Google Ads is usually where an assisted living community’s best leads start. An adult child types “assisted living near me” or the name of a town, and for a few minutes they are telling you exactly what they need.
Most assisted living PPC accounts waste that moment in the same few ways: they count the wrong conversions, mix care types in one campaign, let aggregators take their brand searches, and let broad match wander into job seekers. This piece covers how to set an account up so that none of that happens.
Define a conversion as something sales would recognise
Google’s bidding does whatever you tell it to. If you tell it a conversion is any form fill, it will find you the cheapest form fills available, and many of them will never answer the phone.
Set conversions up in tiers:
- Primary: tour booked, and phone calls from ads or your website that last long enough to be a real conversation (set the duration threshold from your own call data).
- Imported from the CRM: tour completed and move-in, sent back to Google Ads through offline conversion import so the system learns which clicks became residents.
- Secondary, observed only: brochure downloads, pricing page views, chat starts. Useful signals, but not what bidding should chase.
Turn on enhanced conversions for leads, which uses hashed form data to match inquiries back to ad clicks more reliably. If you track site actions in GA4, mark tour requests and calls as key events and import them.
Calls deserve particular attention. Many high-intent assisted living inquiries arrive by phone, and without tracking they look like a bounce. Call tracking for senior living explains how to connect those calls to the campaigns that produced them.
Structure campaigns by care type and intent
A tidy structure makes every later decision easier. For a single community, a typical starting point:
| Campaign | What it covers | Why it is separate |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | Searches for your community name | Cheap, high converting, and must not inflate non-brand results |
| Assisted living | Care-type searches in your area | Its own budget, landing page and cost per move-in |
| Memory care | Memory care and dementia care searches | Shorter decision, higher value, needs faster response |
| Independent living (if offered) | Retirement community and senior apartment searches | Long cycle, judged over a longer window |
Multi-community operators add a geographic layer, but keep the care-type split. Blending memory care and independent living in one campaign lets the cheaper clicks take the budget.
Keep recruitment advertising in a separate account or at least separate campaigns. Caregiver job searches and family searches use many of the same words, and they should never share a budget.
Protect your brand terms
Referral aggregators bid on community names, including yours. A family who already knows your name can click an aggregator ad and arrive at your door as a referral you pay a commission on.
Run a brand campaign even if you rank first organically. It is usually the cheapest click in the account, and it keeps the top of the page yours. The referral aggregator math shows why this matters more than the invoice suggests.
Two practical steps:
- Check the auction insights report for brand campaigns monthly to see who else appears.
- If competitors use your trademark in their ad text, Google has a trademark complaint process. It restricts use in ad copy, not bidding on the keyword itself.
Report brand and non-brand separately. A blended account where brand does most of the converting looks far better than the non-brand work really is.
Keywords, match types and negatives
Match types. Broad match can work well when it is paired with smart bidding and solid conversion data, because Google uses the conversion signal to decide which searches are worth it. Without good conversion data, broad match spends on anything loosely related. Start with phrase and exact match on your core terms, and open up once tours and move-ins are flowing back into the account.
Use the words families use. “Assisted living”, “memory care”, “senior living” and the town or neighbourhood name carry most of the intent. “Nursing home” searches often mean a different level of care; bid on them deliberately, not by accident.
Negatives do as much work as keywords. A starting list for most communities:
- Employment terms: jobs, careers, hiring, salary, CNA, caregiver jobs, application
- Education and research: definition, what is, statistics, essay, course
- Terms for care you do not offer, such as skilled nursing or rehab, if they do not apply
- Payer terms you cannot serve, if your community is private pay only
Read the search terms report weekly. It is the single most useful habit in the account, and the one most often skipped.
Bidding
Smart bidding strategies such as Maximize conversions and target CPA need conversion data to learn. A single community with a modest budget may produce only a handful of tours a month per campaign, which is thin.
Ways to handle that:
- Consolidate rather than fragment. Fewer campaigns with more conversions each learn faster.
- Use Maximize conversions before setting a target CPA, so the system finds its footing first.
- Once offline move-in data is flowing, value-based bidding can weight a memory care move-in above an inquiry about independent living.
Change bid strategies rarely. Each change resets part of the learning, and a week of noisy results is not a reason to switch.
Where Performance Max fits
Performance Max runs across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign. It can find demand that a Search campaign misses, and it can also spend heavily on placements that produce form fills and little else.
Our view: add it after Search is well built, not instead of it.
- Feed it the same offline conversions, so it optimizes toward tours and move-ins.
- Use brand exclusions so it does not take credit for your brand searches.
- Give it real assets: photos of your own community (with consent for any resident who appears), a short video, and specific headlines.
- Judge it on cost per tour and cost per move-in, not conversion volume.
Ads and assets
Responsive search ads should say what a family actually wants to know: the care types you offer, where you are, and how to book a tour. Specific beats warm. “Assisted living and memory care in [Town]. Book a tour this week” does more than “a caring environment”.
Leave out discounts, move-in specials and “free” offers. They attract the wrong inquiries and they do not match how families make this decision.
Use every relevant asset:
- Call assets, scheduled for hours when someone will answer.
- Location assets, linked to your Google Business Profile.
- Sitelinks to floor plans, the memory care page, pricing information if you publish it, and the tour booking page.
Policy limits to plan around
In the US and Canada, Google’s personalized advertising policies restrict housing ads from targeting by age, gender, parental status, marital status or ZIP code. Audience lists built on health conditions are also restricted, so remarketing should be based on site visits in general, not on which condition-specific page someone read. Keep that in mind before copying audience advice written for other industries.
Landing pages
Send each campaign to a page built for it: the care type, the location, a tour request above the fold, and a phone number that is tappable on mobile. Every extra field on the form costs inquiries. Landing pages that convert senior living traffic goes into form length and proof placement.
What to review, and when
- Weekly: search terms, negatives, budget pacing, call answer rates.
- Monthly: cost per tour by campaign, brand versus non-brand, auction insights.
- Quarterly: cost per move-in by care type, set against what a senior living lead should cost for that care type.
Search is not always enough on its own. When search volume in your market is small, or the sales cycle is long, the comparison between Meta and Google covers when social spend earns a place alongside it.
If you want a second pair of eyes on your account structure, our Google and Meta Ads team can review it against your tour and move-in data.
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