The short answer: Google Ads captures families who are already looking, and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) reaches families who are not looking yet. They are not two versions of the same thing, so “which is better” has no general answer.
The useful question is which job your community needs done most this quarter, and how much of each channel that job justifies. This piece compares the two for senior living specifically, including the targeting rules that make most general advice on the subject wrong.
The difference in one table
| Google Search | Meta (Facebook and Instagram) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the person is | Searching for care now | Scrolling, not searching |
| What you target | Search terms and location | Location and broad interests, within Housing category limits |
| Typical lead | Higher intent, often a phone call | Earlier stage, often an in-app form |
| Speed to first tours | Fast when search volume exists | Slower, builds over weeks |
| Main strength | Capturing active demand | Creating familiarity and demand |
| Main weakness | Limited by how many people search | Many leads are not ready to talk |
| Judge it on | Cost per tour and cost per move-in | Contact rate and cost per tour |
What Google Ads does well, and where it stops
Google Search is where the decision becomes urgent. An adult child searching “memory care near [Town]” after a hard week has already decided to act. Put a clear ad and a fast response in front of that search and the tour often follows within days.
Its strengths for senior living:
- Intent is visible. The search term tells you the care type and often the location.
- Calls come with it. Call assets and call tracking capture the phone inquiries that make up much of the best demand.
- It suits short decisions. Memory care and urgent assisted living moves live here.
Its limits:
- It cannot create searches. In a small market, you can buy every relevant search and still fall short of your move-in target.
- You are bidding against everyone. Other operators and referral aggregators bid on the same terms, and aggregators often bid on community names too.
- Organic results are changing around it. Organic click-through drops sharply on queries where Google shows an AI Overview. Paid ads still appear on those pages, which makes a well-run search account more valuable, not less.
- Housing restrictions apply here too. In the US and Canada, Google restricts housing ads from targeting by age, gender, parental status, marital status or ZIP code, and audiences built on health conditions are off limits.
The detail of running a search account well is in our assisted living PPC guide.
What Meta does well, and the rules that change it
Meta reaches adult children and older adults months before they search. For independent living, CCRCs and any community with a long sales cycle, that early familiarity is worth a great deal: when the family finally searches, they recognise your name.
The Housing special ad category
This is the part most Facebook advice for senior living gets wrong. Senior housing ads on Meta generally have to run in the Housing special ad category. In that category:
- Age and gender targeting are removed.
- ZIP-code targeting is removed, and location targeting is limited to broader areas.
- Detailed targeting options are restricted, and lookalike audiences are not available.
So the advice to “target women aged 45 to 64 whose parents are ageing” is not something you can do. The creative has to do that work. Ads that plainly speak to an adult child (“Looking at assisted living for your mom?”) find that person through who responds, rather than through a targeting setting.
Recruitment ads have similar limits in the Employment category, which is one more reason to keep census and hiring campaigns separate.
Creative carries the weight
Real photos and short videos of your own community, its dining room, its staff and its grounds do better than stock images. If a resident appears, get written consent that covers paid advertising. Avoid anything that reads as a discount or a limited-time offer.
Leads from Meta need a different handoff
Meta’s in-app lead forms are convenient, which means many people submit them with low commitment. Two things help:
- Use the form setting that asks people to review and confirm their details, and add one qualifying question such as timeframe.
- Respond within minutes. A Meta lead contacted the next day is often a lead that no longer remembers the ad. Speed to lead matters more on Meta than anywhere else.
Tracking without oversharing
Use the Meta Pixel together with the Conversions API, and send back tour and move-in events from your CRM so Meta can optimize toward them. Do not pass health details, diagnoses or care needs in form fields, URLs or events sent to Meta.
Why comparing cost per click misleads
Meta clicks are usually cheaper than Google search clicks. That fact on its own tells you almost nothing, because the two clicks are from different people at different moments.
A cheap click from someone who was not looking, and a more expensive click from someone who wants a tour this week, are not comparable purchases. The same goes for cost per lead: an in-app form and a phone call are both “leads”, and they are not worth the same.
Compare the two channels at the bottom of the funnel instead:
- Cost per tour by channel and care type
- Cost per move-in by channel and care type, with an attribution window that fits the sales cycle
What a senior living lead should cost gives the published ranges by care type, and calculating cost per move-in honestly covers the attribution choices that can make either channel look better than it is.
How to split the budget
There is no correct universal split. These are the patterns we would start from, and they are opinions, tested against each community’s own results.
- Memory care with vacancies now: most of the budget on Google Search. The decision is fast and the family is searching.
- Assisted living in a market with healthy search volume: Google first, with a smaller Meta budget for familiarity and retargeting.
- Independent living or CCRC: a larger Meta share, often alongside programmatic, because the decision takes months and search alone reaches people too late.
- Small or rural market: once you are buying most of the relevant searches, extra budget usually goes further on Meta.
- New opening or major expansion: both, from the start. Meta builds awareness while search volume for a new name is still low.
Whatever the split, fund search properly before scaling Meta. Unbought high-intent searches are usually the cheapest tours available.
Running both without double counting
When both channels run, each platform will claim credit for the same move-in. Meta counts the view or click from three weeks ago; Google counts the search last Tuesday. Add the two platform reports together and you will have more conversions than move-ins.
Use the CRM as the record. Capture the original source on every inquiry, track it through to move-in, and compare channels there. Watch branded search volume as the sign that Meta and other awareness spend is working, since it tends to show up as more people searching your name.
For how this comparison fits into a full plan, including budget and measurement, see building a senior living digital advertising strategy. If you want both channels reviewed against your move-in data, request an audit.
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