Telehealth marketing plan for GLP-1 brands

A telehealth marketing plan for a GLP-1 brand is a written document with ten parts: goal, allowable CAC, audience, offer and claims, channel split, creative and test plan, tracking, compliance gate, calendar and review points. Each part has a named owner. The best-known public template, from the California Telehealth Resource Center, is built around a sample hospital program; this one is for a direct-to-consumer brand that buys traffic.

What a telehealth marketing plan contains

A telehealth marketing plan for a GLP-1 brand has ten parts, and each part has one owner and one output. If a part has no owner, nobody updates it. Use the table as your template.

The California Telehealth Resource Center’s 2021 plan guide is written around a sample hospital program. Its sections run from executive summary and objectives to audience, message, media, activities, success metrics and financials. The federal direct-to-consumer telehealth guide (last updated January 17, 2025) covers marketing in a short passage on materials and channels and treats evaluation as objectives, metrics and regular review. This plan keeps that evaluation loop and adds the spend rules a traffic-buying brand needs.

Set the goal and the allowable CAC

Allowable CAC is the most a GLP-1 telehealth brand can pay for one new customer and still earn it back inside the payback window. The plan states the formula and how each term is measured. It does not state example values.

• Allowable CAC = monthly contribution per customer × expected paid months inside the payback window.
• Monthly contribution = revenue per month minus clinician, pharmacy, shipping, payment, support and refund costs.
• Expected paid months = how long a customer stays, computed from the refill rate you observe, not the rate you hope for.

Recompute allowable CAC at every review, because refill rate changes it. For benchmarks and what counts as a customer, see patient acquisition cost.

Split the budget by channel

The channel split gives each channel a share of the budget in proportion to how far it beats allowable CAC, after setting aside a test reserve. The weights come from the last review window, so the split moves with results.

• Test reserve share = t, a plan parameter reserved for new channels and new creative.
• Channel share = (1 − t) × channel weight ÷ sum of all weights.
• Channel weight = allowable CAC ÷ channel CAC from the last review window, capped so one channel cannot take the whole budget.
• A channel with no data starts at a set starting weight and is replaced by its measured weight at its first review.

For why each channel earns a line, read GLP-1 marketing strategy. Channel rules live in how to advertise GLP-1. Our own paid-media lines are on paid media for GLP-1 brands.

Put the compliance gate before the first dollar

The compliance gate is a dated checklist that must be fully ticked before any spend starts. On Meta, a telehealth provider promoting prescription drugs needs active LegitScript certification and Meta’s authorization first.

Policy checked on November 2, 2026, against Meta’s Drugs and Pharmaceuticals policy.

Certification takes time, so start it in week 0. See how long LegitScript certification takes for the timeline.

Build the KPI table

The KPI table lists every metric with a formula, an owner, a cadence and a decision rule. Each metric needs the customer’s channel tag from the first click, carried through intake, first fill and every refill. Definitions of the funnel stages are in the GLP-1 patient journey.

Run the 90-day calendar

The 90-day calendar launches one channel at a time, so each result can be tied to one change. Nothing launches before the compliance gate is ticked, and if certification is not done by week 3, the launch moves.

Set test cadence and review rules

A test is one variable, run in a cell that spends at least a minimum multiple of allowable CAC. The multiple is a plan parameter. Set it before the test starts, so a result is never read early.

• One variable per test: creative, audience, landing page or offer. Never two together.
• Minimum spend per test cell = k × allowable CAC, where k is the plan’s multiple.
• Scale a channel when its CAC is below allowable CAC in consecutive review windows.
• Hold a channel whose result flips between windows.
• Cut a channel when its CAC is above allowable CAC in consecutive review windows, or when its refund and chargeback rate is above the plan limit.
• Log every test with its variable, spend, result and decision.

How we run it

The GLP1.partners media team runs six lines for GLP-1 brands: Meta, Outbrain, TikTok, an affiliate network we manage, an Instagram influencer network and our own comparison sites, which is why the split above has six lines. We run GLP-1 and telehealth traffic at scale with platform approvals on every network we buy.

• On Meta, we use established agency accounts built for GLP-1 scale, with a dedicated Meta agency contact.
• On Outbrain, we use established Outbrain accounts with a dedicated setup for GLP-1.
• The brand brings its own LegitScript certification, and our agency accounts are suited to run prescription ads once it is in place.
• Across our work we have managed $38M in GLP-1 media and scaled 27 GLP-1 brands.

Which lines a brand starts with and in what order is agreed on a call.

Write the GLP-1 marketing plan in 7 steps

You can write this plan without us. Follow the steps in order.

1. Write the goal as one sentence with the payback window and a date.
2. Calculate allowable CAC from monthly contribution and expected paid months.
3. Tick the compliance gate: certification and Meta authorization where ads promote prescription drugs, targeting, claims list.
4. Choose t, the starting weights and the cap, then compute each channel’s share.
5. Build tracking so every first fill and refill carries its channel tag.
6. Fill the 90-day calendar and name an owner on every row.
7. Hold the reviews at days 30, 60 and 90, and re-split the budget from measured weights.

Questions

What goes in a GLP-1 marketing plan? The ten parts in the first table: goal, allowable CAC, audience, offer and claims, channel split, creative and test plan, tracking, compliance gate, calendar and review points. What is specific to GLP-1 is the refill-based CAC and the certification gate before prescription-drug spend.

Is a telemedicine marketing plan different from a telehealth marketing plan? The structure is the same. The California Telehealth Resource Center guide lists telemedicine as a common alternate term for telehealth, and the ten parts apply to either. A brand that buys traffic needs the budget formula and KPI table more than a clinic that promotes to existing patients.

Is there a telehealth marketing plan template? The tables on this page are the template: copy the ten parts, the KPI table and the calendar, then fill the formulas with your own measured values. The California Telehealth Resource Center’s public guide is built around a sample hospital program.