How a National Payer Put Privacy First and Improved Marketing Performance by 53%

A leading national health insurer wanted to measure and optimize its marketing performance using full funnel signals. In most industries, there's an easy solution to this challenge. It's as simple as placing tracking pixels on a website and letting those tools collect the data they need to optimize performance.

But in healthcare, those same pixels can quietly collect Protected Health Information, opening the door to HIPAA violations, data breaches, and costly lawsuits.

With that level of risk, the health insurer turned to its agency partner to help find a solution.

Challenge: Blind Spots in the Funnel

The payer had already invested in Adobe to orchestrate tags and manage site analytics. But Adobe couldn't easily offer the privacy-grade control needed to track sensitive conversion events, especially those that happened after a user logged in.

The most valuable user actions, things like selecting plans or scheduling care, happened after authentication. These post-login events were critical for understanding campaign performance. But because of privacy regulations, like HIPAA, tracking them with traditional media pixels was off-limits.

And that's where the problem lived.

With no safe way to deploy third-party pixels, the agency couldn't attribute conversions accurately, making it difficult to prove what was working, justify media spend, or optimize campaigns effectively.

Solution: A Privacy-First Data Layer with Freshpaint

Rather than rip and replace the existing stack, the agency brought in Freshpaint under a BAA to work in concert with the Adobe tools, adding the layer of privacy control that had been missing. Together, the two tools created a HIPAA-compliant marketing environment. Freshpaint collected key conversion events, like post-auth logins, plan selections, and scheduled care, and then anonymized and routed that data to ad platforms like Meta and Google, but only when it met HIPAA compliance standards.

The key: no media pixels ever touched the site.

Instead, Freshpaint served as a privacy director: determining what data could be shared, when, and with whom. Adobe continued to manage broader tag orchestration, while Freshpaint took responsibility for handling and safeguarding sensitive event data.

This approach gave the agency the attribution signal it needed, without introducing any compliance risk to the payer.

The Results: Attribution Recovered, ROI Proved

With Freshpaint in place, the agency unlocked visibility into the most valuable parts of the funnel, and it showed.

Campaign performance improved significantly:

  • 53% better attribution on Meta compared to the previous cost per acquisition (CPA)
  • 85% improvement in Google Search CPA with Freshpaint attribution vs. Adobe-only attribution

With Freshpaint in place, the payer was finally able to attribute conversions accurately, including high-value, post-authentication actions, without compromising member privacy or relying on outdated workarounds.

Performance Without Compromise

Even the most sophisticated marketing stacks can fall short in healthcare when HIPAA compliance enters the picture. Traditional tracking methods aren't built to handle the sensitivity of member data or the regulatory rigor that comes with it.

By pairing Adobe with Freshpaint, this payer unlocked full-funnel attribution without compromising on compliance. There was no need to overhaul the existing infrastructure, just a strategic addition that filled the critical gap.

Freshpaint delivered the attribution visibility the agency needed to prove ROI and optimize spend, while ensuring that every data flow met HIPAA's strict standards. For healthcare marketers and their agency partners, it's proof that you don't have to choose between performance and privacy. With the right tools, you can have both.