Healthcare marketers shift spend to digital and physician data

US healthcare and pharma marketers are on track to spend $26.15 billion on digital advertising in 2026, while tighter physician access and decaying contact data are making campaign performance harder to sustain. IInfotanks is pitching a connected model that combines verified physician data with email, search, and campaign execution to improve reach and ROI.

Why it matters: - US healthcare and pharma digital ad spend is projected to reach $26.15 billion in 2026, up 5.6% year over year, as marketers move budgets away from older channels. - 2025 was the first year social media outspent linear TV in the category, showing how quickly the mix is changing. - Physician access is tightening, so marketing teams need data that still reaches doctors after they change jobs, hospitals, or training programs. - Stale physician records can reduce campaign reach and waste spend even when the creative and offer are strong.

What happened: - IInfotanks framed the current market shift around a basic problem: healthcare marketers are spending more on digital, but many campaigns still miss physicians because the underlying data is outdated or fragmented. - The company positioned itself as a provider of verified physician data plus connected marketing execution for healthcare brands. - Harjyot Singh Isser, founder and CEO of IInfotanks, said a verified physician database only works when email, content, search visibility, and targeting move together.

The details: - Industry benchmarks put B2B email list decay at about 22.5% a year. - Physician data often decays faster than other B2B data because doctors move between hospitals and systems, and many transitions happen each July. - Healthcare marketers often split data buying, email delivery, search, and content across separate vendors, which creates inconsistent targeting and wasted spend. - IInfotanks says it was founded in 2016 and serves 1,000-plus clients. - The company says its physician email database includes more than 1.5 million contacts worldwide and more than 900,000 in the US. - IInfotanks says the US physician records are cross-checked against the National Provider Identifier registry in the CMS NPPES database. - The company says the database has 95% deliverability. - IInfotanks also offers email campaigns, product marketing, SEO, AI SEO, lead generation, and full-funnel campaign execution. - The company says its healthcare coverage spans specialties including cardiology, oncology, surgery, and general practice. - IInfotanks describes itself as an AI-powered global B2B data and digital marketing company. - The company says it serves healthcare, technology, and enterprise clients. - More information is available on IInfotanks. - The company also maintains a LinkedIn page at its company profile.

Between the lines: - The pitch is less about selling a list and more about selling an operating system for physician outreach. - That reflects a broader shift in healthcare marketing, where data quality and channel coordination matter as much as media spend. - The emphasis on verified records and full-funnel execution suggests marketers are under pressure to show measurable return from every digital dollar.

What's next: - Healthcare marketers are likely to keep moving budget toward digital channels while scrutinizing whether data sources are current enough to reach physicians. - Vendors that can combine data, targeting, and execution may have an advantage over point solutions. - As physician movement continues, list maintenance and verification will remain a core part of campaign performance.