Digital health acquisition moves through channels that a standard growth playbook does not cover – insurance eligibility, employer benefits enrollment, clinician referral – and a signup that does not become an active, covered member is not a true acquisition. We build acquisition strategy around the entire path to a paying, eligible customer, not only the top of the funnel.
The Challenge
You are measuring acquisition cost against the wrong denominator
Most acquisition reporting stops at signup or app download, but in digital health a meaningful share of signups never convert to an active, paying member because they fail insurance eligibility, are not covered by their employer's plan, or drop off during verification. Reporting CAC against raw signups instead of eligible, activated customers understates your true acquisition cost and misleads every channel decision built on top of it.
Your growth channels rely on and compete with one another in ways a single-channel playbook overlooks
A patient might discover you through paid social, need a clinician referral to actually use the product, and only be able to pay through an employer benefit they did not know they had. Treating each channel as an independent acquisition source misses how much of your "organic" or "referral" volume is actually downstream of awareness built somewhere else, and it leads teams to defund channels that are quietly doing more work than their last-touch numbers suggest.
Employer and payer channel acquisition follows a completely different cycle from consumer acquisition, yet most teams staff for just one
Consumer acquisition can respond to a campaign within days. Getting into an employer's benefits offering or a payer's covered-services list can take a full enrollment cycle – sometimes a year – to show results. Companies that build their acquisition team and budget around fast consumer feedback loops consistently underinvest in the slower B2B2C channel that often carries the larger long-term volume.
Trust and credibility signals matter more here than in nearly any other acquisition motion, yet most funnels fail to include them
A user deciding whether to trust a digital health product with their health data and their care is a fundamentally higher-stakes decision than most consumer purchases, and acquisition campaigns that treat it like any other conversion event underperform. Credibility signals – clinical evidence, real accreditation, visible security posture – have to be built into the acquisition motion itself, not bolted on as a trust badge in the footer.
How We Can Help
We begin by rebuilding your acquisition math around the metric that truly matters: cost per eligible, activated customer, rather than cost per signup. This means mapping eligibility and verification drop-off rates for each channel so you understand the true acquisition cost of every dollar spent, not the misleading appearance of efficiency created by raw signup numbers.
We then develop a channel strategy that reflects how consumer, referral, and employer/payer acquisition actually work together, applying multi-touch attribution where possible and directional modeling when the data is too limited for full attribution, so channels that create upstream awareness are not defunded simply because a later channel receives last-touch credit.
On the B2B2C side, we create a dedicated acquisition motion with its own timeline and measures of success, recognizing that entry into an employer benefits package or payer network follows enrollment-cycle timing, not campaign timing. It runs alongside consumer acquisition, rather than becoming an afterthought assigned to whoever has extra capacity.
We build credibility signals into the acquisition funnel itself – clinical evidence presented for a consumer audience, accreditation and security posture shown at the right point, and real specificity in place of generic trust badges – because trust-building in this category is not a brand exercise apart from acquisition; it is the acquisition mechanism itself.
We manage acquisition as a cross-channel portfolio instead of pursuing whichever channel posts the strongest last-touch number that month, because in digital health the channel that appears fastest and the long-term channel with the greatest volume are often different, and a portfolio perspective prevents underinvestment in the slower-moving channel that ultimately delivers more volume.
What distinguishes this from a typical growth marketing engagement is that we shape acquisition strategy around this category's actual path to a paying, eligible customer, including the employer/payer channel that most growth teams do not know how to acquire through.
What we deliver
- True CAC reporting calculated against eligible, activated customers, not raw signups
- Channel interaction model accounting for how consumer, referral, and B2B2C acquisition influence each other
- Dedicated employer/payer channel acquisition motion built around real enrollment-cycle timing
- Credibility and trust signals designed directly into the acquisition funnel, not bolted on afterward
- Portfolio-level channel strategy that protects slow-moving, high-volume channels from short-term defunding
The channel appearing most efficient in your acquisition dashboard is often subsidized by trust-building elsewhere in the funnel – while the channel that seems slowest, the employer and payer path, is frequently the one delivering the most durable volume a year later.
Our Methodology
We approach digital health customer acquisition as a 90-day sprint to rebuild the foundation, followed by continued execution. During the first 30 days, we reconstruct CAC measurement around eligible, activated customers and map how channels truly interact rather than depending solely on last-touch attribution. Days 30 through 60 establish the dedicated employer/payer acquisition motion and integrate credibility signals into your leading consumer channels. Days 60 through 90 launch the rebalanced channel portfolio and put reporting in place that your team can monitor independently.
Rather than operating like a standard growth marketing retainer that optimizes whichever channel produces the quickest last-touch conversion, we create acquisition strategy around the actual path to a paying, eligible customer in this category, including the multi-month employer and payer channel that most growth teams overlook or do not know how to develop. Success is measured by eligible customer volume and true CAC, not signups, because a signup that never converts into an active member is not a result.
Our Approach
The first 30 days reconstruct CAC measurement around eligible, activated customers and assess how your existing channels work together, including how much upstream awareness is quietly generating downstream referral and organic volume.
Days 30 through 60 establish a dedicated employer/payer acquisition motion with a separate timeline and metrics, while redesigning credibility signals throughout your consumer acquisition funnel. We need your team to provide access to eligibility and activation data, rather than only top-of-funnel signup data, along with introductions to whoever manages current employer or payer relationships.
Days 60 through 90 roll out the rebalanced portfolio strategy across channels and implement reporting that captures true acquisition cost going forward. Because the B2B2C channel follows enrollment-cycle timing, most engagements continue for six months or longer to let the complete acquisition motion mature, although improvements in consumer channels generally appear during the initial sprint.
Our cadence includes a weekly review of channel performance and a monthly portfolio-level readout covering true CAC trends across the entire mix, rather than only the fastest-moving channel.
- Accurate CAC measured against eligible, activated customers
- A functioning employer/payer acquisition channel with its own pipeline
- Credibility-driven consumer funnels with higher eligible conversion
- A portfolio channel strategy protected from short-term reallocation mistakes
If your digital health company needs customer acquisition leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
What does a customer acquisition engagement cost for a digital health company?
Pricing varies based on the number of channels we are developing or optimizing and whether a dedicated employer/payer acquisition motion must be created from the ground up. Companies that already have a B2B2C relationship structure cost less to activate than those launching that channel for the first time.
How soon will we see results from digital health customer acquisition work?
Consumer channel improvements, such as corrected CAC measurement and changes to credibility signals, typically demonstrate impact within the first 90 days. The employer/payer channel follows enrollment-cycle timing and may require six months to a year to deliver meaningful volume, which we make clear upfront so it is not evaluated on a consumer-channel timeline.
How will your acquisition team collaborate with our current sales and partnerships staff?
We collaborate directly with the person who manages your current employer and payer relationships, because the B2B2C acquisition motion relies on those relationships and cannot be developed by a marketing team alone. Early in the engagement, we need introductions and access to that context.
What differentiates Winston Francois from a typical growth marketing agency?
Most growth marketing agencies focus on whichever channel delivers the quickest last-touch conversion and do not know how to develop or measure a payer or employer benefits acquisition channel. We create acquisition strategy around this category's real path to a paying, eligible customer, including the slower B2B2C motion.
How is ROI measured for a customer acquisition engagement?
We calculate and report true CAC based on eligible, activated customers rather than raw signups, and measure channel-level contribution through multi-touch or directional modeling so upstream awareness channels receive credit for the downstream volume they genuinely generate. Vanity signup metrics do not appear in the core reporting.
What kind of digital health company is best suited to this service?
This service suits digital health companies in roughly the 5M to 100M ARR range whose acquisition spans more than one channel type – consumer, referral, and ideally at least an early employer or payer relationship. If your acquisition is currently purely consumer and self-pay, we can still help, though the B2B2C channel work would follow later. Begin with a strategy call and review of your existing acquisition data.
