128 UK patient referrals in one month. £18.66 cost per acquisition.
The single-market direct-to-patient system AGENCY built for nSTRIDE, a non-surgical knee treatment available at 25 participating UK private clinics. Built from scratch with patient persona research, compliant messaging, paid search, and national PR.
The at-scale single-market companion to the international Arthrosamid engagement. Same diagnostic framework, different commercial shape. See the methodology →
128
UK clinic referrals in a single month
£18.66
cost per acquisition vs £200+ consultation value
157%
uplift in conversions vs the prior period
50.9%
improvement in conversion rate vs benchmark
The challenge
2 million people with early-onset knee OA. Not enough of them finding treatment.
01
Invisible to GPs
GPs had limited awareness of non-surgical treatment options for early-onset OA. The default referral pathway pointed straight to pain management or knee replacement, neither appropriate for the target patient cohort.
02
Wrong language for patients
All existing product messaging was written for surgeons. Clinical terminology, procedure codes, mechanism of action. The language that convinces an orthopaedic surgeon means nothing to a 52-year-old who just wants to keep running.
03
Regulatory compliance
Medical device advertising regulations meant every patient-facing claim had to be substantiated, reviewed, and approved. The campaign had to be compelling and medico-legally clean at the same time.
What we did
A direct-to-patient system. Built from scratch.
Patient persona research
We segmented the target audience into five distinct patient personas, Janet, Dave, Margaret and Ed (primary), Martin and Lindsey, Jasper and Annabelle (secondary), with geographical mapping, lifestyle profiling, and channel targeting built for each one.
Compliant patient messaging
Working with the Centre for Pain Research at the University of Bath, we translated clinical language into accessible patient-facing copy. Every claim went through a regulatory review process with the client's compliance team before going live.
Full digital ecosystem
We built the nSTRIDE patient website including a 'Find a Clinic' locator. Each of the 25 participating clinics had a tracked landing page, so referrals were attributable by clinic, by keyword, and by campaign variant.
Paid search campaign
Google Ads campaigns targeting the right patient cohort by symptom, lifestyle keyword, and geography, optimised in-flight as conversion data came in. CPA of £18.66 against private consultations priced at £200+.
National PR and media
Secured national coverage including a Daily Mail feature with wildlife presenter Steve Backshall as a named patient ambassador (declared), alongside broadcast and lifestyle media outreach targeting the active 45-65 demographic.
Performance · November 2021
One UK market. One month. A system that paid back at 10x consultation value.
128
UK clinic referrals from the Find a Clinic page in a single month
£18.66
Cost per acquisition vs £200+ private consultation value
157%
Uplift in conversions vs the prior period
50.9%
Improvement in paid search conversion rate vs benchmark
The campaign generated 3,718 website sessions in the month (over 3,000 new users) with a paid search conversion rate of 3.01%. Top-performing clinic pages: Nick Howells Bristol (14 referrals), Wiltshire Knee Clinic (12), Jamie Arbuthnot Midland Knee (11), Kent Musculoskeletal (11), Central Knee Clinic (10). Campaign expanded to broadcast and lifestyle media targeting in Q1 2022.
The insight behind it
“The product was good. The clinical evidence was there. The only thing missing was the patient not knowing the treatment existed. That is a marketing problem, not a medical one.”
Running a direct-to-patient programme?
We built the framework that generated these results from scratch. If you have a medical device or treatment that patients need to find, we know how to build the system that connects them - compliantly, measurably, and at real ROAS.
Talk to us about your patient acquisition challengeOr read the methodology for the diagnostic framework behind this engagement, or browse the Direct-to-Patient service.