By Josephine Ting | Josephine Ting Strategy & Management
You’ve probably seen the headlines: wellness is booming, digital health is exploding, consumers are spending more than ever on “getting well.”
And yet, when you look at your own numbers — bookings, waitlists, revenue — it may not feel like you’re riding that wave. You might even feel the opposite: more noise, more competition, and more pressure to “do more marketing,” without seeing a clear lift in your practice.
Here’s the part nobody told you: the industry can grow without you growing with it. Markets expand. Individual practices don’t automatically come along for the ride. In this blog, I want to show you what’s actually happening in the wellness market, why so many practitioners feel left out of the boom, and what separates the ones benefitting from those numbers from the ones just watching it happen.
The Reality: The Market Is Booming, But Growth Is Uneven
Let’s ground this in real data first.
According to the Digital Health and Wellness Market Report 2026 from ResearchAndMarkets, the digital health and wellness market grew from 563.53 billion dollars in 2025 to 697.1 billion dollars in 2026 — a 23.7% year-over-year increase for the digital side of the sector. The same report projects it will reach 1.61 trillion dollars by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of 23.4%.
Zooming out, a health and wellness industry forecast covered by Yahoo Finance estimates the broader global health and wellness market at 7.42 trillion dollars, projected to reach 10.36 trillion dollars by 2030 with a compound annual growth rate of 8.7%.
So no, the industry is not struggling. It is expanding, fast.
At the same time, the way people discover and decide on health and wellness options is shifting under your feet. MikMak’s Health and Wellness Commerce Marketing Benchmarks show that in the first half of 2026, search has become a much stronger driver of purchase-intent clicks in health and wellness, while paid social has lost share. Google has increased its share of purchase-intent clicks, while platforms like Meta have declined.
This is what’s actually happening under the surface:
- The pie is getting bigger.
- The paths into that pie are changing.
- The people who adapt their visibility, positioning, and consistency to these paths are growing with the market.
- Everyone else is watching the boom from the outside.
What the Data Actually Says (And Why It Matters for You)
The money is there. The question is: where are people looking?
From the ResearchAndMarkets report, we know digital health and wellness — telehealth, apps, wearables, digital therapeutics, online programs — is one of the fastest-growing segments in the entire wellness space, with that 23.7% jump in a single year. That tells us two things:
- Consumers are increasingly comfortable making health and wellness decisions online.
- Digital touchpoints (search, content, social, email, platforms) are now core to how they choose practitioners.
MikMak’s commerce data fills in the next piece. Their 2026 benchmarks show:
- Search has become the leading driver of purchase-intent clicks in health and wellness, with paid search and organic search together taking the largest share of high-intent traffic.
- Paid social’s share of purchase-intent clicks declined year over year, while search-led journeys (especially via Google) strengthened
- Google increased its share of purchase-intent clicks from roughly half to closer to 60%, while Meta’s share declined and TikTok’s share, though smaller, is growing.mikmak+1
In simple terms:
- More of the “ready to buy/book” clicks are now starting in search.
- Social still matters, but more for discovery and nurture than for the final “I’m going to click through and take action.”
If your entire strategy is “post on Instagram and hope,” you are not aligned with where high-intent behavior is moving.
Industry growth ≠ your practice growth
This is the practitioner growth gap:
- The market is growing.
- The channels people use to decide are shifting.
- But individual practices only grow if they are visible, positioned clearly, and present along those decision paths.
Omar Romero’s 2026 Digital Marketing Playbook for Health & Wellness puts it bluntly: in this industry, the brands and practitioners who win are the ones who combine “platform-agnostic storytelling, trust velocity, and search-led discovery,” instead of over-relying on one platform or one type of content .
For you, that means:
- Being findable where people search (Google, YouTube, in some cases TikTok search and AI summaries).
- Using social to build trust and authority, not just share tips.
- Making sure there is a clean, obvious path from discovery to booking.
Industry-Specific Nuance: Why Some Practitioners Feel the Gap More
The growth gap doesn’t show up the same way for everyone.
Acute health practitioners (pain, sleep, digestion, hormones)
Your patients are often searching with specific symptom keywords:
“pelvic floor physio near me,” “IBS functional medicine,” “hormone doctor online.”
In a world where Google is taking a larger share of purchase-intent clicks, not having:
- A basic, optimized website,
- A clear Google Business profile,
- And content that matches those symptom-based searches
means you’re missing the people who are actively ready to book.
If you’re relying only on Instagram to carry this load, you’re likely feeling the gap: more general “interest,” fewer booked appointments.
Long-term wellness practitioners (prevention, nervous system, lifestyle)
Your work is often slower, more nuanced, and requires trust built over time. These clients are reading, saving, watching. They may not book after one touch.
For you, the gap looks like:
- Solid engagement on educational content,
- But flat revenue because there’s no clear bridge from “I like this” to “I’m ready to start.”
In a market where digital wellness is booming, the practitioners who are growing are the ones pairing long-term nurture (newsletter, YouTube, Instagram) with clear invitations into specific containers (3-month package, program, membership). Content alone is not enough.
Coaching practitioners (identity work, mindset, behavior change)
Coaching often sits in the “not urgent but deeply needed” category. Your clients may be looking at your work for months before they reach out.
If your entire ecosystem is built around social — especially if it leans heavily on generic mindset content — you may be building broad awareness but weak differentiation. In a 7+ trillion dollar wellness market, “I help women feel their best” is not enough.
Coaches who are growing with the market are:
- Naming specific problems and outcomes.
- Showing proof-of-process (what working with you actually looks like).
- Connecting content to a clear discovery or application process.
Strategic Implications: What to Actually Do Tomorrow
If you’re a practitioner reading this, here’s the question I want you to ask:
“The industry is growing. Am I positioned to catch any of that growth?”
Let’s break that into three levers you can control: authority, platforms, and pathway.
1. Consistent authority building (not just posting)
Authority is how someone answers, “Why you, specifically, in a market this big?”
Practically, that looks like:
- Regular educational content that goes deeper than surface-level tips.
- Content that reflects your actual clinical patterns: “What I see in clients who…”
- Repetition of your core specialties and philosophy so people remember you for something specific.
What you can do this week:
- Identify 2–3 conditions, patterns, or themes you want to be known for.
- For the next 30 days, make 70–80% of your content trace back to those themes.
- Use carousels, short videos, and longer-form captions to explain how you think, not just what you know.
This is how you build authority in the middle of a boom, rather than being drowned out by generic wellness noise.
2. Correct platform prioritization (based on actual behavior data)
Given what MikMak is seeing — search (especially Google) taking a larger share of purchase-intent clicks, paid social declining as the main driver — I want you to shift from “Instagram-first” to “discovery-and-search aware.”
For most practitioners, that means:
- Non-negotiables:
- A clean, clear website that states who you help and how.
- A Google Business profile with accurate info, reviews where allowed, and regular updates.
- At least one search-friendly channel: blog content, YouTube videos, or FAQ pages.
- Social with a job description:
- Instagram or TikTok as trust and nurture channels.
- Not your only discovery channel, but part of a larger ecosystem.
What you can do this month:
- Google your own name and your main specialty (“[your city] + [what you do]”).
- If you don’t show up on page one, that’s a clear priority area.
- Claim or update your Google Business profile.
- Add one clear “Services” or “Work With Me” page that reflects current offers.
This is how you align your presence with where purchase-intent is actually flowing.
3. A clear referral-to-booking pathway
Here’s where most practitioners leak growth: someone discovers you (through search, a friend, or social), likes your content, but has no obvious, low-friction next step.
In a fast-growing industry, the practitioners who capture more of that growth have:
- One primary offer per audience segment (not 10 scattered offers).
- A simple “start here” CTA that appears across platforms.
- An intake flow that’s easy, clear, and emotionally safe.
What you can tighten up:
- On your website and social bios, choose one main next step:
- “Book a 15-minute clarity call”
- “Apply for 3-month gut reset program”
- “Join the waitlist for 1:1 coaching”
- Make sure that same CTA is:
- In your link in bio.
- In the last slide of carousels.
- In your Stories at least once a week.
- On your Google Business listing where possible.
Remember: in a market with more options than ever, people do not have the energy to figure out how to work with you. You need to make that path obvious.
Reassurance with Honest Truth
If you’re reading the numbers — 23.7% growth in digital health, trillions in global wellness — and feeling like you’re somehow “behind,” I want you to hear this clearly:finance.yahoo+1
You are not failing just because you’re not yet aligned with the way the market is moving.
Most practitioners were trained to care for people, not to interpret commerce benchmarks or platform share shifts. Of course your strategy didn’t auto-update itself when Google quietly became the primary driver of purchase-intent clicks in your category. That is not a moral failing. It’s just a gap in information.
Healing is compounding. If a patient quits after three sessions because they “don’t feel results yet,” we don’t say the treatment failed. We say they didn’t stay long enough, or we adjust the protocol. The same logic applies here.
You are allowed to be where you are. You are also allowed to decide that if the industry is going to keep booming, you’d like your practice to come with it.
The only way to guarantee you never see results is to quit before it compounds.
The Industry Is Growing. The Question Is Whether Your Practice Is Positioned to Grow With It.
You don’t need to be everywhere, post every day, or chase every new marketing trend to benefit from what’s happening in the wellness industry. But you do need the right pieces working together: a clear position, strong authority, visibility in the places your patients are actually looking, and an easy path from discovering you to working with you.
If you’re not sure whether your current marketing is set up to do that, that’s something we can look at together. I offer a free 15-minute marketing audit for health and wellness practitioners where we’ll look at what’s already working, where potential patients may be falling through the gaps, and what I would prioritize next.