Social media and internet advertising continue to prove promising frontiers for the recruitment and engagement of participants for programs, studies, and campaigns.

While Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google all offer promising metrics to advertisers, in the Pulse Study, platforms varied in producing eligible recruits. Platform-specific targeting abilities and return-on-investment are explored and the impact of incentives, user experience, and race and ethnicity on recruitment are considered.

In 2017, we joined our project partners, Child Trends, at the #HealthyTeen17 conference, to share key lessons from the digital recruitment efforts of our Pulse study, a randomized control trial testing a web-based sexual and reproductive health app for young adult women.