Validating Paid Search in Medicaid Mental Health, Without Compromising Privacy
The Problem
Brave Health is a virtual mental and behavioral health provider offering accessible, affordable, telehealth-based therapy, psychiatry, and medication management, primarily serving individuals with Medicaid and other government-sponsored insurance plans.
Heading into 2025, the Brave Health team wanted to test paid search as a new growth lever. The hypothesis was simple: patients were already finding them through search, but there was no compliant way to track, measure, or validate the channel at speed.
Traditional analytics and ad tracking posed privacy and compliance risks, especially in a Medicaid-focused mental health context. Without proper infrastructure in place, even running a small experiment required substantial effort and carried meaningful risk.
Brave Health needed the right foundation to move quickly and answer core questions with confidence.
"We really wanted to do this right from day one, given how seriously we take compliance and patient privacy."
— Ashley Womble, Senior Director of Marketing
The Solution
Curve provided the privacy-first tracking and data infrastructure that Brave Health needed to run a clean experiment. Within days, the team was able to:
- Implement compliant tracking without exposing PHI
- Launch and test paid search quickly
- Measure outcomes without invasive or risky tools
- Build infrastructure that could scale beyond a single experiment
As a result, Brave Health validated their hypothesis and generated leads without adding friction for legal, compliance, or engineering teams.
"Curve was the only company that was adaptable and flexible enough to meet our needs."
— Mercedes Castro, Digital Marketing Manager
The Outcome
With compliant infrastructure in place, Brave ran a paid search experiment and validated the channel:
- ~20 new patients per day from paid search
- Comparable appointment show rates to organic channels
- Clear confirmation that paid search could drive qualified demand
- Confidence that they were protecting patient data and avoiding privacy risk
What Brave Health gained was not just results, but a proven growth channel. Paid search became a lever they could pull when needed, backed by compliant, scalable infrastructure.
"Curve helped us prove that paid search can drive predictable, compliant growth without sacrificing quality or trust. They were flexible, fast, and truly partnered with us to achieve our goals."
— Ashley Womble, Senior Director of Marketing at Brave Health