Healthcare marketers are seeing something strange: campaigns look like they’re working, but analytics can’t explain why. In this episode, Chris Boyer and Reed Smith unpack what’s really happening inside healthcare’s “dark funnel” — the growing share of patient decision-making that happens outside trackable channels.
Patients are increasingly influenced by AI summaries, private communities, reputation signals, and access realities long before they ever visit a website. By the time someone schedules care, the decision has already been shaped — just not in places marketing dashboards can see.
This conversation explores:
- What the dark funnel actually is and why it’s accelerating in healthcare
- How AI tools are reshaping discovery before patients ever search
- Why reputation now acts as a signal of future loyalty, not just a score
- Where attribution breaks down — and why that doesn’t mean marketing is failing
- How health systems can influence decisions they’ll never directly measure
If patient intent is forming off the radar, the real question isn’t how to track it — it’s how to stay relevant when your brand is being inferred instead of discovered.
Mentions From the Show:
