Skaalen Google Ads — February 2026 Performance Review

Overview

February 2026 showed a notable dip in Google Ads impression volume for ^[1], with a 40% year-over-year drop likely attributable to seasonal factors. Despite lower impressions, click-through rate remained strong, and branded search continued to dominate traffic. This review covers Google Ads, GA4 website analytics, and Google Search Console data discussed in the ^[2].

Google Ads Performance

Impression Drop — Likely Causes

The 40% impression decline was flagged as potentially misleading in isolation. Two seasonal hypotheses were raised during the meeting:

1. Snowbird effect — A portion of the target demographic (older adults and their adult children) may be wintering in warmer states (Florida, Arizona, Texas) and not actively researching retirement living options in February.
2. Valentine's Day holiday — A mid-month dip in sessions correlated with the February 14 holiday, suggesting reduced search activity around that date.

Action item: Melissa to investigate year-over-year February impression data to confirm whether this dip is a recurring seasonal pattern.

Ad Group Breakdown

• Branded campaigns consistently outperform all others. Top search terms: "Skaalen," "Skaalen Retirement," "Skaalen Heights."
• Assisted Living / Senior Living campaigns showed moderate performance.
• Competitor campaigns continue to yield low results — a pattern noted across multiple clients. Targeting competitor names in paid search rarely delivers the expected volume or conversion lift.

GA4 Website Analytics

Traffic Source Notes

• Direct (37%) is the largest channel, reflecting strong brand awareness — users already know Skaalen and navigate directly.
• Paid search drove approximately 505 clicks to the site, confirming ad spend is generating measurable traffic.
• Desktop remains the dominant device type, consistent with prior months. The hypothesis is that adult children researching options for parents tend to do so from a work or home desktop environment.

Google Search Console

High-Impression Keywords

• "Memory care community" — Very high impressions; the blog post "What is a Memory Care Community?" is ranking well. Impressions are strong but CTR is low, indicating an opportunity to improve the page's meta title/description to drive more clicks.

Top-Clicked Keywords

Competitor Keyword Capture — Heritage Senior Living

"Heritage Senior Living" (a Madison-area facility) is appearing as a top-clicked keyword driving traffic to Skaalen. This is not being used as a paid competitor keyword — rather, it appears to be working organically through content and keyword overlap. This is functioning as an effective passive competitor capture strategy and should be monitored and potentially reinforced.

Q1 OKR Implications

The February performance data directly informed the ^[3] discussed in the same meeting:

• Objective 1 — Improve Non-Branded Search Visibility: The dominance of branded search terms highlights the need to build non-branded organic presence. Target: improve "assisted living in Stoughton" average position from 9.3 → 5.0.
• Objective 2 — Optimize Google Ads: A full Google Ads audit was initiated to address the impression gap, test non-branded campaigns via A/B testing, and fix high-impression/low-CTR content gaps (e.g., the memory care blog).

See ^[4] for general audit methodology.

Related

• ^[5]
• ^[2]
• ^[6]
• ^[7]