PulsePoint launches Genome to centralize data for healthcare advertising

PulsePoint is an ad exchange that has begun to focus more directly on the healthcare market in recent years.

Now, the New York City-based company is out with Genome, a data targeting solution designed specifically for health-related ads or content marketing. PulsePoint says this is “the first centralized data activation and measurement technology built for health.”

The targeting data for the health market “has been fragmented,” CTO Ezra Suveyke told me, adding that Genome is “answering the call for unification of data for marketers.”

Display ads, video ads, native ads and content marketing that utilize Genome are directed at physicians and patients through websites, apps, connected TV such as Roku or connected kiosks in doctors’ offices. The typical use case for patients, he said, might be an ad campaign designed to find participants for clinical trials by pharmaceutical or similar companies.

Genome, he said, is like a health-specific data management platform (DMP), with marketers selecting from 45 prepackaged patient segments for known health conditions or targeting 1.5 million physicians by such segments as discipline.

Some of Genome’s data is in-house from PulsePoint, while data about physicians comes from commercial services. Some is purchased from such sources as medical claims providers, where the patient’s cookie is tagged for particular health conditions. PulsePoint also layers on third-party data, which it matches by cookie syncing or mobile device ID.

Suveyke said that all of the patient data is anonymized, without such personally identifiable information as name, street address or email address.

Each patient profile also includes a propensity score that indicates the likelihood this person has or is interested in a particular health condition, based on data obtained from medical claims providers or such signals as visits to a web page about diabetes. The ads, such as for diabetes clinical trials, might then appear on general venues like retailers’ websites, as well as on health-oriented locations. Here’s a typical screen employing Genome:

Suveyke noted that Genome-based targeting is currently only being offered in the US. When it is offered in European Union countries, he said, it will conform to the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.