Citations: healthcare digital marketing strategy
68% of Google searches now end without a click.
The claim that 68% of Google searches now end without a click comes from SparkToro, the search-behavior research firm. Using Similarweb's desktop and mobile search panel for January through April 2026, SparkToro found that "a whopping 68.01% of Google searches ended without a click" — up from 60.45% in 2024. The firm attributes most of the increase to AI Overviews, which it found "reduce CTR by nearly 60%" when they appear above a result.
A separate study by Ahrefs, covered by eMarketer, found that pages ranking first for informational keywords saw click-through rates fall from 5.6% in March 2024 to 3.1% in March 2025 once AI Overviews entered the results — a 34.5% decline. Search Engine Land has covered both findings as evidence of the same shift: search is increasingly the destination, not just the doorway.
90% of patients use online reviews to evaluate a physician.
The claim that 90% of patients use online reviews to evaluate a physician comes from a 2020 survey of more than 500 U.S. patients by Software Advice. The same research found that 71% of patients use reviews as their first step in finding a new doctor — up sharply from 2013, when only 25% of patients said they used reviews to evaluate physicians at all.
Healthgrades independently cites the same Software Advice research, reporting that "90% of healthcare consumers in a Software Advice survey said online reviews were a part of their decision-making process," and that nearly 75% of patients turn to reviews as the first step when searching for a new physician.
Practices with growing revenue invest three times more in digital marketing than practices with stagnant revenue.
The claim that growing practices invest three times more in digital marketing and social advertising comes from a 2023 survey of 106 private practice respondents (94% physicians) conducted by Tebra's The Intake. The same survey found that 62% of practices still allocate just 1% to 5% of gross revenue to marketing of any kind, and that networking and referrals remain the most commonly used channel at 50%.
A separate, larger Tebra survey of 260 healthcare marketers, conducted in September 2024, corroborates the underlying pattern: practices in "hypergrowth" — defined by revenue increases of 49% or more over the prior year — were disproportionately likely to have grown their marketing budgets, with 62% of respondents increasing spend by an average of 18%.
Google has been building appointment booking directly into search results since 2022.
The claim that Google is building appointment booking directly into its search results comes from eMarketer, which reported that Google began rolling out the feature in March 2022, starting with a partnership with MinuteClinic at CVS. eMarketer characterized the rollout as still in its early stages at the time, with room to expand to other retail health partners.
The same coverage notes that "more than 1 in 3 U.S. patients" already use platforms like Facebook, Yelp and WebMD to research and select a doctor — context for why Google has an incentive to keep more of that research activity inside its own results.