Assisted living is one of the few local categories where the person who searches is usually not the person who moves in. An adult daughter or son, often in their 50s, starts researching after a fall, a hospital stay, or a worrying visit home. The decision is emotional, it involves siblings, it carries a monthly cost that rivals a mortgage, and it can take anywhere from a few days to over a year. The job of an assisted living marketing agency is to be there for that whole stretch and hand your sales team a family that is ready to tour.
Here is how to filter candidates quickly.
Filter 1: Do they measure move-ins or inquiries
Every agency will report inquiries. Senior living inquiries are cheap to generate and easy to inflate, especially through aggregator sites and broad Facebook forms.
The number that matters is move-ins, and cost per move-in. Ask how they track an inquiry through to a tour and a signed lease. A healthy community generally converts something like 20-35% of qualified tours to move-ins, but inquiry-to-tour rates vary enormously by source. A campaign producing 200 inquiries and 3 move-ins is worse than one producing 40 inquiries and 8.
Also ask how they think about length of stay. A resident who stays three years is worth far more than one who moves to memory care or skilled nursing in four months, and some sources skew toward later-stage needs.
The Top Assisted Living Marketing Agencies we rank are scored on category evidence, not lead volume claims - see the methodology.
Filter 2: Do they market to the family decision-maker
Three audiences show up in this category, and most agencies market only to one.
- The adult child, who does the research, reads reviews, compares pricing, and books the tour.
- The prospective resident, who often has veto power and needs reassurance about independence, dignity, and daily life.
- Professional referrers: hospital discharge planners, social workers, elder law attorneys, and home health agencies.
Screen for separate messaging for each. Content that answers the adult child's real questions - cost, care levels, what happens if needs change, how to talk to a parent about moving - builds trust long before a tour. Stock photos of smiling seniors on a golf course do not.
Filter 3: Where they stand on referral aggregators
Placement services and senior living directories send a lot of inquiries, and they charge a referral fee, often equal to a large share of the first month's rent, on every move-in they touch. They also send the same family to several of your competitors at once.
A good agency does not pretend aggregators do not exist. It helps you reduce dependence on them by building owned demand: search visibility, reviews, a website that converts, and a nurture program that keeps families warm. Ask a candidate what share of move-ins they would expect to come from owned channels after 12 months, and how they would measure it.
The channel stack that works
Ordered by return per dollar for a typical single community.
1. Google Business Profile, reviews, and local SEO. "Assisted living near me" and "memory care in [city]" are the highest-intent searches in the category. Families read reviews closely, especially reviews from other families.
2. Google Ads on care-level and location terms. Assisted living, memory care, respite care, plus city modifiers. Expensive clicks, but a single move-in is worth tens of thousands of dollars in annual revenue.
3. A website built for the adult child. Clear care levels, real photos and floor plans, a pricing range or at least a straight answer on how pricing works, and an easy way to schedule a tour or call.
4. Lead nurture and CRM follow-up. Decision cycles are long. Email and phone nurture, event invitations, and fast follow-up on every inquiry often recover move-ins that were already paid for once.
5. Professional referral development. Discharge planners and elder law attorneys send families who are ready to move. Slow to build, very high conversion.
6. Events and community. Caregiver support groups, educational seminars, and open houses give families a low-pressure reason to walk through the door.
What generally underperforms: broad social campaigns aimed at seniors themselves, shared lead marketplaces, and paid search without call tracking or CRM attribution.
What a program costs
Fees below are monthly agency management. Ad spend is separate and should sit in accounts you own.
| Stage | Agency fee / mo | Media / mo | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single community | $2,500-$5,000 | $2,000-$6,000 | GBP and reviews, paid search, website, inquiry follow-up |
| Larger or lease-up community | $5,000-$9,000 | $6,000-$15,000 | Full local SEO and paid, nurture program, events, referral outreach |
| Multi-community operator | $9,000-$20,000+ | $15,000+ | Per-community programs, brand layer, CRM and attribution |
A new community in lease-up spends far more per move-in than a stabilized one, so judge the budget against your occupancy goal and timeline, not a rule of thumb.
The numbers to run the program on
- Cost per move-in, by source, with aggregator referral fees included.
- Inquiry-to-tour and tour-to-move-in rates, tracked by source.
- Speed to first contact on new inquiries, measured in minutes.
- Occupancy against target, by care level.
- Average length of stay for residents by source.
- Share of move-ins from owned channels versus aggregators.
When not to hire an assisted living marketing agency yet
- Inquiries wait hours or days for a callback. Families contact several communities at once. Fix speed to lead before buying more traffic.
- You cannot tie move-ins back to a source. Without CRM attribution, no agency can be judged and aggregator costs stay invisible.
- Your tours do not convert. If tour-to-move-in is weak, the problem is the sales process or the product, and more inquiries will not fix it.
- You are full with a waitlist. Add capacity or adjust pricing before adding demand.
The short version:
- Judge assisted living marketing on move-ins, cost per move-in, and length of stay, not inquiries.
- The adult child is usually the buyer. Market to them, the resident, and professional referrers separately.
- Build owned demand to reduce dependence on referral aggregators and their fees.
- Local search, reviews, care-level paid search, a family-first website, and long-cycle nurture are the highest-return stack.
- Expect $2,500-$5,000/month in fees for a single community, more in lease-up and at scale, with media separate and owned by you.
- Compare the Top Assisted Living Marketing Agencies, read how to hire a healthcare marketing agency and how much a marketing agency costs, and see the methodology.