Pharmaceutical marketers apply rigorous scrutiny to almost every single aspect of their campaigns – from regulatory review of content to approval of creative assets, from media planning to post-campaign analysis. Yet one critical area frequently escapes the same level of due diligence: the verification standards of the platforms being briefed.
The audience a platform claims to offer is only as valuable as the processes used to verify it. And as evidence increasingly shows, those processes vary enormously across the industry.
Here are the 12 questions every pharmaceutical marketer – and every procurement team – should be asking before committing budget to any HCP platform.
Audience verification
1. How do you verify HCP credentials – self-reported or registry-checked?
This is the most fundamental question. Self-reported professional status – where a user simply states they are a doctor – provides no meaningful verification. Gold-standard platforms check credentials against official medical registries: the GMC in the UK, the CGCOM in Spain, the Bundesärztekammer in Germany, [MW1] France’s Conseil National de l’Ordre des Médecins etc. If the answer is self-reported, that should be a red flag.
2. What percentage of your database is fully verified versus email-only?
Email verification – confirming that an email address exists – is not the same as verifying that the person behind it is a verified and active doctor. Ask for a specific breakdown. If a significant proportion of the database is email-verified only, the quoted reach figure is materially overstated.
3. Do you have formal partnerships with official medical associations?
Automated data-sharing partnerships with bodies such as the GMC allow platforms to cross-reference member credentials in real time. Platforms without these partnerships rely on manual checks or self-reporting – both of which are significantly less reliable.
4. Are failed verifications deleted or retained in the database?
This question reveals a great deal about a platform’s commitment to data quality. Failed verifications should be deleted, not retained and counted as reach. If the answer is that they are retained – even in a separate category – ask how they are treated in reach reporting.
Financial question: When you quote 50,000 HCPs, how many are fully credential-verified against an official registry?
Data quality & activity
5. How do you define an ‘active’ user?
Definitions vary widely. Some platforms define ‘active’ as having logged in within the last 12 months. Others use a 24-month cut-off. Some have no definition at all. For pharmaceutical marketing purposes, a doctor who hasn’t engaged with the platform in over a year is not meaningfully reachable – and should not be counted as active reach.
6. Can you report activity metrics such as monthly active users (MAU) and yearly active users (YAU)?
MAU (active in the last 30 days) and YAU (active in the last 365 days) are the metrics that matter for campaign planning. If a platform cannot report these transparently, you have no reliable way of knowing what proportion of your quoted reach is genuinely active.
7. What percentage of your database has been inactive for 12 months or more?
Industry data suggest that inactive accounts can represent 35%–45% of total HCP platform databases. Ask for the specific figure. If the answer is unavailable or vague, treat the quoted reach figure with significant caution.
Transparency and reporting
8. Do you report total database size or verified active reach?
These are very different numbers. A platform with 100,000 registered users may have only 60,000 verified and 57,000 active. If campaign reporting is based on total database size rather than verified active reach, every performance metric is distorted.
9. Can you provide verification status breakdowns in campaign reporting?
Post-campaign reporting should show not just reach and engagement, but the verification status of the audience reached. Without this, it is impossible to assess the true efficiency of the campaign or to make meaningful comparisons between platforms.
10. What is the difference between your total database and your verified active reach?
Ask for this figure directly. The gap between the two numbers is the clearest single indicator of how much of the quoted reach is real.
Financial question: if I’m quoted £40 CPM for 50,000 reach, what is my actual CPM if only 60% are verified and active?
Compliance
11. What are your data retention policies and how do you ensure GDPR-compliant consent?
In a regulated industry, this is non-negotiable. Ask specifically about consent mechanisms, data retention timelines and whether the platform has external DPO oversight. ISO 27001 certification and independent annual audits are indicators of a platform that takes data governance seriously.
What the answers tell you
A platform that can answer all 11 of these questions clearly, specifically and with supporting data is demonstrating the transparency that gold-standard verification requires. A platform that responds with vague assurances, refuses to provide breakdowns or cannot define its own activity metrics is telling you something important about the reliability of its audience data.
The questions are simple. The answers will tell you whether the reach you are being quoted is real – and whether the budget you are about to commit is going to reach the doctors you need it to reach.
Download the full vendor audit checklist and white paper
*Data was acquired by Vademecum, part of the Vidal Group which is part of the M3 Group.
