Google’s antitrust woes forcing marketers to accelerate investment in social channels

The digital advertising landscape faces potential upheaval as regulators scrutinize Google’s market dominance. For healthcare marketers long reliant on search, this signals a critical need to adapt to an evolving patient journey and diversify strategies beyond a single platform.Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing, a healthcare-focused performance marketing agency, sees the ongoing Google antitrust case not just as a legal battle, but as an accelerant for trends already reshaping how patients find care and how healthcare organizations must reach them.Diversification imperative: “It just signals the point that we’ve been trying to make, which is you can’t just rely on the Google Ad engine to drive your whole patient volume anymore,” Membrillo states emphatically. “You have to continue to invest in other channels like TikTok, YouTube, and all kinds of fun stuff. ChatGPT is going to be serving ads as well. So our position is it’ll just accelerate what’s already happening.”Antitrust accelerant: A U.S. District Judge recently found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in online advertising markets. Membrillo explains the potential remedies, including a possible spin-off of Chrome, could directly impact ad targeting: “If they split off Chrome, which is what the DOJ is aiming for, then it’s going to make Google’s advertising less effective because they’re going to have less relevant information on search patterns.”Split skepticism: Despite the legal findings, Membrillo expressed skepticism that Google will ultimately be forced to split off parts of its business, suggesting significant tech industry influence. However, he noted that if such a split occurred, “I’m not sure the consumer wins. Your ads will be less relevant in the Google sphere,” adding, “In the short term I think advertising will get less effective on all things Google.”Shifting search: This potential weakening of Google’s ad engine coincides with patients already finding healthcare information through diverse channels beyond traditional search, including social media, AI chat tools, and AI-driven search results like Google’s AI Overviews, necessitating a multi-channel approach. “People are still going to Google predominantly, but they’re typing in lots of different stuff and you have AI overviews answering questions for you. So the patient journey has evolved tremendously,” Membrillo observes.Performance pressure: Compounding these shifts, economic uncertainty is pushing healthcare organizations to prioritize measurable performance marketing and patient acquisition—a trend often called healthcare consumerism. “What I’m most excited about is that these uncertainties in the economy are focusing healthcare orgs into caring about what matters most, which is performance marketing, generating patient volume, focusing on what generates that patient,” Membrillo notes.As regulatory pressures and evolving consumer behaviors converge, the message for healthcare marketers is clear: adaptation and diversification are no longer optional. Relying solely on past dominant channels means risking relevance in a rapidly changing landscape where patient connection requires a broader, more sophisticated strategy.