Recently, we’ve talked at length about how the HHS guidance on online tracking affects the use of analytics tools like Google Analytics. However, this isn’t the only type of online tracking that the bulletin addresses.
Another tracking tool that has come under scrutiny is Facebook’s Meta Pixel, which is used to track website activity after a user has clicked on a link from a Facebook ad. The bulletin warns that healthcare entities can’t use the Meta Pixel in a way that exposes PHI to third parties without patient consent.
Even if you don’t think you are using the pixel in a way that would violate HIPAA, there is a reason for concern. To date, several lawsuits have been filed against hospitals and health systems for sharing patient data with third parties for marketing purposes via tools like the Meta pixel.
If your practice is doing Facebook Ads, then you know that they push hard for you to use the pixel for tracking purposes. However, you do not have to use it.
That said, we understand the importance of tracking effectiveness of your Facebook Ads campaigns. Here are some ways you can track ad-related interactions on your website in a HIPAA compliant manner.
Campaign Tracking Links
Campaign tracking links add tracking parameters to the end of a link that will help you attribute those pageviews to campaigns. If you put a campaign tracking link in the URL space for each of your ads, you can track activity down to not only Facebook ads, but the specific ad the user clicked on.
You won’t see campaign link data in your Facebook Ads reports; the goal here is actually to keep all of the interactions on your website out of the Facebook interface. However, most analytics tools will recognize campaign links and pull them into campaign reports that tell you more about user interactions related to those links.
The best part about campaign links is that they are really easy to set up. You don’t need to set up any special redirects or anything to make them work. Facebook actually has a campaign link builder directly into the ad creation interface.
All you have to do is fill in the details you want, and it will create the link for you. For example, if we were advertising our Website Development page on Facebook, we might fill in the following information:
- Campaign Source: Facebook
- Campaign Medium: ad
- Campaign Name: website-development
- Campaign Content: image-1
The resulting campaign link would look like this: https://www.p3practicemarketing.com/services/website-development/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=ad&utm_campaign=website-development&utm_term=image-1.
If we had multiple campaigns for different services, we could use the Campaign Name section to note the names of the different campaigns. If we had multiple ads for the same campaign, we could track the different content by matching the Campaign Content section to the ad name. Just be sure to keep naming conventions consistent so that your analytics reports group the links together accordingly. This includes capitalization–you don’t want to put “Facebook” for the campaign source in one link and “facebook” in another, because your analytics reports won’t group the data together correctly.
You can also use a tool like Google’s Campaign URL Builder if you prefer to plan out your campaign links ahead of time, and just copy/paste them into the website URL field for your ads.
HIPAA Compliant Call Tracking
Some call tracking services like CallRail and WhatConverts offer HIPAA compliant solutions. If you have call tracking on your website, you can set up specific phone numbers for each Facebook campaign to track those calls back to the campaign.
Typically, your call tracking reports will tell you which page the call occurred on, so you can see if the person made the call while they were on the landing page for the ad, or a different page. Depending on the tools you are using, you may even be able to connect the call tracking data to your analytics account to get more robust details on what happened up to the point the user made the phone call.
Website Analytics
Google Analytics may be questionable when it comes to HIPAA compliance, but there are other analytics tools you can use. (In case you missed it, you can read more about Google Analytics alternatives here: Are Your Analytics HIPAA Compliant?)
If you’ve set up your campaign tracking links, your website analytics can help you tie together your conversions (form submissions, phone calls, etc.) with the user activity that led up to that result so that you can understand the full effectiveness of the campaign. It can also give you insights on what may have happened when users did not convert. Your analytics can help you analyze overall trends. For example, are users less likely to convert when they view a particular landing page? Are they more likely to convert after they watch a video on the landing page? You can use this data to make adjustments based on trends.
You’ll usually find this data in some sort of Campaign report in your analytics account, though it can vary depending on what tool you use. If you have conversion reports, you can usually also filter down the conversion source to just campaign data and even to specific campaigns.
This process may be more tedious than pulling all of the conversion data directly into your Facebook Ad reports, but it’s a much less risky way of tracking down ad conversions.
As the P3 Marketing Manager, Ashley ensures that our clients’ marketing strategies are put into action. This includes content writing, SEO, online advertising, analytics, and interfacing with the tools, systems, and team members needed to help our medical practice clients accomplish their marketing goals.
Scott Zeitzer
Scott has been in the healthcare industry for his entire adult life. Prior to launching P3, he earned a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering and spent 10 years selling medical devices (total hips, total knees, trauma devices, and CMF devices) to orthopedists and neurosurgeons.
