Privacy-safe data platforms are key to clearing impasse between marketing, compliance teams: report

A recent report from healthcare marketing platform developer Freshpaint found that while tension exists between DTC marketing and compliance departments, both teams ultimately want the same thing: privacy-safe patient data platforms that combine guardrails and auditability with real-time visibility into campaign outcomes. 

Freshpaint’s report drew on surveys of 100 marketing leaders and 100 privacy leaders from life sciences companies of all sizes, from top-25 pharmas to emerging biotechs. 

All of the marketing representatives reported that privacy constraints are impacting performance, with about two-thirds saying they completely avoid certain ad platforms due to compliance concerns.  

Marketers are facing a range of obstacles to planning and tracking the real-world results of their campaigns: More than half said compliance-driven delays are impacting audience targeting, launch speed and channel selection, while around 80% reported being unable to directly connect website visits to prescription fills, and two-thirds said they’re losing visibility across the entire patient journey from ad click to prescription. 

Among the privacy leaders, meanwhile, all reported being at least “moderately” concerned about privacy risks in digital marketing, and more than 60% noted that they have limited visibility into how data is flowing through analytics and advertising tools. Many shared concerns about various data-sharing practices, as well as overwhelmingly fragmented data infrastructure. 

Most of the respondents reported experiencing compliance-related delays and changes to DTC marketing initiatives, with close to 60% of the surveyed marketers saying they happen “frequently” or “occasionally.” Many in both groups said their organizations are taking more cautious, less innovative approaches to reduce compliance risks. 

To solve these challenges, the report found that marketing and compliance teams are looking for the same solution, albeit using different language. Among the factors most important to the surveyed marketers are real-time conversion visibility and privacy-safe analytics and ad activation, while the privacy and compliance leaders want auditability, automated consent enforcement and governance controls—adding up to a unified platform that allows for innovation and experimentation within standardized guardrails and privacy controls. 

“With 83% of DTC and DTP pharma marketers unable to connect web visits to prescription fills, the industry is flying blind on attribution. As the regulatory and litigation landscape continues to prove, legacy tracking methods are now considerable liabilities,” Jason Powers, VP of product at Freshpaint, said in a statement to solli. “The solution isn’t to stop measuring; it’s to adopt privacy-enhancing infrastructure that fundamentally separates marketing activation from compliance risk.” 

solli’s Final Thoughts 

Data gathering and analytics technologies are rapidly improving, offering marketers ever more precise tools for tracking patient journeys and the real-time impacts of specific campaigns. At the same time, however, regulators have stepped up enforcement of strict guardrails around patient data, leading many to limit their capabilities and innovation out of compliance concerns. 

In fact, as Freshpaint noted in the report, compliance shouldn’t be seen as “the enemy of performance.” Instead, factoring it into marketing processes from the start can be the key to improving measurement, ROI visibility and campaign approvals.  

Rather than a full blockade on data-driven ad platforms, those seemingly opposing forces represent an opportunity for pharma marketers: Not only can building privacy guardrails into marketing infrastructure unlock improvements across media planning and measurement, but it may also help to strengthen trust among both internal teams and the patients and clinicians targeted by pharma marketing efforts.