8 Advantages of Promoting a Dedicated Clinical Trial Website vs. Your CT.gov Listing

No sponsor should be using their CT.gov listing as the face of their trial. Doing so is a disservice to the patient. CT.gov is often hard to navigate, uses sophisticated medical language, and does not help the average person embrace the potential benefits of joining the study. This is particularly true if a sponsor wishes to demonstrate a DEI approach and reach all types of people. Creating a dedicated website for a clinical trial offers several advantages over solely relying on a listing like clinicaltrials.gov for patient recruitment. See the 8 Key Benefits below:

1. Enhanced Visibility and Branding: A dedicated website allows for stronger branding and visibility. It can be optimized for search engines, making it easier for potential participants to find information specific to your trial. This can be particularly important for trials needing to recruit large numbers of participants or those targeting a specific demographic such as rare diseases. A dedicated clinical trial website also allows you to rank on Google page # 1 for the keywords around your study using SEO best practices.

2. Tailored Information: With a dedicated website, you can tailor the information to be more engaging with 8th-grade level reading language compared to the standardized format of clinical trial registries. This includes using layman-friendly language, videos, FAQs, testimonials, and infographics that explain the trial process, graphics to clearly illustrate how a drug or therapy works, eligibility criteria, and dots on a map of the US to clearly show where the sites are. 

3. Improved User Experience: A world-class clinical trial site design can offer a superior user experience with easier navigation. Imagine trying to read about a clinical study on a bus… that’s moving. Having a mobile-friendly site with larger fonts for older eyes can make a huge difference. Having all the information on a single landing page is another plus. Adding pictures of patients that folks can identify with also helps. This is not possible on CT.gov

4. Direct Communication: A custom landing page facilitates direct communication through contact forms, direct phone lines, and/or pre-populated emails to help patients raise their hands and tell us who they are. It also allows a patient recruitment agency to promote the trial across various marketing channels such as Google Ads, Programmatic Display Advertising and Facebook. This allows for immediate interaction and follow-up with potential participants. This can increase the chances of converting interest into actual participation.

5. Data Collection and Analytics: With your own site, you can implement HIPAA-compliant tracking and analytics to understand how visitors interact with your content, which can inform adjustments to improve recruitment strategies. Additional cookie consent management can also be implemented for GDPR compliance. 

6. Community Building and Updates: A dedicated clinical trial landing page can serve as a “point of convergence” or the hub to build a community around the trial. It can be updated regularly with links to news about the trial's progress, downloadable one-pagers to read in bed, and articles that keep participants engaged and informed, potentially increasing retention rates.

7. Control Over Content and Updates: Unlike listings on a registry, which can be somewhat static and take weeks to see the edits completed, a dedicated website can be quickly updated with the latest information, changes in study protocol, additional site locations, and more without needing to go through an external approval process.

8. Finally, it’s important to remember that joining a clinical trial is a “family decision.” It only takes one person to convince someone NOT to participate in a clinical study. This nay-say advice is typically well-intended but fueled by a lack of knowledge about the study. Having a dedicated clinical trial landing page allows the patient, their physician, and their inner circle to fully comprehend the study in layman's terms and embrace the potential trial benefits.

While a clinicaltrials.gov is required for all trials, a dedicated website can significantly enhance patient recruitment efforts by making the trial more accessible, engaging, and understandable to potential participants.

Trial AMPlify, the leading patient recruitment agency for clinical trial marketing, is dedicated to one objective – Driving Patient Enrollment for Clinical Trials Worldwide. Contact us to see our patient recruitment campaigns in action and see why both major biopharma and start-up life science companies rely on us to help them surge patient enrollment. You'll be in good company.