Top Takeaways from SMASH 2025
- 3 November 2025
Inside SMASH 2025, one theme rang loud and clear: senior living marketers need clearer visibility from spend to results. Across roundtables and hallway conversations, leaders shared the same pain points: staying up to date with AI trends, maintaining visibility in an increasingly competitive digital landscape, retaining budgets, and a desire for more comprehensive and sophisticated reporting solutions.
Representing Conversion Logix, Jen Lovely and Amy Wall led discussions that surfaced what top performers are doing differently: committing to multichannel strategies, investing in first-party pipelines, targeting locally, centralizing reporting, and seeking out new ways to attribute ROI for owners and boards.
In this recap, we unpack the trends, ideas, and practical takeaways from those conversations and how they point to a smarter, more measurable path forward for senior living marketing.
AI Sparks a Renewed Focus on Digital Marketing
Senior living has always had one foot in and one foot out of the digital world. Many still rely on mailers, word-of-mouth, local partnerships, events, and other strategies as key pillars of their demand generation strategy. For many years, digital marketing has been viewed as just another tool in the toolbox; however, that sentiment seems to be shifting.
“I noticed a new resurgence in interest for digital marketing strategies at SMASH this year,” says Jen.
“Now more than ever, people are seeing the importance of keeping up to date with technology and having a digital presence. The overnight growth in AI adoption is really driving this trend. People don’t want to get left behind and are more open to exploring channels and strategies they’ve overlooked in the past.”
Strategies such as search engine marketing, optimizing websites for lead gen, digital advertising, and AI optimization are playing a larger role as leaders focus on ways to reach a generation of aging seniors that are increasingly more technologically savvy.
“Everyone was talking about the impact of AI, from how to use it in the sales and marketing process to how to optimize for visibility in AI search results,” says Amy.
Data-Driven Decisions Take Center Stage
Marketers at SMASH were really focused on becoming more data-driven. Throughout the roundtable discussions, the sessions, and in talks with attendees throughout the event, we heard a lot of conversation around exploring different KPIs, applying A/B testing, and utilizing new reporting solutions that help centralize data from disparate sources and provide a greater line of sight into ROI.
“Attribution is still a challenge in this industry,” says Amy. “I met with marketing leaders who have been making great strides in their reporting practices, but last-touch attribution still seems to be the go-to method for assessing the impact of different channels.”
“Many marketers are not yet utilizing multitouch attribution techniques that measure the combined impact of upper and lower funnel channels.”
The decentralization of data sources is also an issue. Many marketers are still struggling to bring together campaign, website, and CRM data from multiple vendors and channels to see the full picture.
“There is a lot of room for improvement in the way we apply measurement in the senior living industry. This is something we’ve been exploring at Conversion Logix, and I think there is a lot of need for better reporting and attribution across the board,” adds Amy.
The Search Landscape is Evolving
Two search-related trends that surfaced at the event: adapting to AI summaries and the rise of Bing and other non-traditional sources.
“How to increase your chances of showing up in AI Summaries in Google and in responses from Chat GPT was one of the most talked about topics during the sessions and in breakout conversations,” shares Jen.
While marketers are still in the early stages of figuring out what works, we know that deploying SEO best practices, such as ensuring you show up across local listings such as Google Business Profile, having strong domain authority, and encouraging positive reviews and comments on forums, listings, and social media channels, can help play a role in improving visibility in AI summaries.
Bing was another top search engine marketing topic.
“I heard from a few marketers that they are starting to see a rise in search traffic coming from Bing,” says Amy.
Bing is often an overlooked channel for advertising, but it can often drive really great results for a fraction of the cost of Google Ads. It’s definitely worth trying out for those looking to expand their search engine presence.
Location Targeting Gets Smarter
“I think marketers at this event are starting to pay more attention to how they target and what matters to their residents. Location is such an important factor for seniors and their families, and there are so many underutilized strategies you can deploy to target prospects,” shared Jen.
From running geofencing campaigns targeting competitor buildings and optimizing for local listing in Google to applying custom radius targeting within different cities, there are a lot of tactics available to marketers in this industry looking to improve their targeting.
“Getting the right location targeting in place can be super effective for reducing wasted ad spend, lowering acquisition costs, and driving more qualified leads,” explained Jen.
“We had a great discussion about this during my roundtable event, and I feel really excited about the engagement we saw around this topic. I’ve seen these strategies make a huge difference for our clients, and I am glad to see other marketers focusing on these kinds of optimizations.”
Interested in learning more about this topic? Check out this recap from our latest webinar with Senior Housing News, “Own Your Zip Code: Local Marketing Strategies for Senior Living Communities”.
Why a Balanced Funnel Is the New Competitive Edge
“There was a lot of talk at the event around creating more comprehensive marketing strategies and targeting prospects at different stages in the buying process,” said Jen.
“The marketing leaders who seemed to experience the greatest success filling their buildings quickly were the ones who were using a wide range of digital marketing channels and strategies compared to those who pooled all of their investment in 1-2 channels,” added Amy.
When budgets get limited, focusing a majority of ad spend on fewer channels and usually the bottom of the funnel strategies, such as Google Ads, is often a go-to reaction. “So often the opposite approach is actually what ends up helping marketers reduce acquisition costs. By investing in a mix of awareness and retargeting strategies in addition to search advertising, we see an overall drop in cost per lead,” says Jen.
“The marketers who are balancing awareness, consideration, and conversion tactics are the ones building momentum,” adds Amy. “They’re not just driving leads, they’re nurturing trust and recognition along the way.”
As the industry evolves, the biggest successes won’t come from doubling down on a single channel, but from creating a cohesive strategy that connects every touchpoint in the customer journey.
The Path Forward: From Insights to Action
SMASH 2025 highlighted how hungry senior living marketers are for more comprehensive digital marketing strategies and smarter, more connected ways to measure success. From AI search visibility to local targeting and multitouch attribution, the industry is in the midst of a transformation.
As marketing becomes more data-driven, the leaders who embrace integrated technology, unified reporting, and full-funnel strategies will be the ones who thrive.
At Conversion Logix, we’re proud to partner with those innovators and work hard every day to bridge the gap between digital and real-world results through smarter attribution, automation, and laser-sharp insights that drive occupancy.
Want to learn more from Jen and Amy? Schedule a call below.
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