Speeding diagnosis, widening access, and never losing the human story
Every year on February 28, Silverlight Digital joins the global community in marking Rare Disease Day as a moment to remember that behind every statistic is a person, a family, and a clock that’s already been running too long. At Silverlight Digital, that day isn’t just a date on the calendar. It’s a reminder of why we focus our creativity, data science, and media expertise on one clear priority: help healthcare providers find rare diseases faster and make sure patients can get the care they need.
Why this work matters
Rare-disease care presents an unusual mix of challenges: very small audiences, complex science, fragmented decision pathways, and high emotional stakes. Those factors make timing and precision the factors that move the needle. That’s why we work with our clients to design communication and media strategies to influence the moments when clinical decisions shift, and to support the downstream steps that enable diagnosis, referral, and access.
Leading clinical centers are already organizing networks and services to accelerate diagnosis and connect patients to treatment and research. Efforts like these (for example Mayo Clinic’s and Cleveland Clinic’s rare-disease centers) show the value of aligning outreach to specialist networks and centers of expertise. Our role is to make sure clinicians and caregivers know where to look and how to act when a rare-disease signal appears.
By the numbers — measured, not hyperbolic
The following outcomes illustrate the kind of effect this work has when strategy, data, and creativity come together. They’re presented as operational results — improvements in engagement, reach, and the quality of audiences — because those are the levers that support earlier diagnosis and clearer referral pathways.
- +195% site engagement in 3 months for an ultra-rare liver disease (PFIC) HCP + patient campaign that used integrated search, endemic, and symptom-based tactics.
- Ad recall doubled vs. goal (10% vs. 5%) for the same program.
- Up to 6× engagement lift on high-performing creative after A/B testing and high-share-of-voice placements.
- AI-driven audience identification produced 13–16× higher CTR vs. display benchmarks, with engagement rates up to 38% when surfacing caregiver and patient cohorts missed by traditional targeting.
- Up to 60% above endemic CTR benchmarks for a branded rare-disease campaign focused on hard-to-reach specialists.
- 50% higher CTR and a 43% lift in on-site engagement for an unbranded campaign addressing a rare tumor type (PEC), results that helped shape rep coverage and education priorities.
- Reached 87% of target HCP accounts for ultra-rare oncology therapy using coordinated print, digital, social, and KOL content.
- Consistently identified high-engagement HCP and caregiver audiences for ongoing optimization across campaigns — a practical result that improves downstream referral signals and targeting precision.
How we translate engagement into better care
Numbers are useful because they correlate with real steps in the care pathway. Higher, more targeted engagement helps clinicians and caregivers:
- Notice disease signals earlier (symptom prompts, diagnostic resources or genomic testing pathways).
- Move from awareness to action — for instance, initiating referrals, ordering tests, or discussing specialist options.
- Connect with centers of expertise and clinical resources that shorten the diagnostic odyssey.
Silverlight Digital’s approach blends channel strategy, clinical signals, and behavioral data. In practice, that means pairing targeted HCP outreach with caregiver and patient identification tactics (including AI-assisted behavioral signals), and then optimizing creatives, placements, and timing, so messages arrive when they can prompt action. The goal is to improve the moments that matter in the clinical workflow, not to chase impressions.
A measured commitment
This Rare Disease Day we reaffirm a simple, measurable commitment: support earlier recognition and better access. The outcomes above are not marketing trophies. They are operational evidence that focused, clinically informed communications can increase the likelihood that the right clinician or caregiver sees the right information at a moment that leads to action.
If you’re working on initiatives to identify rare disease earlier, improve referral and testing pathways, or connect patients to specialty centers and support, we’d welcome a practical conversation about what’s working and what’s next.
