When it comes to healthcare, we can define consumerism as patients exercising a new level of engagement in their own healthcare decisions. 

Healthcare has lagged the rest of the economy in responding to the power of consumerism. But the COVID-19 pandemic created an on-ramp for the health sector to adopt an operational philosophy that now defines success in nearly every other industry.

Speaking specifically to the pharma sector, direct-to-patient (DTP) engagement in pharma isn’t a sudden shift, it’s the natural evolution of an industry responding to a more informed, empowered, and digitally fluent patient population.

Patients today don’t passively wait for information. They research symptoms. They compare treatment pathways. They explore affordability options. They look for peer validation. Increasingly, they expect the same level of transparency, convenience, and personalization from health care that they experience in retail, banking, or travel.

This broader consumerization of health care is accelerating DTP models, but the real question for pharma marketers isn’t whether DTP will grow.

It’s how to execute it responsibly, effectively, and at scale.

And that starts with understanding intent.

Many conversations about direct-to-patient programs focus on channel shifts, telehealth partnerships, or alternative fulfillment pathways. But those are infrastructure decisions.

Marketing success in a DTP model depends on something deeper:
connecting with patients in the precise moments when they are actively seeking answers.

Consider the difference between:

• A general awareness campaign reaching a broad health audience
• A contextual placement alongside in-depth content about managing a newly diagnosed condition

Both are visible. Only one aligns with real-time intent.

In DTP programs, those intent-rich moments are everything. Patients researching symptoms, comparing therapies, or exploring side effects are signaling readiness, not just curiosity. Contextual alignment turns those signals into meaningful engagement.

Traditional audience targeting often relies on demographic proxies or historical browsing behavior. In health care, those approaches are increasingly limited — both by privacy regulation and by practical effectiveness.

Contextual targeting, by contrast, focuses on what is happening now.

When a patient is actively engaging with content about a specific condition, stage of disease, or treatment pathway, that context provides:

For DTP marketers, contextual precision transforms campaigns from interruptive to assistive.

One of the most powerful advantages of contextual strategy in pharma is topic ownership.

When brands consistently align with high-quality content around specific disease states or treatment categories, they don’t just gain impressions,  they build authority within that conversation.

Over time, this creates:

• Stronger recall
• Higher trust
• More seamless pathways from education to action

In a DTP framework, that continuity matters. Patients move fluidly between learning, evaluating, and deciding. Contextual alignment ensures the brand shows up across those stages without feeling invasive.

Industry analysts, including Boston Consulting Group, have highlighted how the consumerization of health care is reshaping engagement models, emphasizing convenience, transparency, and patient agency. DTP programs are a direct response to that shift.

But consumerization also raises expectations.

Patients don’t just want access. They want clarity. They want relevance. They want trustworthy environments. And they want information aligned to where they are in their journey.

That means pharma marketers must move beyond broad targeting and embrace solutions that understand nuance, including disease progression, treatment exploration, and stage-specific concerns.

This is where advanced contextual intelligence and patient intent signals converge.

Direct-to-patient marketing requires a sophisticated balance of performance, privacy, and compliance. Perform Media’s contextual solutions are built specifically to support that balance.

In short, we help brands connect patients to information, and action, in ways that feel natural, timely, and trustworthy.

Direct-to-patient engagement will continue to expand as digital health tools, AI-powered support systems, and consumer expectations evolve. But regardless of distribution model, the core success factor remains the same:

Pharma brands that master contextual alignment will not only drive stronger DTP performance, they will build deeper, more trusted relationships with the patients they aim to serve.

Because in a consumerized healthcare landscape, connection doesn’t begin with data profiles.

It begins with context.

Artificial intelligence is transforming search, and performance advertisers are already feeling the effects in real, measurable ways.

With the rollout of AI-generated summaries like Google AI Overviews, traditional search behavior is shifting rapidly. Fewer users are clicking through to websites. More answers are delivered directly on the search results page and long-standing performance metrics performance teams have relied on for years are starting to lose their clarity.

For performance marketers, this isn’t just a technical change. It’s a structural shift in how intent is discovered, measured, and converted.

This evolution has introduced what many call “zero-click search,” where users get the information they need without ever leaving the search page.

Search isn’t disappearing, but the way people move from curiosity to action is clearly evolving.

As AI satisfies user intent earlier in the journey, the pool of traditional search clicks shrinks. That means:

• Higher competition for paid query inventory
• Rising CPCs in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads
• Reduced scalability from keyword-only strategies

In simple terms, performance advertisers are competing for fewer declared intent moments than they used to .

Historically, a click signaled interest. Today, users may research, compare, and evaluate solutions without ever visiting a site.

Intent still exists, but it no longer always manifests as a measurable click.

This forces performance teams to rethink how they:

• Identify high-intent audiences
• Attribute conversion pathways
• Measure incremental lift
• Optimize beyond keyword bids

The traditional search funnel is no longer the sole source of performance data.

To navigate this AI shift, performance advertisers must understand the difference between explicit search intent and implicit search intent.

As AI reduces visibility into query-level behavior, implicit intent across the open web becomes increasingly valuable.

In an AI-first search environment, sustainable performance growth requires a broader approach:

• Diversification beyond traditional keyword campaigns
• Contextual alignment with high-intent content environments
• Measurement models that extend beyond SERP-based attribution
• A strategy that captures both declared and inferred intent

Performance marketing can no longer rely exclusively on explicit query bidding.

Advertisers must identify intent wherever it surfaces.

At Perform Media, we help performance advertisers activate implicit intent across the open web.

Our contextual engine dynamically matches over 7 million keyword and topic combinations to live page content and user mindset within a verified, invitation-only publisher marketplace. Campaigns are:

• 100% cookie-free
• Optimized for post-click outcomes (sales, form fills, enrollments, quotes, bookings)
• Purchased on a CPC model
• Focused on measurable performance, not impressions

Rather than competing solely within shrinking search inventory, we extend performance into trusted, high-intent content environments; capturing conversions where curiosity becomes action.

In an AI-driven search landscape, performance growth depends on identifying intent earlier, broader, and more intelligently.

That’s where contextual performance becomes essential.

Stay discoverable, compliant, and ahead of the curve. Reach out to advertisers@performmedia.com to learn how Perform Media delivers performance in the zero-click world.

Every few years, major transformations disrupt the search industry. Over a decade ago, the rise of mobile devices and Google’s shift to Enhanced Campaigns redefined digital marketing and fueled growth. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is ushering in another major shift—introducing automated campaign formats that allow advertisers to reach audiences using machine learning data signals instead of keywords, simplifying workflows and creating an omnichannel optimization experience.

Each evolution has reshaped how advertisers identify and engage their audiences during crucial moments. To connect effectively, advertisers must not only understand search queries but also the underlying intent behind them. This distinction is the foundation of implicit search. The gradual introduction of implicit search signals into search results and contextual engines has quietly become one of the most impactful enhancements in digital advertising.

Despite sharing many traits with generative AI, implicit search has not received the attention it deserves. This piece aims to highlight this critical but often overlooked advancement.

Implicit search technology enhances user experience when queries are ambiguous. It uses factors like location, search history, and behavior to determine the most relevant results. Unlike explicit searches, implicit searches rely on contextual information to deliver the most fitting outcomes.

A clear example is Google Instant, launched in 2010. Before then, users completed a query and pressed Enter to view results. Google Instant changed that by dynamically updating results as users typed. For instance, typing “ball” might first show “ball game,” then “balloon artist near me.”

Over time, Google’s algorithms have become more capable of interpreting user intent through search history and location. As a result, advertisers no longer rely solely on keyword targeting—Google’s AI now aligns user intent with the most relevant ads automatically.

In an era where AI summaries and walled gardens reduce opportunities for discovery, implicit search represents a new frontier for connecting people with information. It’s less about waiting for explicit queries and more about presenting relevant experiences at moments of high intent.

Traditional search remains valuable because users explicitly state their interests, allowing advertisers to align offerings directly. But such opportunities are limited. Contextual implicit search complements traditional search by identifying the same high-quality audience both in-market and during research beyond the engine.

So why isn’t implicit contextual search considered a separate tactic in most media plans? Simply put, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo haven’t built a standalone contextual marketplace that gives advertisers strategic control.

The major platforms have little incentive to separate implicit search, as it could dilute their paid query models. For performance marketers, this gap is also an opportunity. Independent contextual search providers make implicit intent visible, measurable, and actionable—something that can be optimized separately from traditional search.

Independent search and contextual marketplaces now give advertisers the control and runway to optimize for implicit search behavior. Recognizing true user intent and delivering the right ad experience can significantly increase campaign performance. Platforms that enable this level of strategic decision-making are becoming increasingly valuable.

By aligning advertisements with the topics and moments preceding or following explicit searches, pharmaceutical brands can ethically reach high-intent audiences before competition in traditional paid search. This privacy-safe approach fosters contextual trust—reinforcing brand authority and public health literacy in an era of misinformation and skepticism. When readers explore articles like “new cholesterol treatments” or “how to talk to your doctor about depression,” relevant messages add value rather than interrupting their experience.

This method also helps brands balance reach and responsibility. Instead of competing for costly branded queries, marketers can engage audiences earlier—when education and empathy have the most impact. Implicit search connects awareness and point-of-care engagement, turning passive research into informed dialogue with healthcare professionals.

Its significance has never been greater. As AI redefines discovery and traditional search loses transparency, marketers who embrace implicit intent will gain an advantage—connecting earlier, more efficiently, and more effectively.

Search is undergoing its most dramatic shift in decades. With the rise of AI Overviews and zero-click experiences, visibility, traffic, and engagement are being reshaped in ways that matter deeply to publishers, advertisers, and brands.

AI Overviews. AI-generated summaries that appear directly on search results pages now show up in nearly 9 out of 10 information searches. While convenient for users, they reduce the need to click through to websites. The result:

Traditional SEO strategies focused on ranking high in the SERP. Today, success means being referenced inside AI summaries and linked as a source for generative content. Large, generalist datasets like Wikipedia, Reddit, and .gov sites are winning by default, even when they lack true expertise.

This creates a new opportunity: publishers and brands that produce unique, authoritative, expert-led content stand to gain. Those who adapt will earn visibility as the engines evolve to favor higher-quality reference material.

The speed of adoption has been staggering. ChatGPT took just 2.5 years to reach 2.5 billion prompts, compared to Google’s 12 years to hit the same milestone in search. Google has already scaled AI Overviews to 1.5 billion monthly queries in under a year, a trajectory that underscores how central this shift has become.

In highly regulated spaces like pharma, opaque “black box” solutions aren’t an option. Transparency isn’t just preferred, it’s required. Perform Media was built around this principle from the start, offering advertisers real control, visibility, and premium intent-driven search traffic.

As zero-click experiences reduce available clicks, the big engines are raising CPCs to offset lost volume. Advertisers face the double squeeze of fewer clicks and higher costs, leading to diminished ROI. While the market may rebalance over time, brands need solutions now.

Not all searches are created equal. A simple lifestyle query like “why run a marathon” might surface just 3 AI Overview links. By contrast, a health query like “respiratory illness” produces 65 AI Overview links. Health and news publishers have felt some of the steepest traffic declines, yet leaders like Cleveland Clinic are finding ways to win by emphasizing expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Perform Media is helping advertisers regain ground in this disrupted environment:

• Trusted Publisher Network – Our health partners, including WebMD, Cleveland Clinic, and Healthline, are among the most frequently cited in AI summaries.
• Two-Click Model – When users click through from an AI Overview to our partner content, they encounter ads that redirect them to relevant brand websites. This ensures visibility at the critical moment of intent.
• AI + Human Insight – We combine advanced AI targeting with 15+ years of contextual alignment expertise, mapping over 7 million segments to uncover unique opportunities beyond the obvious keywords.

Perform Media has been AI-powered for more than 15 years. Our platform integrates machine learning across every layer of campaign delivery:

• Contextual Matching – Proprietary language graphs ensure relevance.
• Auto-Bidding – Predictive models optimize for conversions.
• Brand Safety & Compliance – AI algorithms flag unsafe or non-compliant content.
• Creative Optimization – Smart ad rotation identifies the highest-performing creative.

And because our 2-click ad format validates intent, advertisers benefit from more efficient performance while maintaining privacy-safe, cookieless tracking via our universal pixel.

AI is fundamentally reshaping how search works. For brands and publishers, this disruption brings both challenges and opportunities: falling clicks and rising costs on one side, but a new path to discoverability on the other.

Perform Media is uniquely positioned to help advertisers navigate this transition, combining transparency, premium publisher access, and AI-driven performance strategies to capture intent where it matters most.

Stay discoverable, compliant, and ahead of the curve. Reach out to advertisers@performmedia.com to learn how Perform Media delivers performance in the zero-click world.

You can either reach out to your Partner Manager for the pixel script or follow the instructions to get the pixel script from PMC.

Instruction	Screenshot
Select Library from the left-pane and choose Pixel Tag.
Click Setup the Pixel.
Click on Create Event. – Enter the Event Name. – Click on Count as a Conversion checkbox to enable attribution. – Optionally, add a Conversion Value to attribute a dollar value to the conversion.
Copy base script
Copy event script.
Select the Conversion Count: – Count one conversion: Recommended for sign-up, lead generations and other conversions where only first interaction is valuable. – Count all conversions: Recommended for purchase, where all conversions are valuable.

This section provides information about deploying Perform Media pixel via Google Tag Manager. Following are the steps for Google Tag Manager integration:

Instruction	Screenshot
Click on New in the Tags section.
Click on Tag Configuration and select Custom HTML as tag type and paste the base pixel code.
Click on Trigger Configuration and select Page View, which fires on All Page Views.
Below is how the tag looks. Name it as “Base Pixel” and save it.
To create an event-specific tag, create a new tag in the same way as above steps 1 and 2, and enter the event code.
Click on Tag Sequencing under Advanced Settings. Check the box near Fire a Tag before and then select Base Pixel (created in step 4) from the dropdown.
Add a suitable trigger. For example, if you want to fire this event when a button with ID Purchase is clicked on, create a trigger.
Select Click – All Elements, then Some Clicks under fires on. Select Click Id, Contains, and enter the ID of click element ( In this case, Purchase).
In case you want to add an event pixel as a ‘Page View’ event: Set the trigger on a ‘Page View’. Here you will be able to add a Page URL that you want to add an event pixel on (as shown in the screenshot below). You should create the event tag mentioned in Step 5,6,7 and add the new ‘Page View’ trigger created in this step to that event tag.
In the case of using the GTM variable in the pixel script:  Let’s say the GTM variable name is “transaction value”, please add the GTM variable with two curly braces as shown below:
Save and publish your changes.