Series A virtual psychiatry clinic grew AI-referred traffic 1,830% with Maintouch
+1,830%
AI-referred traffic
+290%
Direct traffic
+3,250%
Ranked keywords
+1.1M
Non-branded impressions
“We run a lot of acquisition channels. Maintouch owns our AI search and SEO, and the CAC is materially lower than everything else we run. When a channel performs like that, you stop questioning it and start doubling down.”
Co-Founder & CEO
Series A virtual psychiatry startup
Goals
A lead channel that doesn't get more expensive every month
The clinic was running hard on paid acquisition, and it was working, but every channel had a ceiling and a rising cost per lead, especially as they fought to dominate their geographic area.
The team wanted an acquisition channel that could compound instead of just scaling with spend, one that would keep paying off as competitors bid on the same paid keywords and as platforms changed their rules.
Challenge
A new entrant on a crowded search page
Psychiatry telehealth is crowded with well-funded, well-known names, Hims & Hers, Done, Alma, Brightside Health, and Klarity, all of them already ranking for the exact terms a patient searches when evaluating their options.
The clinic's site was starting from a near-zero SEO baseline against that competitive set, with almost no ranked keywords and no organic footprint to compete on.
Solution
Meeting patients at the exact moment they're comparing providers
Maintouch built the content strategy around going straight at the incumbents: publishing 'alternatives' and 'reviews and pricing' pages for the exact competitors patients were already researching.
That was paired with deep condition-and-treatment content to cover the evaluation stage from every angle.
Outcome
Winning the evaluation-stage searches
In the five months after launch, the clinic went from roughly 600 ranked keywords to 20.1K, and from a negligible base to 1.1M search impressions and 9.9K clicks. AI-referred traffic grew nearly 19x.
The strategy worked exactly as designed: 5 of the clinic's top 10 pages by traffic were competitor 'alternatives' pages, proof that the competitive-control play won the evaluation-stage searches it was built for.