RealSelf drives new revenue with sponsored doctor listings
The popular health marketplace uses promoted listings to scale their business.
What RealSelf Wanted
RealSelf is the medical aesthetics industry’s leading community and marketplace providing consumers with unbiased information, real patient reviews and photos, treatment costs and ratings, and the ability to connect directly with doctors. The website primarily targets plastic surgery, dermatology, and minimally-invasive treatments.
As they grew, RealSelf realized they had an opportunity to further monetize through sponsored doctor listings, whereby doctors could pay to be the #1 result for relevant searches (including location, search terms, categories, and more).
Unfortunately, standard ad servers weren’t customizable enough for what they needed, and they lacked the time and resources to build the ad platform entirely themselves.
So RealSelf turned to Kevel’s ad APIs to easily build what they were envisioning. Within a few weeks, RealSelf had integrated sponsored doctor listings into their search results. They quickly had a new and high-value ad placement to sell to doctor customers.
Doctors can now pay to be sponsored for relevant searches
These Doctor Spotlight ads appear only for relevant searches, and they look exactly like organic listings (except for the shading and Featured tag).
For RealSelf, this ad platform is a win-win-win: doctors like having additional visibility; users continue to have the same browsing experience; and RealSelf now has a new high-margin revenue stream.
Full backend, server-side integration
All of these Kevel-powered sponsored listings are white-labeled and the decisions are requested server-side — giving RealSelf control over how and where the content is displayed.
- Kevel-powered sponsored listings blend seamlessly into RealSelf’s search results
- RealSelf built this bespoke, complex platform in just weeks
Automation made RealSelf's work easier
Having access to Kevel’s UI and Management APIs makes it easy for RealSelf to set up campaigns and manage their sponsored listings.