Dashboard 4 — Paid Search & Media Mix
Hub Report · Fellocraft Research · FY25–26
Zero paid search brands
3 of 11
Aster DM, KIMS, Lybrate across full 24 months
Manipal paid growth
+600%
Fastest growing paid spender in the set
Apollo November 2025 peak
76,894
+299% vs October — category-wide winter surge
TV vs digital spend
78% / 7%
Where hospital ad budget goes vs where patients search
Paid search is narrow, seasonal, and underfunded.
Apollo, Manipal, Fortis, and Practo collectively dominate paid search in Indian hospital marketing. Three hospital brands — Aster DM, KIMS, and Lybrate — spent zero on paid search across the entire two-year window. The category surged in November 2025 as the winter health season drove simultaneous spending spikes across all active brands. Yet hospital chains invest only 7% of their advertising budget in digital — the channel where 78% of patients research their healthcare decisions.
Panel 1

24-month paid search trend

April 2024 to April 2026. Focused on the five most meaningful paid traffic lines to show who is active, who spikes seasonally, and where the winter surge changes the category picture.

Apollo
Manipal
Practo
Fortis
Narayana
Source: Semrush Paid Search Traffic, India database, April 2024–April 2026. Directional estimates — may include paid social in addition to paid search. Zero lines for Aster DM, KIMS, and Lybrate omitted for clarity.
Panel 2

Paid search status summary

24-month totals, peak timing, and strategic status across all 11 brands. This table makes it clear that active spend is concentrated in a small cluster while some large hospital chains are effectively absent.

Brand Type 24-mo total Peak month Peak value Status badge
PractoAggregator466,437Dec 202546,562Active
ApolloHospital447,708Nov 202576,894Active
ManipalHospital217,712Apr 202638,781Active — growing
FortisHospital117,648Mar 202627,690Active — seasonal
MaxHospital93,090Aug 202418,315Inconsistent
MedibuddyPlatform87,335Jan 20258,504Exited paid search
NarayanaHospital43,545Dec 202516,727Seasonal only
MedantaHospital18,697Jul 20241,866Minimal
KIMSHospital186Dec 2025185Effectively zero
Aster DMHospital0—0Zero paid
LybrateAggregator0—0Zero paid
Panel 3

TV vs digital media mix

Hospital media budgets remain heavily skewed toward passive awareness channels. The mismatch becomes obvious when compared with how patients actually research care decisions.

Television — 78%
Radio — 13%
Digital — 7%
Print — 2%
Patient research behaviour
78%
of patients search online before choosing a hospital.
Hospital ad budget to digital
7%
goes to the channel where the patient is already showing intent.
The gap between where patients research and where hospitals advertise is the largest unaddressed opportunity in Indian healthcare marketing. Hospitals still overweight TV and radio for passive awareness, while underfunding paid digital at the exact moment a patient searches for a doctor, hospital, or procedure.
Sources: Semrush Paid Search Traffic, India database, April 2024–April 2026 (directional estimates, may include paid social). The Media Ant Healthcare Advertising India Report, October 2025 (TV/Radio/Digital/Print media mix). upGrowth Digital Healthcare Marketing India 2026 (patient online research statistic). All paid traffic figures are directional benchmarking estimates only.