NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mental issues, allergies and heartburn are among the top ten health conditions of interest to mobile users, according to an analysis of online impressions from PageScience, the leading source for cookieless, page-level targeting. Cancer and weight loss are the leading subjects for PC users, the report found.
For a 10-day period in late June analyzed by PageScience, bipolar disorder – the top condition on mobile -- registered 3.8 million mobile impressions, compared with just 660,000 impressions on PCs, or 82% of total impressions. Conversely, cancer received just 2% of impressions via mobile -- 2.65 million vs. 148 million on PCs.
“The 82% incidence of mobile use for bipolar disorder is even more impressive when you consider that mobile accounts for just 5% of overall online impressions for health conditions,” said Bill Jennings, CEO of PageScience.
Dr. Janet E. Taylor, a leading New York City psychiatrist, offered an explanation: “The average age of people presenting with bipolar disorder is 25 and women are prone to a higher prevalence of mood disorders (which also include major depression). Since females in their ‘20s are also prime mobile users, we see them turning to mobile for real-time research into their symptoms, potential treatments, and prevention. They may prefer using their phones rather than computers in order to protect their privacy (important since there’s still stigma attached to mental health problems) and because they have access 24/7.”
Dr. Taylor also noted that people seeking information on bipolar disorder may actually have different medical conditions. “This indicates a growing awareness of the illness, as well as a desire for self-management and self-reliance when it comes to personal mental health issues.”
Mental health issues, like bipolar disorder and anxiety (#10 on the list), aren't the only types of health conditions to attract more interest on mobile than on PCs. Other strong mobile health topics include:
- Conditions that vary by location and season like allergies, because consumers seek information as they travel.
- Conditions that are episodic and can appear suddenly, like heartburn.
- Female conditions, like birth control, because since women are heavy users of mobile search, much mobile advertising is targeted to them.
PC users, meanwhile, tend to do long-term research on solutions for such health conditions as cancer and obesity, Jennings explained.
The impressions served via PageScience’s PageMatch ad platform correspond to content being accessed and/or searched by consumers, since ads are served contextually based on content rather than behaviorally as with other platforms, Jennings explained.
The PageMatch platform reads billions of impressions a day as they appear on ad exchanges. PageScience’s technology then identifies the deep context of pages for health brands, scores those pages and delivers correctly targeted ads in context.
The figures released today – based on 516.5 million total health impressions -- were compiled by over a 10-day period in the second half of June, 2014.
“Mobile advertising is becoming increasingly important to pharma advertisers, and many agencies question which health conditions are most relevant for mobile. This analysis, to be updated monthly, will provide a guide to which health conditions exhibit the most relative mobile interest,” said Jennings. “According to industry reports, over 25,000 health apps are in the market, and 50% of mobile users will have a health app by 2018.”
A spreadsheet of 82 health conditions, and their breakdown by mobile, PCs and tablets, plus bar graphs breaking down the top mental health conditions and top episodic health conditions by device, are available at http://www.pagescience.com/lab.html
About PageScience
New York-based PageScience, formerly Precision Health Media, delivers vast reach and precise page-level targeting to brand marketers. The company is backed by Metamorphic Ventures, Cava Capital, Hub Angels and several individual investors including Mike Perlis (CEO Forbes), Rick Thompson/Larry Braitman (Founders Adify, Flycast), Joe Apprendi (Founder Collective), Richard Forman (Health Venture Group), Geoff Judge (Partner iNovia), Bill Benedict (Alpine Meridian), Chris Young (Founder Digital Broadcasting Group). PageMatch is a trademark of PageScience. For more information, visit www.pagescience.com
