Identifying Effective Components of a Social Marketing Campaign to Improve Engagement With Express Sexual Health Services Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men: Case Study

Background: Little is known about how best to reach people with social marketing messages promoting use of clinical HIVand sexually transmitted infection (STI) services. Objective: We evaluated a multiplatform, digital social marketing campaign intended to increase use of HIV/STI testing,treatment, and prevention services among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) at an LGBTQ+(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and/or questioning) community health center. Methods: We evaluated engagement with a social marketing campaign launched by Open Door Health, the only LGBTQ+community health center in Rhode Island, during the first 8 months of implementation (April to November 2021). Three typesof advertisements encouraging use of HIV/STI services were developed and implemented on Google Search, Google Display,Grindr, and Facebook. Platforms tracked the number of times that an advertisement was displayed to a user (impressions), thata user clicked through to a landing page that facilitated scheduling (clicks), and that a user requested a call to schedule anappointment from the landing page (conversions). We calculated the click-through rate (clicks per impression), conversion rate(conversions per click), and the dollar amount spent per 1000 impressions and per click and conversion. Results: Overall, Google Search yielded the highest click-through rate (7.1%) and conversion rate (7.0%) compared to GoogleDisplay, Grindr, and Facebook (click-through rates=0.4%-3.3%; conversion rates=0%-0.03%). Although the spend per 1000impressions and per click was higher for Google Search compared to other platforms, the spend per conversion-whichmeasures the number of people intending to attend the clinic for services-was substantially lower for Google Search (US$48.19 vs US $3120.42-US $3436.03). Conclusions: Campaigns using the Google Search platform may yield the greatest return on investment for engaging MSMin HIV/STI services at community health clinics. Future studies are needed to measure clinical outcomes among those whopresent to the clinic for services after viewing campaign advertisements and to compare the return on investment with use ofsocial marketing campaigns relative to other approaches.