How do you measure ROI from a pharmacy ad

I've been scratching my head over this one for a while: how do you actually know if a pharmacy ad is paying off? It sounds simple when people throw around the word ROI, but when I tried to measure it myself, it wasn't as straightforward as I thought.
The Problem With Tracking ROI
At first, I figured ROI was just about comparing the money spent on ads with the sales that came in. Easy math, right? The problem was that pharmacy ads don't always have an obvious link between the ad and the customer walking through the door. People might see an ad today and show up a week later. Or they'll click on an online ad but buy something totally different once they're in the store. That made it tough to say for sure whether the ad was & " worth it.”
I talked with a friend who also runs local ads, and we both had the same issue: ads eat money fast if you can't see what's actually working. It was frustrating, because some months looked busy, but was it because of the ads or just seasonal demand? Hard to tell. That's the pain point that made me dig deeper.
What Helped Me
What helped me was starting small and getting specific. I tested digital ads that linked directly to one product or service instead of trying to promote everything at once. For example, instead of running a general & " visit our pharmacy; ad, I ran one focused on flu shots during the season. That made it much easier to measure ROI because I could look at how many people booked or asked about flu shots after the ad ran.
Tracking tools also played a part. I didn't dive into anything fancy, but even something like setting up unique promo codes tied to the ad gave me some clarity. If someone came in with that code, I knew the ad worked. It wasn't perfect, but it gave me at least some measurable connection.
Short-Term vs Long-Term ROI
Another thing that clicked for me was realizing ROI isn't just about immediate sales. Sometimes an ad brings new customers who come back later. That kind of long-term payoff is harder to measure, but it matters. I started thinking of ROI in two layers: short-term (sales right after the ad) and long-term (customers who stayed loyal because of that first ad). Both count, even if the numbers aren't neat.
A Helpful Resource
I also found this article that explains the idea better than I can. It covers different ways to track and understand ROI for pharmacy ads in the digital space. If you’re curious, here’s the link I saved: pharmacy ad ROI tracking .
Lessons Learned
The biggest lesson I learned is not to assume every dollar spent will show up in sales right away. Some ads worked like magic, others flopped, and some built momentum slowly. I wasted money in the beginning by running too broad an ad campaign and not paying attention to whether the clicks or calls were leading anywhere. Once I narrowed my focus and kept notes on what I was testing, I could finally see patterns.
My Advice

• Don’t try to measure ROI on vague ads—make them specific.
• Give ads a fair test, but don’t sink money into ones that clearly aren’t working.
• Look at both short-term and long-term results, not just immediate sales.
• Keep things simple. You don't need fancy dashboards to track basic ROI.

At the end of the day, measuring ROI from a pharmacy ad is more of a learning process than an exact science. I don't think anyone nails it perfectly, but getting a rough idea of what's working is still way better than running ads blind.
So that's been my experience. Curious if anyone else here has tried different ways of tracking ROI. Did you stick with promo codes, online analytics, or just plain customer feedback?