Industry Guide · 15 of 15 chapters published
Google Ads for Home Health Agencies and Home Care: The Complete Guide to Winning More Clients
A home care agency hears from an adult child after a parent's fall, a patient coming home from surgery and a caregiver looking for work, often on the same phone line. These fifteen chapters build a Google Ads account for private pay, Medicaid and Medicare clients in the order that works, using real searches, websites and family reviews from one example market, Chicago. The method works for agencies anywhere in the US.
Google Ads for Home Care Has to Tell a Worried Family From a Job Applicant
Five steps in the order we build a home care and home health account. Local numbers come from our example market, Chicago; yours will differ, but the method holds.
A Job Applicant and a Worried Son Can Both Talk for Four Minutes
Agencies hire constantly, so the same website and phone line bring in families and job seekers. Count only family leads:
- A care request form
- A family's call to a number the careers page doesn't use
- The consultation, then the start of care imported back to Google
Label each lead by payer. Then price the client by hours, not the first week: at the $35 national median hourly rate, 40 hours a week is about $6,070 a month, and calling families back first can turn 1 in 5 leads into 1 in 4.
Home Care and Home Health Share a Keyword Line. They Can't Share a Page.
Keyword Planner reports “home care services” and “home health care services” as one line, but they're different families with different questions, so each service gets its own ad group and page. The first campaign, which we call Isolation, runs the plain, ready-to-call searches on exact match.
The list needs hard cuts: about one search in five is a job hunt. A broad “nursing home” negative is a mistake, because “home care instead of nursing home” is a family you want. The ads lead with what families praise: an office that picks up and keeps them informed.
The Family Most Ready to Pay Often Lives in Another State
Presence keeps the main campaigns local, drawn around where caregivers can actually drive. One small out-of-area campaign then reaches the adult child searching for your area from somewhere else. Six default settings go off at launch, and the first week runs on a small budget to learn what clicks cost.
Performance Max Finds the Job Seeker First Unless You Lock It Out
An Exploration campaign (also our name) takes broad match once the account brings in about 30 client leads a month, usually in months two or three and sooner for bigger accounts. Performance Max follows around months six or seven with careers pages locked out, since a job seeker's click costs far less than a family's. Demand Gen is built around help at home, not a diagnosis. There's no Local Services category for home care, so the map is won with reviews, and AI Max comes last.
Recruiting Gets Its Own Campaign, and So Does Every Payer
Job ads lead with pay, send caregivers to an application short enough to finish on a phone, and can't target age, gender or ZIP code under Google's US rules. On the client side, private pay, Medicaid and Medicare each get their own campaign, keywords and page. Families type “Medicare” ten times as often as “private pay,” but Medicare doesn't pay for 24-hour or custodial care alone, so a private-pay ad never implies it will.
Fifteen Chapters, From the First Call to Every Payer
New to Google Ads? Start at Chapter 1. Each chapter builds on the one before it.
Measure
Count family leads, not job applicants, and know what a client is worth
Caregiver Applicants Call the Same Number as Families. Google Can't Tell Them Apart Unless You Do.
An Adult Child Searching After a Parent's Fall Needs a Different Ad Than One Comparing Agencies
A $35-an-Hour Home Care Client Can Grow Into a Full-Time One. Price the Lead for That.
Build
Win the searches families make, then the long tail
A Home Health Search That Lands on a Companion Care Page Costs You Quality Score
Google's Keyword Planner Treats Home Care and Home Health as One Search. Your Account Can't.
Families Search in Their Own Words. Broad Match Finds Those Searches Once Exact Match Converts.
A Private-Pay Client and a Medicaid Client Are Worth Different Bids. One Target CPA Can't Price Both.
Families Review the Office That Calls Back and the Caregiver Who Stays. Put Both in Your Headlines.
Launch
Settings that reach families, including the ones in another state
Scale
More reach, once the account knows what a real client looks like
Performance Max Can Send Your Ads to the Careers Page. Exclude It Before Job Seekers Fill Your Leads.
Demand Gen Can Put Your Agency in Front of Adult Children Before the Fall That Sends Them Searching
Local Services Ads Have No Home Care Category. Location Assets and Your Reviews Win the Map Instead.
AI Max Can Write "Medicare Covers It" Into a Private-Pay Agency's Ad. Fence It In First.
Home Care
Recruiting caregivers, and one account for every payer
The Rollout, Month by Month
The order matters as much as the campaigns. Each step waits until the one before it has taught Google something.
Isolation and brand
Exact match on the searches most likely to become a client, plus your agency name.
Exploration
Broad match with a target CPA, once client leads reach about 30 a month.
Caregiver recruiting
Its own campaign and its own conversions, under Google's rules for job ads.
Performance Max
Only after months of clean data, with careers pages kept out.
Demand Gen and AI Max
Video and images that reach adult children before a crisis, and Google's newest automation, fenced in.
How to Use This Guide
Brand-new account?
Read in order. Tracking and budget come before the first keyword.
Chapter 01 →Ads already running?
Check tracking and settings first. Applicant calls counted as client leads and families in another state left out are two leaks to look for.
Chapter 09 →One example market
Examples come from Chicago-area agencies, described as we found them. Run the same steps in your own market.
Chapter 05 →Running more than one specialty under one roof? Google Ads for Healthcare shows how to run them as one account without one service line starving the rest.
Google Ads for Home Care and Home Health Agencies
Nobody Searches for Home Care on a Good Day. Your Ads Should Sound Like They Know That.
We've run paid ads for 25+ years and seen just about every way a budget goes sideways. Get on the phone with someone who does this every day. Bring your questions, your numbers and your skepticism. You'll hang up knowing what we'd do, whether you hire us or not.
Or see how our Google Ads management works.