TY - JOUR
T1 - Maximizing Response Rates to Ads for Free At-Home HIV Testing on a Men-for-Men Geosocial Sexual Networking App
T2 - Lessons Learned and Implications for Researchers and Providers
AU - on behalf of the Together 5000 Study Team
AU - Grov, Christian
AU - Stief, Matthew
AU - Westmoreland, Drew A.
AU - MacCrate, Caitlin
AU - Mirzayi, Chloe
AU - Nash, Denis
AU - Golub, Sarit A.
AU - Patel, Viraj V.
AU - Pantalone, David W.
AU - Hoover, Don
AU - Millett, Gregorio
AU - Kulkarni, Sarah
AU - D’Angelo, Alexa
AU - Perez, Gloria
AU - Parker, Irvin
AU - Lopez-Rios, Javier
AU - Carneiro, Pedro
AU - Sharp, Gerald
AU - Lee, Sonia
AU - Stirratt, Michael
AU - Camacho, Michael
AU - Carrico, Adam
AU - Daskalakis, Demetre
AU - Hirshfield, Sabina
AU - Johnson, Jeremiah
AU - Mellins, Claude
AU - Santos, Milo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Society for Public Health Education.
PY - 2020/2/1
Y1 - 2020/2/1
N2 - Internet-based recruitment can be effective in reaching large numbers of geographically diverse individuals. Geosocial sexual networking apps on smartphones have emerged as the modal way in which men who have sex with men (MSM) meet sex partners, and as venues for sexual health research. We report on the performance of three types of ads—text-only, text with male figure (no face), and text with male figure (with face)—used on a geosocial sexual networking app to advertise free at-home HIV testing and to enroll in an online study. We ran five 2-week-long ads on a popular MSM geosocial app between fall 2017 and spring 2018 (~2.19 million impressions). Ads were evaluated in terms of the click-through rate (CTR = advertisement clicks/advertisement impressions), conversion rates (CR = number of enrolled participants/ad-generated clicks), cost per enrolled participant, and demographic composition of survey respondents. We enrolled n = 4,023 individuals, n = 2,430 of whom completed HIV testing—$6.21 spent on advertising per participant enrolled and $10.29 spent for everyone who completed HIV testing. Cost per enrolled participant was associated with the content of the ad used—ads featuring male figures (with or without a face shown) were more cost efficient than ads featuring text alone. These ads also outperformed text-only ads across a range of metrics, including responsiveness among younger MSM as well as MSM of color. Advertising materials that combine text with images may have greater appeal among priority populations.
AB - Internet-based recruitment can be effective in reaching large numbers of geographically diverse individuals. Geosocial sexual networking apps on smartphones have emerged as the modal way in which men who have sex with men (MSM) meet sex partners, and as venues for sexual health research. We report on the performance of three types of ads—text-only, text with male figure (no face), and text with male figure (with face)—used on a geosocial sexual networking app to advertise free at-home HIV testing and to enroll in an online study. We ran five 2-week-long ads on a popular MSM geosocial app between fall 2017 and spring 2018 (~2.19 million impressions). Ads were evaluated in terms of the click-through rate (CTR = advertisement clicks/advertisement impressions), conversion rates (CR = number of enrolled participants/ad-generated clicks), cost per enrolled participant, and demographic composition of survey respondents. We enrolled n = 4,023 individuals, n = 2,430 of whom completed HIV testing—$6.21 spent on advertising per participant enrolled and $10.29 spent for everyone who completed HIV testing. Cost per enrolled participant was associated with the content of the ad used—ads featuring male figures (with or without a face shown) were more cost efficient than ads featuring text alone. These ads also outperformed text-only ads across a range of metrics, including responsiveness among younger MSM as well as MSM of color. Advertising materials that combine text with images may have greater appeal among priority populations.
KW - HIV prevention
KW - HIV risk
KW - advertising
KW - gay and bisexual men
KW - recruitment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077390559&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/1090198119893692
DO - 10.1177/1090198119893692
M3 - Article
C2 - 31896287
AN - SCOPUS:85077390559
SN - 1090-1981
VL - 47
SP - 5
EP - 13
JO - Health Education and Behavior
JF - Health Education and Behavior
IS - 1
ER -