Telehealth Paid Social Benchmarks 2026: CPA, ROAS, CTR by Vertical

Most telehealth performance benchmarks are useless because they mix consultation CPAs with customer acquisition CPAs, blend retargeting with cold traffic, and aggregate data across brands with wildly different pricing models. After managing $50M+ in telehealth paid social spend, here are the real benchmarks by vertical, separated by funnel stage and spend level.

GLP-1 Telehealth Benchmarks

Cold acquisition CPA (first purchase): $150-250 for compounded semaglutide, $200-350 for brand-name semaglutide or tirzepatide. Variation depends on state regulations, pricing transparency in ads, and whether you require blood work before prescribing.

Retargeting CPA: $80-150 for site visitors, $60-100 for abandoned cart or consultation drop-offs. Retargeting delivers 40-50% lower CPAs than cold traffic. Brands not seeing this efficiency gap have retargeting structure problems.

Click-through rate (CTR): 1.2-2.0% for cold prospecting, 3.0-5.0% for retargeting. CTR below 1.0% indicates creative or targeting problems. CTR above 3.0% for cold traffic often indicates compliance-violating creative that will get flagged.

Landing page conversion rate: 8-15% from ad click to consultation booking, 40-60% from consultation to first purchase. The gap between consultation booking and purchase is where most GLP-1 brands lose efficiency. If your consultation-to-purchase rate is under 40%, fix your medical qualification or pricing communication before increasing ad spend.

First-month ROAS: 0.4-0.8× (negative). GLP-1 telehealth does not break even on first purchase. You're acquiring customers at a loss, banking on 6-12 month retention to reach profitability. If you need first-month profitability, GLP-1 is the wrong vertical.

TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) Benchmarks

Cold acquisition CPA: $120-200 for consultation, $180-300 for first purchase. TRT has higher consideration periods than GLP-1. Expect 20-40% of consultation bookings to delay first purchase by 2-4 weeks while researching or discussing with partners.

Retargeting CPA: $70-130 for high-intent site visitors, $50-90 for abandoned consultations. TRT retargeting performs exceptionally well because the audience is male 40-65, a demographic with high ad receptivity and lower ad fatigue than younger demos.

CTR: 1.0-1.8% for cold prospecting, 2.5-4.5% for retargeting. TRT creative relies on problem-aware hooks ("Why men over 40 feel exhausted") rather than solution-first messaging. Problem-aware content drives higher CTR than direct treatment advertising.

Landing page conversion rate: 10-18% from ad click to consultation booking, 50-70% from consultation to first purchase. TRT has higher consultation-to-purchase rates than GLP-1 because the audience is older, more decisive, and less price-sensitive.

First-month ROAS: 0.6-1.0×. TRT pricing ($150-250/month) allows some brands to approach breakeven on first purchase, depending on CAC. Customer retention determines profitability: 6-month retention rates of 60%+ make TRT highly profitable, while sub-50% retention destroys unit economics.

ED (Erectile Dysfunction) Benchmarks

Cold acquisition CPA: $60-120 for first purchase. ED has the lowest CPAs in telehealth because treatment pricing is low ($30-60/month), competition is high, and customer acquisition is purely transactional. No one is building brand loyalty for sildenafil.

Retargeting CPA: $40-80. ED retargeting works but delivers smaller efficiency gains than other verticals because cold CPAs are already low. The 30-40% CPA improvement from retargeting matters less when cold CPAs are $80 vs. $50.

CTR: 1.5-2.5% for cold prospecting, 4.0-6.0% for retargeting. ED creative can be more direct than GLP-1 or TRT because the treatment is well-known and widely accepted. "Get ED medication online" performs better than problem-aware educational content.

Landing page conversion rate: 15-25% from ad click to purchase. ED has the highest conversion rates in telehealth because the decision is simple: known problem, known solution, low price, minimal commitment. If your ED conversion rate is under 15%, your landing page or pricing has major issues.

First-month ROAS: 1.0-1.5×. ED is one of the few telehealth verticals that can break even or profit on first purchase. The challenge is retention: 3-month retention rates are 40-60%, significantly lower than GLP-1 or TRT. Customers switch providers based on $5-10 price differences.

Hair Loss Telehealth Benchmarks

Cold acquisition CPA: $80-150 for first purchase. Hair loss sits between ED and TRT in complexity. Treatment is well-understood (finasteride, minoxidil) but requires 4-6 month commitment before visible results, which increases purchase hesitation.

Retargeting CPA: $50-100. Hair loss retargeting performs well because the audience (men 25-55) is highly engaged with content but needs multiple touchpoints before committing to treatment. Before/after creative in retargeting drives 50-70% of conversions.

CTR: 1.2-2.2% for cold prospecting, 3.5-5.5% for retargeting. Hair loss creative benefits from visual proof (before/after imagery where compliant). Text-based creative underperforms visual creative by 40-60% in this vertical.

Landing page conversion rate: 12-20% from ad click to first purchase. Hair loss conversion rates fall between ED (high) and TRT (medium) because treatment commitment is moderate. Customers understand they need 4-6 months to see results, which filters out low-intent traffic.

First-month ROAS: 0.8-1.2×. Hair loss can approach breakeven on first purchase depending on CAC and pricing. The key metric is 6-month retention: brands with 70%+ retention at 6 months are highly profitable, while sub-60% retention struggles with unit economics.

Platform Performance Comparison

Meta (Facebook + Instagram) CPAs: Baseline benchmark. All numbers above reflect Meta performance. Meta delivers the highest volume and most stable performance for telehealth brands spending $50K+ monthly.

TikTok CPAs: 20-40% higher than Meta for cold acquisition, but audience skews younger (25-40 vs. 35-55 on Meta). TikTok works better for hair loss and mental health telehealth than GLP-1 or TRT. Retargeting on TikTok delivers 30-50% lower CPAs than cold, similar to Meta efficiency gains. For detailed comparison, see Meta vs TikTok for telehealth.

Google Search CPAs: 30-50% lower than Meta for branded terms (people searching your company name), 20-40% higher for non-branded terms (people searching "online TRT clinic"). Search volume is limited compared to paid social. Most telehealth brands max out Search at $30-80K monthly before needing to expand to paid social.

YouTube CPAs: 40-80% higher than Meta. YouTube works for awareness and retargeting but underperforms for direct response. Use YouTube to retarget high-intent audiences or build brand awareness, not for cold acquisition at scale.

Creative Performance Benchmarks

UGC testimonial CTR: 1.5-2.5% for cold traffic, 4.0-6.0% for retargeting. Testimonials drive the highest engagement but face compliance restrictions for cold prospecting. Best used in retargeting where audience already trusts your brand.

Doctor interview CTR: 1.0-1.8% for cold traffic, 2.5-4.0% for retargeting. Doctor interviews establish credibility but have lower engagement than testimonials. Use for cold acquisition where trust-building is priority over engagement.

Educational content CTR: 0.8-1.5% for cold traffic, 2.0-3.5% for retargeting. Educational content has the lowest CTR but attracts highest-intent traffic. Conversion rates from educational content are 20-40% higher than testimonial-driven traffic because the audience self-qualifies through education. For format strategy, review best ad formats for telehealth.

Creative lifespan: UGC testimonials fatigue in 3-4 weeks at $50K+ spend, doctor interviews last 6-8 weeks, educational content runs 8-12 weeks. Plan creative production cadence based on these lifespans. Brands need 3× more testimonial creative than educational creative to maintain performance.

Spend Level Performance Shifts

$10-50K monthly: CPAs are 20-30% higher than benchmarks above because audience targeting is narrow and creative volume is limited. Expect GLP-1 CPAs of $200-300, TRT $180-280, ED $80-140, hair loss $100-180.

$50-150K monthly: Benchmark range. Most data above reflects performance at this spend level with proper audience layering and creative refresh cadence.

$150-300K monthly: CPAs can improve 10-20% as Meta's algorithm optimizes with higher conversion volume (500+ monthly conversions). Lookalike audiences and retargeting scale drive efficiency gains.

$300K+ monthly: CPAs stabilize or increase slightly as you exhaust highest-intent audiences and expand to broader targeting. Expect 10-15% CPA increase compared to $150K spend level unless you expand to new platforms or test broad targeting successfully. For scaling strategy, see scaling telehealth ad spend.

When Your Performance Misses Benchmarks

If your CPAs are 50%+ higher than benchmarks, you have fundamental problems: wrong audience targeting, poor creative, broken landing page experience, or uncompetitive pricing. Do not increase spend until you identify and fix the root cause.

If your CTR is strong but conversion rate is weak, the problem is post-click experience (landing page, consultation flow, pricing presentation). Fix the funnel, not the ads.

If your retargeting CPAs are only 10-20% better than cold CPAs (should be 40-60% better), your retargeting segmentation is broken. You're retargeting low-intent audiences or showing the wrong creative to warm traffic. For retargeting structure, review telehealth retargeting on Facebook.