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 - Funding Information:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6871-3531 Grov Christian PhD, MPH 1 Stief Matthew PhD 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4085-7941 Westmoreland Drew A. MSPH, PhD 1 MacCrate Caitlin 2 Mirzayi Chloe MPH 1 Nash Denis PhD 1 Golub Sarit A. Patel Viraj V. Pantalone David W. Hoover Don Millett Gregorio Kulkarni Sarah D’Angelo Alexa Perez Gloria Parker Irvin Lopez-Rios Javier Carneiro Pedro Sharp Gerald Lee Sonia Stirratt Michael Camacho Michael Carrico Adam Daskalakis Demetre Hirshfield Sabina Johnson Jeremiah Mellins Claude Santos Milo on behalf of the Together 5000 Study Team 1 The City University of New York New York, NY, USA 2 Fordham University, New York, NY, USA Christian Grov, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, 55 West 125th Street, 7th Floor Mailroom, New York, NY 10027, USA. Email: cgrov@sph.cuny.edu 1 2020 1090198119893692 © 2020 Society for Public Health Education 2020 Society for Public Health Education 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. advertising gay and bisexual men HIV prevention HIV risk recruitment National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases https://doi.org/10.13039/100000060 UG3 AI 133675 CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health Einstein-Rockefeller-CUNY Center for AIDS Research P30 AI124414 edited-state corrected-proof typesetter ts1 Special thanks to additional members of the T5K study team: Sarit A. Golub, Viraj V. Patel, David W. Pantalone, Don Hoover, Gregorio Millett, Sarah Kulkarni, Alexa D’Angelo, Gloria Perez, Irvin Parker, Javier Lopez-Rios, and Pedro Carneiro. Thank you to the program staff at NIH: Gerald Sharp, Sonia Lee, and Michael Stirratt. And thank you to the members of our Scientific Advisory Board: Michael Camacho, Adam Carrico, Demetre Daskalakis, Sabina Hirshfield, Jeremiah Johnson, Claude Mellins, and Milo Santos. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Together 5000 was funded by the National Institutes for Health (UG3 AI 133675—Principal Investigator C. Grov). Other forms of support include the CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health, and the Einstein, Rockefeller, CUNY Center for AIDS Research (ERC CFAR, P30 AI124414). ORCID iDs Christian Grov https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6871-3531 Drew A. Westmoreland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4085-7941
Funding Information:
Special thanks to additional members of the T5K study team: Sarit A. Golub, Viraj V. Patel, David W. Pantalone, Don Hoover, Gregorio Millett, Sarah Kulkarni, Alexa D?Angelo, Gloria Perez, Irvin Parker, Javier Lopez-Rios, and Pedro Carneiro. Thank you to the program staff at NIH: Gerald Sharp, Sonia Lee, and Michael Stirratt. And thank you to the members of our Scientific Advisory Board: Michael Camacho, Adam Carrico, Demetre Daskalakis, Sabina Hirshfield, Jeremiah Johnson, Claude Mellins, and Milo Santos. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Together 5000 was funded by the National Institutes for Health (UG3 AI 133675?Principal Investigator C. Grov). Other forms of support include the CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health, and the Einstein, Rockefeller, CUNY Center for AIDS Research (ERC CFAR, P30 AI124414).
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
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85077390559&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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 Quarterly
JF - Health Education Quarterly
IS - 1
ER -
