Few industries felt the shock of the pandemic as deeply as live events. Conferences that once brought together thousands of professionals disappeared almost overnight, replaced by virtual experiences that struggled to recreate the energy and connection of in-person gatherings. In healthcare, where collaboration, networking, and shared innovation drive progress, that absence was especially painful.
HLTH, the leading platform uniting the global healthcare ecosystem, understood this better than most. Its flagship conference had long been regarded as the premier innovation event in health. But when the world shut down, even the most established brands were forced to adapt.
By 2021, market confidence was returning, and HLTH leadership saw an opportunity not just to revive in-person events, but to redefine what they could become. With ambitious growth goals for HLTH 2022 and the emerging ViVE conference series, the organization needed a digital strategy capable of delivering scale, precision, and performance.
That challenge led HLTH to partner with BERK Labs.
Moving Beyond Traditional Event Marketing
Historically, HLTH had relied on a small internal team to manage paid media. When that role became vacant, leadership chose not to replace it in kind. Instead, they saw an opening to elevate their approach.
Their goals were ambitious. HLTH 2022 needed to exceed pre-pandemic attendance while attracting senior healthcare executives, sponsors, and enterprise buyers. At the same time, ViVE, a newer healthcare IT event, required brand building from the ground up.
What HLTH needed was not just campaign execution, but strategic depth. BERK Labs stood out during the agency selection process for its analytical approach, clear communication, and ability to simplify complex paid media concepts. For Allen Yesilevich, Head of Marketing at HLTH, that clarity made the difference. It allowed him to quickly align internal stakeholders around a new strategy and move decisively.
Building an Audience First Strategy
Before launching any campaigns, BERK Labs invested heavily in understanding HLTH’s audiences. Rather than treating attendees as a single group, the team identified three distinct segments that each required a tailored approach.
Consumers represented direct ticket buyers. These were professionals searching for terms related to healthcare innovation, digital health, and transformation. For this group, campaign messaging focused on inspiration, insight, and opportunity.
Hosted buyers were corporate purchasers responsible for acquiring tickets for teams. Each of these individuals represented significant revenue potential. Targeting emphasized enterprise demographics, professional roles, and firmographic signals that indicated purchasing authority.
Corporate sponsors formed the third and most strategically important segment. Reaching decision makers within these organizations required precision. BERK Labs leveraged customer lists from past sponsors and used Google’s audience modeling tools to identify new prospects with similar profiles.
This segmentation allowed budgets, bidding strategies, and creative messaging to be aligned with specific business outcomes rather than generic reach.
Investing in Brand as a Growth Multiplier
Although HLTH was already the leading event in its category, BERK Labs identified an opportunity to drive further growth through brand investment. Many organizations underestimate the power of sustained digital presence, especially when an event occurs only once per year.
Search campaigns were built not just for transactional intent, but for awareness and positioning. Over six months, campaigns generated more than 233,000 impressions and 35,000 interactions, delivering a nearly ten percent conversion rate.
These conversions translated into more than 3,500 ticket sales at an average value approaching twelve hundred dollars. Even more striking was the efficiency. Each conversion cost just over three dollars, resulting in exceptional return on investment.
This combination of scale, relevance, and efficiency laid the groundwork for HLTH 2022.
Delivering Record Breaking Results for HLTH 2022
The results surpassed expectations.
HLTH 2022 welcomed more than 9,500 attendees, making it the largest event in the company’s history. Over 800 sponsors participated, and more than 2,500 CEOs were present, creating one of the most concentrated gatherings of healthcare leadership ever assembled.
These outcomes were not driven by volume alone. Attendees represented HLTH’s ideal audience, senior decision makers with the authority and resources to drive innovation forward. The event regained its status not simply as a conference, but as a marketplace for ideas, partnerships, and transformation.
Launching ViVE as a Standalone Brand
Following HLTH 2022, attention turned to ViVE 2023. Unlike HLTH, ViVE was still in its early stages. Brand recognition was limited, and demand had to be built from scratch.
BERK Labs adopted a full funnel approach anchored by Performance Max campaigns. This allowed ViVE to achieve exposure across search, display, video, and discovery channels through a single unified strategy.
The impact was immediate. Within two weeks of launch, daily clicks tripled and conversions quadrupled. Momentum built quickly, establishing ViVE as a credible and compelling destination within the healthcare IT community.
Leveraging Cross Brand Intelligence
Although HLTH and ViVE serve different segments of healthcare, BERK Labs recognized that valuable data could flow between the two. Separate advertising accounts were created for each event and linked through a parent structure, enabling shared audience insights while preserving campaign specificity.
This allowed BERK Labs to target different departments within the same organizations, expanding reach without sacrificing relevance. Video campaigns further strengthened this connection, reinforcing brand recall and accelerating audience growth.
Turning ViVE 2023 into a Breakout Success
ViVE 2023 exceeded all expectations.
More than 7,500 attendees gathered in Nashville, marking a 50 percent increase over the previous year. The event featured over 600 exhibits and more than 300 industry speakers, establishing ViVE as the premier healthcare IT conference in the country.
From a marketing perspective, the results were equally impressive. Campaigns delivered 162,000 impressions with a conversion rate of 9.6 percent. Total ad spend reached just over twenty two thousand dollars, while conversion value exceeded three million dollars.
Few industries see returns of that magnitude.
Sustained Performance and Expanding Horizons
Since partnering with BERK Labs, HLTH has generated more than 395,000 impressions, 67,000 clicks, and 6,500 conversions. With ticket values reaching up to three thousand five hundred dollars, total revenue attributable to these campaigns has surpassed seven million dollars.
Even more remarkable is the efficiency. Average cost per conversion stands near five dollars, producing an extraordinary 217 times return on ad spend.
This performance has given HLTH leadership the confidence to pursue its next major milestone. Expansion into the European market. After witnessing how quickly BERK Labs built momentum for ViVE, the organization is now preparing to replicate that success across the Atlantic.
A Partnership Built on Precision and Trust
For HLTH, the partnership with BERK Labs has become more than a vendor relationship. It has evolved into a strategic collaboration built on transparency, expertise, and shared ambition. By combining data driven strategy with thoughtful execution, BERK Labs helped HLTH not only recover from the disruption of the pandemic, but emerge stronger than before. The result is a new standard for healthcare events, one defined by scale, relevance, and lasting impact.
