Vision Expo East 2025: New CLI research explores patients and contact lens-related internet searches
Among the top 20 contact lens-related searches on Google, 10 were purchase oriented and represented 65% of total volume.
Image credit: AdobeStock/Thaspol
The Contact Lens Institute (CLI) has released new research that indicates that purchase factors are the primary driver of consumer online contact lens-related searches in the US and Canada.1 Specifically, these searches represent 65% of top 20 query volumes, according to a news release.
The research was released as the latest installment in CLI’s See Tomorrow initiative, and also suggests that “there is considerable need to enhance patient education specific to contact lens removal, as well as to amplify discussions surrounding dual wear,” the release stated. This dual wear can apply to patients situationally shifting between contact lenses and glasses.
CLI conducting its digital search research using Google “contact lenses” auto-complete results for US and Canada, and TikTok auto-complete results in English as sourced via AnswerThePublic.com. Data was collected from January 3-31, 2025. CLI also analyzed Google Trends data for December 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025. Initial findings from the Digital Discover: Consumer Searches Reveal Contact Lens Realities study were shared during Vision Expo East in Orlando, Florida on February 21.1
Among the top 20 contact lens-related searches on Google, 10 were purchase oriented and represented 65% of total volume. Five of those 10 searches pertained to specific contact lens retailers, and 4 pertained to price. Practices may benefit by discussing purchase dynamics before or during exams, rather than waiting until a patient reaches the optical center. According to CLI, this discussion should include price-performance alternatives and total cost, which the organization has found is important to current wearers.1
Ryan Corte, OD, said that even if a patient is only in the chair for routine eye care, asking specific questions about their daily activities and contact lens wearing habits can help move that conversation forward. “The reality is, you can't make assumptions about the patient's eye health and vision care journey…. It opens up a very simple conversation that we can quickly go 1 of 2 ways,” Corte said. “So if they are just shutting it all down and they have no interest, we find that out very quickly, but a lot of times there is varying degrees and levels of interest, and you just don't know what the patient's been told or what they've told themselves during their prior appointments. So opening that up is absolutely huge.”
As for other popular searches, contact lens wearers are also seeking help removing their contact lenses at least twice as often as insertion, according to online searches. Lens removal was the second highest ranked “how to” contact lens search on Google (26.3%), and was first and third highest ranked search on TikTok (61%). In a 2-month span, Google searches about removal outpaced searches about insertion by 250% to 400% in both US and Canadian wearers. This demonstrates a potential need for practices to provide removal techniques during in-office I&R training and following up on removal challenges during post-fit check-ins.1
Nishan Pressley, OD, said that this data in the report was most surprising to her. “We know that [optometrists and patients] do the training,” she said. “I make sure you can do it before you leave the office, but that was 1 of the top searches, 2 times more than how to actually insert your contact lenses.
“So the fact that patients are still struggling, possibly with the removal of the contact lenses, doing our due diligence when it comes to educating and doing follow up questions like, ‘Are you comfortable? Do you need more help?’ [is important.] And just being that advocate that our patient needs, and let them know that we'll always be there for them, even if they're having a difficult time.”
Another finding from the CLI report found unfulfilled dual wear opportunities, with the organization quantifying the issue as representing 36% of all patients. Eighty percent of top 20 comparative searches on Google for contact lenses used an “or” conjunction, with the majority of contact lens comparison being made to glasses (94%) as opposed to LASIK (6%).1
Reference:
Purchase factors drive online contact lens searches, according to new US and Canadian research. News release. Contact Lens Institute. February 19, 2025. Accessed February 21, 2025.
