The person searching is often an adult child, the decision takes months, and independent living, assisted living and memory care are three different searches. Paid media that treats a community as one product pays for enquiries that never become a tour.
A long decision and several care levels make this easy to get wrong.
Independent living is a lifestyle choice made over a year. Memory care is often an urgent family decision. One campaign and one page for both means the message fits neither.
Referral sites often bid on community names and local searches, then pass the same family to several communities. An account that ignores brand and local terms hands them the first click.
Senior living ads fall under housing rules. Google does not allow them to be targeted by age or ZIP code, and Meta places them in a special ad category with its own limits. Campaigns built the usual way get restricted or rejected.
A form fill from a family that is a year away looks the same in the report as one ready to tour this week. Without tours and new residents coming back from the CRM, the account cannot tell them apart.
Built around care level, a long decision and the advertising rules that apply to housing.
Independent living, assisted living and memory care run separately, each with its own search terms, ads and page.
Your community name and the searches closest to it are covered first, so the family reaches you directly.
Enquiries are matched to tours and new residents in your CRM, so each campaign carries a cost per tour and a cost per new resident.
Ads and pages written for the family member doing the research, with pricing guidance and next steps, not only for the future resident.
One page per care level and community, with floor plans or care details, a price guide and a way to book a tour. See landing pages and websites.
Occupancy goals differ by building, so the numbers are reported by building and by level of care.
Campaigns are built inside the housing policy of Google and the special ad category Meta applies to housing from the first day, which changes targeting, audiences and how budgets are split by location.
Average cost per click on Google in the United States. Memory care costs more than twice as much per click as any other level on the list.
| Search term | Monthly searches | Average CPC |
|---|---|---|
| senior living near me | 74,000 | $10.85 |
| retirement communities near me | 27,100 | $7.87 |
| senior apartments near me | 22,200 | $6.74 |
| memory care near me | 18,100 | $27.09 |
| memory care facilities | 12,100 | $25.56 |
| independent living near me | 9,900 | $12.80 |
| assisted living cost | 5,400 | $8.85 |
Source: Google Ads data for the United States via DataForSEO, read on October 13, 2026. National averages for the last twelve months.
I have not published a senior living case, and I would rather say so than borrow one. This is what is real.
Different industry, included because the numbers are public and verifiable. Roughly $20K per month in Google Ads spend, in a market with $45 to $80 CPCs. Read the case.
I have also worked in paid media in healthcare. Nothing from that work is published on this site. No employer is named, and there are no budgets, results or internal details.
What carries over is the method. Conversions are defined as booked work, calls are tracked to the keyword, and bids are set against what a customer is worth.
I go through the account, the tracking and the path a family takes from search to tour and tell you what is broken. The findings are yours whether or not we keep working together.
Tracking, conversion actions and structure get corrected first. Optimising on top of bad data just makes you confidently wrong.
Campaigns, ad copy and landing pages built around how families actually search, and around what the platform rules allow.
Weekly optimisation against tours and new residents rather than form fills, with a monthly written read on what moved and what is next.
Longer reads on this topic from the blog.
Senior living operators with apartments to fill and a sales team that follows up.
Not a fit. Communities at full occupancy with a wait list, where more enquiries have nowhere to go.
Assisted living is one level of care. Senior living usually covers several, from independent living to memory care, each with its own search terms, urgency and price. I run them as separate campaigns. There is also a page about assisted living marketing on its own.
In October 2026 the United States average was $10.85 for senior living near me, $12.80 for independent living near me and $27.09 for memory care near me. These are national averages, and your market can sit above or below them.
Not directly. Google does not allow housing ads to be targeted by age or ZIP code, and Meta places housing in a special ad category with similar limits. The campaigns reach the right families through search terms, location radius and the message itself.
Enquiries and tours are the first numbers to move. New residents take longer, because the decision often runs for months. That is why the account is judged on tours first and on new residents as they come through the CRM.
I have not published a senior living case, so I will not claim one. I have also worked in paid media in healthcare, and the published numbers on this site come from a home services company in Houston. The method is the same one, applied to tours and new residents.
A short form beats a long discovery call. Give me the basics and I will come back with a straight read on whether I can help, usually within one business day.
Rather book a time directly? Schedule a call.