Web Traffic Conversion to Fuel Digital Patient Acquisition

The e-commerce industry has long recognized the power of web traffic conversion to drive growth. By creating user friendly interfaces and offering delightful experiences, e-commerce companies increase their conversion rates and generate more sales. Additionally, they have implemented strategies such as A/B testing and personalization to optimize the user experience. These tactics have long proven to be successful and effective in converting online searchers to paying customers.

The healthcare industry has a massive opportunity to apply these proven strategies to the digital patient experience, particularly focusing on acquiring net new patients. Online search is rapidly becoming the start of the journey for a large, and growing, cohort of patients who do not have a plan on where to get care in their moments of need.

This trend is driving Google search traffic for terms like ‘emergency care near me’, ‘urgent care near me’, and ‘hospitals near me.’  These search terms have increased by 1,000% over the last 5 years (not a typo).  At the end of the day, patients are decision-makers and healthcare consumers - and need to be considered and treated as such. 

On average, patients searching online for care browse up to 20 different sources before making a decision about where to receive care and evaluate 3+ hospital brands during their search.

The biggest difference from traditional healthcare marketing and successful e-commerce trends? A clear call-to-action conversion step. This invitation is missing from “no appointment necessary” messaging. By successfully checking in online, patients in their moments of need regain a sense of control, loyalty, and well-being.  Committing to a plan immediately gains them a trusted partner in their hospital choice. The chaos of the search closes and they can simply focus their attention on arriving.

So, why is the typical approach in the healthcare industry to handle these web site interactions by presenting the patient with a  clunky operational tool that provides a sub par experience, if they even have online check-in at all? These searchers are high intent - meaning they want to convert on their search  and get the care they are looking for.  Why not make it as frictionless and optimal of an experience as possible?  

More often than not, patients are stuck filling out unnecessary fields of demographic information that they will surely be asked to provide again once they show up. Or worse - downloading an app requiring a username and password login before even being able to proceed. All of this leads the majority of  patients to abandon and look elsewhere, resulting in substantial missed revenue for those with the sub par digital experience. Even something as seemingly simple as a two second delay in web page load time increases bounce rates by 103%. 

At Arriv, we understand the importance of maximizing web traffic conversion and delivering an empathetic digital patient experience that meets patients  where they are in their journey. With that in mind, we are thrilled to announce our latest product enhancement below!

Now, when a patient checks in online using Arriv, they are guaranteed to be presented with the most effective user interface based on information like their location, phone type and the individual facility they’re checking into. This converts them from a web searcher to actually checking in online at a much higher rate. Our intelligent model does this by constantly analyzing over 35 data points, in real-time, to ensure that the user interface presented is personalized and shows the information they expect to see in the most intuitive way possible. This results in greater revenue from converting more web traffic to visits, all while setting proper expectations to incoming patients. 

As an example, a patient who visits Emergency Room A’s website from their iPhone 11, using Mobile Safari, on the Verizon network, with English as their default language will see a streamlined user interface given those parameters (among others) while a patient on a Google Pixel 7, using Chrome, on the AT&T network, with Spanish as their default language may see a different user interface that is known to convert better with that combination of parameters.

Additionally, our analytics attributes web traffic, either organic or the result of a digital marketing campaign, all the way through payment collection so there is a traceable ROI on digital efforts. Our automated method provides flexible technology that adapts to a specific facility and market conditions. Arriv understands that facilities, even in the same geographical market, behave differently and the patients do as well.

At Arriv, our core focus is converting searches into satisfied patients. We are excited for this next major enhancement of what was already the industry’s highest converting online check-in solution. 

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