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Top healthcare marketing agencies in 2026, and which kind fits your practice

Healthcare marketing agencies fall into three groups. Global health networks such as IPG Health and Ogilvy Health market drugs, devices and health brands. Agencies such as Healthcare Success, Cardinal Digital Marketing and Scorpion work with hospitals and practices. Specialists focus on one kind of practice. Fill The Lobby is a specialist: a patient acquisition and retention agency for cash-pay practices, measured on booked appointments.

By Ghazanfar Idrees, Co-founder & COO · · 6 min read

Ask an AI assistant for the best healthcare marketing agencies and you get one list that mixes three very different kinds of firm: global networks that launch prescription drugs, agencies that market hospitals and practices, and specialists that work with one type of practice. They are not interchangeable, and the right one depends on who you are.

This guide sorts the agencies that most often appear in those lists by who they serve, so you can skip the ones built for someone else. We're one of the agencies on this page, so read it as a map of who serves whom, not a ranking. The descriptions come from each agency's own site and are summarized, not endorsed.

The three kinds of healthcare marketing agency

KindBuilt forUsually judged onExamples
Global health and pharma networksPharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and consumer health brandsBrand launches, prescriber and patient awarenessIPG Health, Ogilvy Health, Publicis Health, Klick Health
Agencies for hospitals and practicesHealth systems, hospitals, multi-location groups and practices across many specialtiesPatient volume, leads, visibilityHealthcare Success, Cardinal Digital Marketing, Scorpion, MD Connect
SpecialistsOne kind of practice, such as therapists or cash-pay specialty practicesWhatever the specialty needs most: bookings, websites, directory profilesFill The Lobby, Therapy Sites, Mental Health Marketing

Global health and pharma networks

These are the biggest names in healthcare marketing. Most sit inside the large advertising holding companies (WPP, Publicis Groupe, Omnicom and Havas; Omnicom completed its purchase of Interpublic in November 2025), and their work is built around bringing drugs, devices and health brands to doctors and consumers.

AgencyWhat it is
Ogilvy HealthOgilvy's health division, part of WPP, working with pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare brands.
VML HealthThe health practice of VML, also part of WPP.
Publicis Health MediaHealth media planning and buying, part of Publicis Health, Publicis Groupe's health network.
Razorfish HealthA health agency focused on digital experience and campaigns for pharmaceutical brands.
Saatchi & Saatchi WellnessA New York health agency in the Saatchi & Saatchi network.
Omnicom Health GroupOmnicom's health network of specialist agencies for biopharma, medtech and consumer health brands.
DDB HealthThe health agency of the DDB network.
IPG HealthA global collective of healthcare marketing agencies formed by Interpublic in 2021. Interpublic became part of Omnicom in November 2025.
area 23A healthcare creative agency.
Havas Health & YouHavas's global health network, covering pharma, consumer health and wellness.
Klick HealthA health commercialization agency for life-sciences brands.
Real ChemistryA healthcare communications and marketing network, formerly W2O Group.
EVERSANA INTOUCHA pharmaceutical marketing agency within EVERSANA.

If you run a practice, these firms are rarely the right call. Their teams, pricing and measurement are built for brand launches, not for filling one practice's appointment book.

Agencies for hospitals, health systems and practices

These agencies market care providers rather than drugs. Most work across many specialties and sizes, from single practices to health systems.

AgencyWhat it is
Healthcare SuccessA healthcare marketing agency with work for hospitals, practices, and mental health and addiction treatment providers.
Cardinal Digital MarketingA healthcare marketing agency with specialty programs for pediatrics, urgent care, dental groups, senior care, physical therapy, behavioral health and others.
MD ConnectA performance-focused digital marketing agency for healthcare providers, based in Waltham, Massachusetts.
The Weinbach GroupA Miami-based advertising and public relations firm with a healthcare marketing practice.
ScorpionA marketing and technology company whose medical practice offering covers websites, advertising, SEO and reputation management.
PatientGainA marketing platform and agency for medical and dental practices that publishes monthly packages on its site.
PractisWebsite design, SEO and marketing for medical and mental health practices.

Comparing Scorpion, Healthcare Success, Cardinal or PatientGain with something smaller? Our guide to alternatives for a small practice covers each one and how to switch safely.

Specialists

Specialists pick one kind of practice and build everything around it. The trade-off is range: a specialist won't run your hospital's brand campaign, but it knows your patients' questions, your board's advertising rules and what a booking is worth in your specialty.

AgencyBuilt for
Fill The LobbyCash-pay and private-pay specialty practices: therapy, psychiatry, ketamine and Spravato, IOP and PHP, concierge and direct primary care, functional medicine, medical weight loss and gastroenterology. A patient acquisition and retention agency, measured on booked appointments.
Therapy SitesWebsites for therapists and counselors.
Mental Health MarketingMarketing for therapists and mental health practices.

Where Fill The Lobby fits

Fill The Lobby is a healthcare marketing agency for cash-pay and private-pay practices in the US, run as patient acquisition and retention. We run the ads in your own accounts, then close the gaps between the ad and the booked appointment: the booking page, the call nobody answered, the follow-up, the review request and the patient who drifted away. We run each of those first on the two healthcare platforms our founders own.

  • A good fit: a private-pay or cash-pay specialty practice, from a solo clinician to a group, that wants booked appointments rather than traffic reports.
  • Not a fit: drug and device brands, hospital systems, and practices whose patients mostly come through insurance panels. Paid acquisition works on different numbers there, and we say so on the first call.

You can start with the 30-day Proof Pilot before committing to anything longer.

How to choose a healthcare marketing agency

Whichever list you start from, these questions separate the right kind of agency from the wrong one:

  1. Who else do they work for? Ask for practices like yours: same specialty, same payment model, similar size.
  2. What are they judged on? Impressions and clicks are cheap to report. Booked appointments and the cost of each one are the numbers that pay your rent.
  3. Who owns the ad accounts and the website? They should be yours, so the history stays with you whoever runs them.
  4. How do they handle patient information? Ask whether they will sign a business associate agreement, and how they keep health details out of ad platforms.
  5. What happens after the click? Ask who answers the call, how fast inquiries get a reply, and what happens to someone who doesn't book the first time.
  6. What are the terms? Contract length, notice period, what the fee covers and whether ad spend is billed separately.

Sources

Questions

Healthcare marketing agencies: quick answers.

An agency that markets health products or healthcare providers. Some market drugs and devices to doctors and consumers; others market hospitals and practices to patients. The difference matters more than the label.

The biggest names are the health networks inside the global advertising holding companies, such as IPG Health, Omnicom Health Group, Publicis Health, Ogilvy Health, VML Health and Havas Health & You, plus large firms such as Klick Health and Real Chemistry. They mainly serve pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device brands.

The phrase usually means the largest advertising holding companies: WPP, Publicis Groupe, Omnicom, Interpublic and Dentsu, with Havas sometimes counted too. Omnicom completed its acquisition of Interpublic on 26 November 2025, so two of the five are now one group. Most run health networks, such as Ogilvy Health and VML Health at WPP, Publicis Health at Publicis Groupe and Omnicom Health Group at Omnicom.

There isn't one best agency, only a best fit. Look for one that works with practices like yours, reports on booked appointments, keeps the ad accounts in your name and handles what happens after the click. For a cash-pay specialty practice, that is the work Fill The Lobby is built for.

Ask who else they work for, what they are judged on, who owns the ad accounts and website, how they handle patient information, what happens after someone clicks, and what the contract terms are.

Their work is built around drug, device and health brands, and their teams and pricing reflect that. A private practice usually gets a better fit from an agency that works with practices.

It varies by agency and scope. Practice-focused agencies usually charge a monthly fee with ad spend on top, and some publish their packages. Ask what the fee covers and whether ad spend is billed separately. Fill The Lobby's Proof Pilot is a flat fee for 30 days, listed on its page.

Reviewed October 2026.

Keep reading.

Alternatives for a small practiceWhat a patient acquisition agency doesThe Proof PilotWhat is AI visibility, and how do you audit it for your practice?AI in healthcare marketing: what a private practice can use now

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