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HealthSTAT promises better concept matches in health advertising

The newly launched HealthSTAT network seeks a piece of the growing online advertising market for healthcare interests online.

Healthcare online ad spending could rise to $2.2 billion by 2011, according to eMarketer. That potential has plenty of companies interested in capturing the eyeballs and the revenue of the persistent demand for health information.

Healthline made the newest bid for the competitive marketplace, where major tech players like Microsoft and Google, and a host of startups all reach for the brass ring of healthcare ad revenue. The launch of HealthSTAT, or Healthline Semantic Taxonomy Ad Targeting, arrives with the promise of being able to better match concepts, not just keywords, when people search on a HealthSTAT-powered site.

Several major online destinations already serve Healthline's ads: United Health, AARP, and Merriam-Webster among them. Healthline said a content page describing a given set of symptoms, for example, would generate ads matching suggested treatments for the root causes.

On the medical side, Healthline promised its ad network can work operate with the distinct requirements of given pharmaceutical campaigns. They cited the example of an anti-psychotic drug that should only be placed alongside content related to bipolar conditions, as opposed to general treatment of depression.

Such depth of information should prove useful to the many people who seek out data on medical conditions each day. If executed well, an accurate ad campaign could put people on track, with their physician's valuable input, into finding the right solutions for their needs. That's not a bad outcome for an ad.