Paid Search · NHS partnerships
SHOUT × NHS
Helping people across the UK discover free, 24/7 mental health support through locally targeted Google Ads.
- 9
- NHS partners
- 2,177
- Ad interactions
- 7.62%
- Interaction rate
- £0.23
- Average cost per interaction
- My role
- In-house Google Ads Manager
- Focus
- Paid Search, NHS partnerships, regional targeting & optimisation
- The objective
- Build a repeatable paid-search approach that helps NHS partners promote SHOUT in their local areas - while making modest regional budgets work harder.
- The outcome
- Supported nine NHS partnerships with a scalable campaign model built around local audiences, search behaviour and regional priorities.
The challenge
SHOUT works with NHS Integrated Care Boards across the UK to help people discover its free, confidential, 24/7 mental health text service.
But each partnership is different. Campaigns need to reach people within specific geographical areas, respond to local priorities and make relatively small budgets work effectively.
The challenge was to create an approach that could be repeated across multiple NHS regions without treating every area exactly the same.
The approach
I built a flexible Paid Search structure that could be adapted for each NHS partnership.
Each campaign was shaped around its region, budget and the ways people were searching for mental health support locally. I continually reviewed search terms, targeting, bidding and ad copy, using performance data to refine campaigns and reduce wasted spend.
Rather than starting again every time a new NHS partner came on board, the structure created a strong foundation that could be adapted quickly while still giving each region its own campaign strategy.
The impact
The approach has now supported nine NHS partnerships across the UK.
In the latest reporting period, the eight live ICB campaigns generated 28,569 impressions and 2,177 interactions, with a 7.62% interaction rate and an average interaction cost of just £0.23.
And this isn't being driven by big media budgets: the live regional campaigns in this report were each operating on around £3 per day.
Most importantly, the model gives SHOUT and its NHS partners a scalable way to help more people discover mental health support in their local area.