Strategy Before Spend: A Smarter Way to Approach Healthcare Growth in 2026
Healthcare marketing teams are entering the year with a familiar reality. Expectations are rising while budgets and bandwidth stay tight. Leaders want measurable growth, faster learning cycles, and clearer proof that spend is working.
That pressure is not new, but the environment is. Competitive intensity is higher. Channels are more crowded. And many organizations are relying on the same approaches, optimized the same way, in the same markets.
This is why a recent post by Causeway Solutions’ healthcare strategist Patrick Upton, written for NESHCo (New England Society for Healthcare Communications), stood out. In “What modern programmatic ad buys look like for healthcare,” Patrick explores how the channel has evolved, but the bigger point is strategic.
The message behind Patrick’s programmatic take:
1) Efficiency is not the goal. It’s the requirement.
Healthcare teams are being pushed to do more with less, but the answer isn’t more activity. It’s cleaner prioritization. The fastest path to growth right now is cutting spend that looks productive but doesn’t move acquisition, then reallocating toward what actually does.
2) The “reliable playbook” is getting more expensive.
Search and social still work, but in crowded markets they’re harder to scale without paying more for the same outcome. If your strategy is built around the channels that are easiest to justify, you’ll eventually hit a ceiling where optimization can’t solve the problem.
3) The opportunity is not a new channel. It’s a better operating model.
This isn’t a call to chase trends. It’s a call to stop treating media planning like a list of tactics and start treating it like a system. Where you invest, what you measure, and how you define success should reflect how decisions are made, not just what’s easiest to report in a dashboard.
4) 2026 will reward strategy you can defend
Marketing leaders will face more scrutiny, more internal pressure, and less tolerance for “we’ve always done it this way.” The teams that win will be the ones who can clearly explain what they’re prioritizing, what they’re not funding, and why their plan is built to perform in-market.
Patrick’s article reinforces a more useful way to think about where healthcare marketing is headed.
The question is not, “What should we add?”
It is, “What should we prioritize?”
Because growth does not come from more activity. It comes from better decisions about where focus belongs and where investment will create the most value.
In 2026, the advantage will not come from doing what everyone else is doing, just with more volume. It will come from building a strategy that can hold up in-market, under pressure. Competitive environments punish copy-and-paste playbooks.
Where strategy becomes a competitive advantage
Outperformance will come from reallocation, not expansion. The strongest teams will not run more campaigns. They will run fewer, sharper ones.
Cut what is familiar but flat
Double down where performance is real
Build a strategy that can adapt as conditions change
Make tradeoffs early, not after the budget is gone
Because when leadership asks “why this spend,” the best answer is a strategy you can defend, not a dashboard you can explain.
Where Causeway fits
Patrick’s article is a useful reset for healthcare marketing leaders planning for 2026. The message is clear: the path forward is not more tactics. It is stronger prioritization.
At Causeway Solutions, we help teams reduce wasted outreach by focusing strategy and spend on the highest-value opportunities. We work with leaders to define what to pursue, what to stop funding, and what a defensible growth plan looks like in the year ahead.
If you are planning for 2026 and asking where to invest next:Start with getting clear on strategy. Then spend.
Read Patrick Upton’s full post:
What Modern Programmatic Ad Buys Look Like for Healthcare
Published for NESHCo
About Patrick:
Patrick Upton is a Healthcare Client Strategist at Causeway Solutions. He works with hospitals and health systems to develop paid and organic growth strategies, helping teams sharpen priorities, align investments, and improve marketing efficiency in competitive markets.
To connect with Patrick, reach him directly at patrick.upton@causewaysolutions.com.