ADWEEK House at SXSW Panel Recap: Is Our Performance Measurement System Sick?

SXSW 2026: PulsePoint Curates Health Marketing Panel Discussion at ADWEEK House

With the Austin Convention Center under construction, SXSW 2026 felt sprawling, decentralized, and like a true choose-your-own-adventure. Every block offered a different experience, making it abundantly clear that SXSW has evolved far beyond its roots as a local music festival into a true hodgepodge of music, tech, film, culture, and increasingly, health. Corporate brands took over many buildings across downtown Austin, transforming it into a fully immersive marketing landscape with a goal to blur the line between experience and advertisement.

Unless you had a friend with you every second of the day, no two paths through SXSW looked the same. Walking across the city, brand activations were everywhere. You could find things like a free haircut at a Peaky Blinders-inspired Netflix pop-up, a Tesla robot-turned-bartender, a spot to mail a letter to your future self, or an exclusive Norah Jones podcast recording. This corporate advertising playground made one thing clear: clever immersive experiences and star power can capture attention and bring positive perceptions to your brand.

Set against that backdrop, at times energizing, at times overwhelming, PulsePoint intentionally carved out a more focused space at ADWEEK House to elevate an important conversation in healthcare marketing around performance measurement. Our first panel of the weekend brought together leaders from CMI Media Group, Genentech, Novo Nordisk, and Sumitomo Pharma to tackle a core question: Are we actually measuring and optimizing toward what matters?

What followed was a candid challenge to standard marketing metrics and legacy measurement frameworks. While the industry has become exceptionally good at tracking activity and generating data, there was broad alignment in the room that many of today’s approaches are still optimized for a different, pre-AI era, one that no longer reflects how decisions are actually made, especially in healthcare.

Here are a few core takeaways from the PulsePoint-led panel discussion, “Is Our Performance Measurement System Sick,” featuring the following speakers:

• Tara Sparks, Director, Paid & Earned Media, Novo Nordisk
• Gozde Dinc, Marketing Director, Genentech
• Bill Lucas, Executive Director, Sumitomo Pharma 
• Eugene Lee, COO, CMI Media Group
• Moderated by Jonathan Zile, SVP of Data Solutions, PulsePoint

1. Audience Quality Should Not Be an End Goal

AQ works well as a baseline, but it should not be an end goal. The reality is that healthcare decisions are rarely made in isolation. Focusing on AQ alone risks overlooking the broader care circle that influences patient decisions and treatment options, such as family members, caregivers, and trusted peers who may not fit traditional targeting parameters.

What matters more, and what is a more valuable indicator, are the behavior and intent signals such as if they are watching the video, downloading the content, or asking questions about a treatment.
“I care less about if somebody looks like the patient I’m trying to reach and more about if they are acting like they care,” Gozde said.

2. Take Those Strong, Safe Bets But Scale The Things That Work

The panel addressed channels where measurement remains limited, most notably social. Despite restricted visibility into performance metrics, data and real-world observation make it clear that social environments remain highly influential in shaping patient behavior. Tara cited two core stats to back this claim, including that 60% of consumers say they take advice from creators and other content they see on social media and 69% of doctors say that patients are coming into appointments asking for a drug by name. “So just because I don’t have great measurements on social, doesn’t mean that I can’t advertise on social,” Tara explained. “It’s understanding where there are gaps and also acknowledging where we can make some good bets based on proxy data, those leading indicators in the short term while we push our partners for better solutions in the long term.”

However, Tara emphasized that the most effective strategy is to balance reliable bets with scaling the channels and approaches where performance is clearly understood. For example, Novo Nordisk is scaling its next-best engagement initiative, which has led to 38% higher conversions when activating on NBE partners like PulsePoint.

3. It’s Time to Let Go of Some Core Legacy Metrics

In marketing, we’ve often measured performance based on metrics like CTR, CPM, or keyword rankings, but it’s time for that to change. These metrics may not be the most valuable anymore or the best at predicting something is going to happen in the future.

“You really have to start to free yourself of that former thinking that you had before, if you haven’t already,” Eugene said. 

In order to do that there needs to be a lot of innovation or more open-ended ideas around how we approach performance measurement.

4. Innovation Must Stick Within the Boundaries of Privacy

In healthcare, innovation must coexist with regulation. However, the panel emphasized that privacy constraints are not purely limiting, they are foundational to maintaining trust.

“Privacy isn’t a bad thing. Trust is a component of what we’re selling,” Bill said. “If we jeopardize that to try to get precise, we’re really running into some issues.”

Rather than restricting progress, these guardrails are driving more thoughtful, privacy-conscious innovation.

5. Understand How Signals Connect to Outcomes 

A central theme throughout the session was the need to better connect short-term signals with long-term business outcomes.

Rather than relying solely on lagging indicators such as brand studies or prescription data, the group emphasized identifying real-time behaviors that can more meaningfully predict those outcomes.

Gozde coins the term her “signals-and-outcomes framework” and encourages marketers to find the answer to this question: what are the short-term metrics that are meaningfully predicting the long-term business outcomes?

This approach enables more agile optimization, allowing teams to make informed decisions earlier in the campaign lifecycle rather than waiting for delayed confirmation.

6. The Role of AI is To Accelerate, Not Replace Meaningful Work

AI was a natural point of discussion, as it was at any panel at SXSW.

Panelists shared they’ve seen early success in applying AI-driven solutions across channels, including improvements in conversion rates, engagement, and efficiency. At the same time, there was strong alignment that AI should be viewed as an augmentation tool, not a replacement for expertise.

Eugene shares that his favorite way AI has been described to him is that it is essentially an “inebriated graduate student,” emphasizing that while AI will continue to enhance execution and optimization, strategic oversight and human judgment remain essential.

7. Connecting HCP and DTC Marketing Is Essential, But Silos Remain

One of the biggest opportunities in healthcare marketing today lies in connecting HCP and DTC. After all, patients don’t prescribe treatments themselves, which means influence and decision-making inherently span both audiences. As Eugene pointed out, the industry has the tools to connect these audiences, but there are a few things holding this back.

Speed is one. Unlike retail or e-commerce, where feedback loops are nearly instant, healthcare operates on a much longer timeline. Regulatory requirements further complicate things, especially when it comes to developing and approving creative. While emerging technologies like AI are beginning to ease some of these constraints, they don’t fully solve the underlying issue.

Organizational structure is another major hurdle. Many companies, and their agency partners, are still highly siloed. Separate teams manage HCP and DTC efforts, often with different agency partners, goals, and success metrics. 

Bill highlighted the consequence: misaligned goals and siloed teams often lead to vanity metrics creeping in and fragmented strategies. He also suggests a solution: getting to a place of shared decisionmaking and continual alignment of HCP and DTC teams.

The Bottom Line

In a week defined by large-scale activations and forward-looking AI narratives, this discussion stood out for its clarity and practicality about measuring the outcomes that matter in healthcare.

The conclusion was not that measurement is fundamentally sick, but that it must become more predictive, intent-driven, and closely-tied to real business outcomes. 

As the industry continues to evolve, organizations that embrace this measurement shift will be better positioned to make faster, more confident, and more meaningful decisions.