Adava Care Marketing Call — October 2025

Overview

Monthly marketing review with the Adava Care team. Sebastian Gant joined as incoming account manager, shadowing Melissa Cusumano. The call covered urgent Meta ad fixes, a deep dive into Google Ads quality score challenges driven by "A Place for Mom" competition, a planned "no fee" promo A/B test for November/December, a website photography overhaul, transparent pricing strategy, and LinkedIn access for Kari.

Attendees:
- Melissa Cusumano (Asymmetric)
- Sebastian Gant (Asymmetric — incoming account manager)
- Mark Hope (Asymmetric — absent)
- Kurosh Dejgosha (Adava Care)
- Kari Krause / kkrause@adavacare.com (Adava Care)
- Cassandra / cassandra@adavacare.com (Adava Care)
- Jenni Tolson / tolson@adavacare.com (Adava Care — Regional Director of Operations, Milwaukee)
- J. Spinelli / jspinelli@adavacare.com (Adava Care)

Key Decisions

• Do not wait for new interior signage before taking new website photos — room numbers can be Photoshopped in later.
• Kari will take iPhone photos during community visits rather than hiring a professional photographer (at least as a first pass). Kurosh and Melissa agreed iPhone quality is sufficient.
• Run the "no fee" Google Ads promo as a new ad group alongside existing campaigns (A/B test), not as a replacement — to gather comparative data before committing.
• Transparent pricing will be added to the website — Kari to send pricing lists; Melissa's team to implement.
• Advantage Plus A/B test will run to completion (6 days remaining) despite concerns about lower-intent traffic, to collect data.
• Multi-advertiser placements will be disabled across all Meta ad sets immediately.
• LinkedIn: Kari now has admin access to post directly to the Adava Care company page.

Action Items

Topics

Website Photography

Current photos are inaccurate and unappealing, creating both a poor user experience and potential liability:

• Glendale page shows in-room showers — Glendale does not have showers in rooms (they have private bathrooms but use a shared shower room). The photo likely came from Oak Creek, which has a different bathroom configuration.
• Outdated/unappealing visuals — rusty gazebo (not even Adava Care's property), empty rooms, closed umbrellas, wrong angles.

Plan: Kari will take iPhone photos during upcoming community visits, focusing on fall foliage for exterior shots. Melissa's team will edit and update the website. Interior signage/room numbers are far enough down the pipeline that the team agreed not to wait — numbers can be Photoshopped in later if needed.

A professional photographer (Melissa's contact in Kenosha) remains an option if iPhone photos don't meet the bar.

Google Ads — Quality Score & "A Place for Mom" Competition

Sebastian walked through the quality score breakdown for Adava Care's campaigns:

Quality Score components:
1. Expected Click-Through Rate (eCTR) — compared against competitors in the same auction. This is where Adava Care is underperforming. "A Place for Mom" runs ads with copy like "No Cost Assisted Living," "Compare Costs," "Best Homes" — cost-focused language that drives higher CTR because cost is the #1 concern for families searching assisted living.
2. Ad Relevance — how well headlines/descriptions match the bidded keywords. Mixed results; hard to tailor to every keyword.
3. Landing Page Experience — generally average to above average. Not the problem.

Impact: A quality score below 5 means Adava Care pays a higher effective CPC to compete. "A Place for Mom" is the dominant competitor in nearly every location auction.

Context on "A Place for Mom": Adava Care ended their paid contract with APFM. APFM still lists Adava Care (and former community Matthews) in their directory but does not send referrals — they only route leads to paying clients. Families who find Adava Care through APFM and want to contact them directly can still do so, but APFM won't facilitate it. There is pending legislation around the predatory referral model these directories use.

Glendale impression share is strong (roughly 2x nearest competitor). Other locations are more contested.

Google Ads — "No Fee" Promo Strategy (Nov/Dec)

Two complementary strategies discussed to counter APFM's "no cost" messaging:

Option 1 — Transparent Pricing on Website
- Add actual community pricing to location pages. No other local competitor does this.
- Rationale: counters "no cost" claims with clarity and builds trust. Kurosh noted pricing is fairly consistent across communities with minor variations.
- Kari to send pricing lists; Melissa's team to implement.

Option 2 — "No Fee" Promotional Ad Campaign
- Run a waived community fee promo for November/December (community fees are typically ~$2,500).
- Ad copy: "No Fee" + relevant assisted living keywords. CTA: call for details (Kari explains the value of the waived fee on the call).
- Sebastian will create a new ad group to run alongside existing campaigns as an A/B test — not replacing current ads.
- If a dedicated promo page is needed, the team will build one; otherwise a section on existing location pages may suffice.
- Rationale: winter is a slower season for move-ins; a promo gives people a reason to act now.

Meta Ads Review

Kurosh had set up new employment ads as an A/B test (Advantage Plus audience vs. standard). Sebastian reviewed and flagged two issues requiring immediate fixes:

1. Broken links — ads pointing to incorrect URLs. Sebastian will update today.
2. Multi-advertiser placements enabled — this allows Meta to crop ad creative and show it alongside unrelated ads. Should always be unchecked. Sebastian will disable today.

Advantage Plus audience: Sebastian's analogy — like a billboard company that lets you dump budget and they choose placements, including poor ones. Cheaper CPCs but potentially lower-intent traffic and worse placements. The A/B test has 6 days remaining; the team agreed to let it run to completion to collect data before drawing conclusions.

Employment ad targeting note: Because these are employment ads, Meta requires declaring the special ad category, which limits audience targeting granularity. This is expected and unavoidable.

Other Marketing Updates

• SEO / Ahrefs: Site health score at 100 (up from ~99 last meeting). Domain rating improvement campaign started by Mark Hope — service promises a 30-day improvement window.
• Google Business Profile: October posts ready for Kari/Kurosh review — Melissa sending today.
• Blog content: October blogs being finalized — sending today or tomorrow.
• Printed inserts: Done Friday. Unusual die-cut size required a local specialty printer (Dennis, Stoughton). Kari to provide shipping address; she will distribute to communities herself.
• LinkedIn: Kari now confirmed as admin on the Adava Care company page. She can post professional events directly. Melissa noted LinkedIn boosting has become more cost-competitive recently — worth considering for future event promotion. Melissa's team will investigate sharing the Adava Care Canva folder with Kari to streamline graphic creation.

Notable Context

• Sebastian Gant is being introduced as the incoming account manager for Adava Care, taking over from Melissa Cusumano on PPC/Meta. Melissa remains on the account for traditional marketing.
• Jenni Tolson is the new Regional Director of Operations for the Milwaukee area — joining calls to stay informed.
• Vistaprint signage order had issues (separate from the inserts); Kari needs to document and request a refund for the second batch.

Related

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