As a Direct Primary Care (DPC) clinician, you work hard to identify and attract your target audience and grow your practice. But do you know where your new members are coming from? More importantly, have you ever wondered why some potential patients start signing up but never finish?

If you’re not tracking where your leads come from and why some people abandon signup, you could be missing key opportunities to grow your DPC practice. The good news? Pass-through URL parameters make it easier to track which marketing efforts bring in new members—and help you reduce drop-offs during signup.

Why Tracking Lead Sources is Essential for DPC Growth

Many DPC clinics rely on word-of-mouth referrals, but digital marketing—including Google Ads, Facebook campaigns, and email marketing—plays a bigger role than ever in attracting new patients. Understanding which marketing efforts drive the most signups helps you spend time and money on the marketing channels that bring in the most patients, improve your website, emails, or ad messaging to attract patients, and use real data to make smart decisions about your marketing.

What is Signup Abandonment & Why Does It Matter?

Signup abandonment happens when a potential patient starts the DPC membership signup process but doesn’t complete it. Some common reasons include, confusing pricing or unclear benefits, too many steps or required fields in the signup form, even lack of trust or uncertainty about what happens next. By tracking where and why patients drop off, you can adjust your signup process and increase conversion rates, meaning more completed signups and fewer lost leads.

How Pass-Through URL Parameters Help You Track & Improve Marketing Efforts

Pass-through URL parameters allow you to track exactly where your new patients are coming from by passing special tracking data (like UTM parameters) through your DPC online signup pages. With this, you can:

• See which marketing channels work best – Google Ads, social media, email campaigns, etc.
• Understand patient behavior – Track their journey from clicking an ad to signing up.
• Reduce signup abandonment – Find and fix drop-off points in the signup process.

How to Start Tracking & Improve Your Signup Process

• Use UTM parameters – Attach tracking codes to your marketing links
• Enable Pass-Through Parameters – With Hint, UTM parameters stay attached throughout the signup process
• Review Your Data – Look at which campaigns bring in the most patients and where drop-offs happen
• Make Simple Fixes – If people abandon signup, test a clearer call-to-action, a shorter form, or follow-up emails

If creating UTM parameters sounds intimidating, know that you don’t need to code or be a marketing expert —there are UTM builders integrated into many website platforms, or offered by Google.

Hint recently launched new marketing attribution tools for customers on our EMR that enable the ability to measure conversions with confidence and gain deeper insights into patient acquisition. This includes UTM and other URL parameters remaining intact through the entire patient signup process, custom JavaScript to signup pages, and unique membership identifiers in redirect URLs, allowing you to confirm conversions and access detailed memberships data via our public API.

Grow Your DPC Membership with Smarter Tracking

Instead of guessing where your DPC patients come from, you can now use real data to improve your marketing strategy. Whether you’re using Google Ads, social media marketing, SEO, or a combination of several, tracking lead sources and signup abandonment can help you increase membership and grow your practice.

Want to learn more about marketing your new practice? Hint customers are now offered a free DPC Launch bootcamp, including modules on marketing foundations, clinic setup, finances and compliance guidance, and more!

Need help identifying your ideal customer profile (ICP) to build your dream practice? Start with the replay of our Hint Summit ‘24 talk, A Mile Deep: Identifying & Speaking to Your Target Audience.