Charli xcx got it right: It’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl. Or, more accurately, a woman trying to access medical treatment.
And it’s just as challenging for women’s health care companies trying to reach their audiences.
HerMD, a women’s health startup with a focus on menopause and sexual health, has struggled with this issue for years.
Its ads were getting rejected and removed from social platforms due to supposedly inappropriate content, like using the words “menopause” and “sexual health.”
Advertising restrictions on platforms like Meta, Google and Pinterest often flag keywords and images used in women’s health care ads, preventing those ads from reaching their target audience.
These limitations hinder people’s ability to learn about and access health care services, HerMD CEO Komel Caruso told AdExchanger.
(Not so) picture perfect
And so HerMD partnered with Elevate, a marketing agency that developed its own custom-trained LLM called EPIC that ingests sports and entertainment data from over 1,000 global partners and third-party sources, including fan, venue, brand and property data.
Using the platform, HerMD was able to understand why certain ads were being rejected and to reach its audience more successfully.
For instance, Elevate helped HerMD determine how best to revise its creative to avoid it being flagged or taken down.
One thing HerMD had to change was the imagery it used, Caruso said. Specifically, it had to shift the focus away from images that center on bodies and skin to what Caruso described as “real-world imagery,” like photoshoots of women who had received treatment from HerMD.
Although the previous versions of its ads didn’t feature body parts that would typically be flagged, simply the visual of skin itself – like someone’s stomach or back – was enough to trigger Google and Meta, both of which repeatedly identified HerMD’s ads as inappropriate content.
By changing its imagery, HerMD was able to maintain its existing copy – unlike some other companies that were forced to censor their content by asterisking out certain letters to “fool” platforms like Facebook and Instagram, said Caruso.
Caruso didn’t want to censor the language HerMD was using or skirt around specific terminology.
“We’re meant to empower women to be able to talk about their issues and not feel there’s any taboo or shame around it,” she said.
Whose health is it anyway?
Having to dance around the verbiage only fuels the idea that conversations about women’s bodies and sexual health are illicit.
There is a “gag order around women’s health care,” Caruso said, citing a January report by the Center for Intimacy Justice that highlights the double standard between what’s permitted in men’s sexual health ads versus those for women and gender-diverse individuals.
For example, an ad for breast cancer screening that included an image of a woman’s back was rejected by Meta, while an ad for a pill to treat erectile dysfunction was accepted, featuring a large banana held up against a man’s crotch with the caption “the pill helps me stay hard for the touchdown!”
But these advertising restrictions aren’t just frustrating; they can be dangerous.
When half the population struggles to find health care solutions due to blocked ads, said Caruso, “it really limits the ability to seek care and get quality care and treatment.”
“It’s a public health issue,” she said.
