combined with the loss of healthcare-specific keyword targeting on platforms like Meta, made it more difficult to maintain performance and audience precision.
NCH needed to adapt their existing program to:
- Increase awareness of their specialties
- Drive new patient appointment requests
- Strengthen their brand voice in a changing, privacy-first environment
The Insights
Across channels, several key insights shaped the approach:
- Paid Search: Competitive overlap in auctions limited performance for certain keywords, requiring a more focused and strategic keyword approach
- SEO: Inconsistent healthcare search behavior highlighted the need for stronger organic visibility and accessibility across devices and languages
- Paid Social: Changes in Meta’s targeting capabilities reduced reliance on keyword-based insights, increasing the importance of creative-driven data and testing
- Programmatic: A shift toward privacy-first strategies required leveraging alternative data sources to maintain targeting effectiveness while improving efficiency
The Strategy
Rise reimagined NCH’s cross-channel approach by refreshing and optimizing performance across four core areas: paid search, SEO, paid social, and programmatic.
The strategy focused on improving efficiency, adapting to privacy-first targeting limitations, and leveraging each channel more intentionally to support both awareness and conversion goals.
The Solution
Rise implemented a coordinated, cross-channel optimization strategy:
Paid Search Refresh
- Prioritized core keywords based on business importance and seasonality
- Increased keyword specificity through ongoing audits
- Refined bidding strategies to focus budget on top-performing terms
- Improved user engagement metrics such as bounce rate and time on page
Future-Proofed SEO Approach
- Optimized metadata and monitored core web vitals
- Conducted hreflang analysis to support both Spanish and English-speaking users
- Reduced friction across devices to improve accessibility and visibility
Paid Social Strategy
- Increased creative refresh cadence and iterative testing
- Implemented multivariate testing to identify high-performing messaging and creative combinations
- Shifted toward audience-first strategies driven by engagement signals
Expanded Programmatic Reach
- Leveraged third-party data to identify new audience segments in a privacy-safe way
- Optimized bidding strategies to reduce CPC and increase conversions
- Utilized tactics such as triple-lift PMPs, household extension ads, and click retargeting
The Results
By evolving its cross-channel strategy to align with privacy-first standards, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital strengthened its ability to reach and engage key audiences. The refreshed approach improved efficiency across channels, enhanced user experience, and supported continued growth in awareness, engagement, and patient acquisition.
