Asymmetric (Sebastian Gant, Melissa Cusumano, Mark Hope) met with Adava Care leadership (Kurosh Dejgosha, Kari Krause, and others) to review marketing performance and align on a forward strategy. The core outcome was a decisive pivot away from paid PPC as the primary channel toward organic SEO, paired with a content engine, attribution infrastructure, and a Google review management plan.
Attendees:
- Sebastian Gant, Melissa Cusumano, Mark Hope (Asymmetric)
- Kurosh Dejgosha, Kari Krause, Cassandra, J. Spinelli, T. Olson, L. Schwartz (Adava Care)
Decision: Shift primary marketing focus from paid PPC to organic SEO. PPC will be retained as a supplemental channel only.
Rationale:
- Estimated cost-per-conversion via PPC is ~$3,500–$4,000 per move-in (based on ~10 qualified form leads/month at a 10% industry conversion rate), which Kurosh flagged as approaching unsustainable.
- PPC faces diminishing returns: high CPCs, limited search volume for target keywords, and consistent but flat call volume month-over-month.
- SEO offers greater untapped growth potential — particularly for non-branded queries like "memory care near me" or "assisted living Oak Creek" — at effectively zero marginal cost per click.
- Adava Care's current average search position for non-branded queries is 34, indicating significant room for improvement.
New PPC Role: PPC spend will be redirected to boost high-performing SEO content (e.g., a strong Medicaid blog post) immediately after publication to accelerate indexing and signal authority to Google.
Decision: Implement CallRail immediately. A dedicated setup meeting with Kurosh and Mark to be scheduled.
Problem it solves: The current tracking setup misses calls from users who see a phone number in an ad or on the website and dial manually — those calls are not attributed to the campaign. This creates a critical blind spot that makes true ad ROI unmeasurable.
Expected outcome: Full call-source attribution across ads, organic, and direct, enabling accurate cost-per-lead and cost-per-conversion calculations.
Decision: Launch a focused content initiative comprising:
Asymmetric will own drafting; Adava Care will review for accuracy (especially on Medicaid/pricing specifics).
Decision: An instant online tour scheduler will not be implemented at this time.
Rationale (from Kari Krause): Scheduling a tour requires pre-screening. Kari currently serves as the intake filter — she qualifies leads, gathers care-need information, and directs families to the correct facility (e.g., memory care vs. RCAC). Bypassing this step with an instant scheduler would result in unqualified tours, no-shows, and misrouted leads. The feature may be revisited in the future under different operational conditions.
Kurosh segmented Adava Care's portfolio into three clusters with distinct marketing needs:
| Region | Buildings | Status | Marketing Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neenah | Neenah, Irish Road | High occupancy; nice buildings | Private pay targeting viable |
| Waukesha | Pewaukee, Heartland | High occupancy; strong Medicaid demand | Private pay targeting viable |
| Milwaukee | Fardale, Magnolia, Wabash, St. Francis, others | Declining census in some; primarily Medicaid | Medicaid fill; advertising efficacy unclear |
Key insight from Kurosh: The Neenah and Waukesha census improvements may not be attributable to advertising — the buildings are strong enough to fill with Medicaid organically. The Milwaukee buildings present a harder question: whether digital advertising is an effective tool for Medicaid census recovery at all.
Problem: Multiple negative reviews across locations, including some from disgruntled employees and potentially fake accounts. These are harming brand perception, particularly at Wabash, St. Francis, and Magnolia.
Three-part strategy:
Dispute — Continue filing disputes for reviews that violate Google's policies (conflict of interest, spam, employee reviews). One St. Francis review was successfully removed as of this meeting. Others are pending (up to one week for Google response).
Dilute — Actively solicit new positive reviews from satisfied families and residents to push negative reviews down. Kari noted she already ran a Google review contest internally. Sebastian confirmed this is the primary lever for reviews that can't be removed.
Respond — Asymmetric to develop a response strategy. Kari, Jenny, or Laura (not Kurosh) will own responding. Recommended response templates:
- Recent negative (employee): Acknowledge professionally, direct to HR. ("Thank you for your feedback. We take all concerns seriously — please reach out to our Human Resources office to discuss further.")
- Old negative (pre-new management): Note the change in ownership/management and invite re-evaluation. ("We're under new management and have made significant improvements — we'd love the opportunity to show you.")
- Very old reviews (7–8 years): Evaluate case-by-case whether responding adds value or draws unnecessary attention.