Fill your caseload with families your intake team can actually enroll.
Insurance-first intake, per-center location pages, Google Ads written in payer language, diagnostic evaluation funnels and waitlist nurture. Every inquiry tracked from first click to enrolled client, by center, in a portal your clinical director can open on their phone.
Where ABA inquiries go to die
- ×The form came in at 7:40pm. Nobody called until 10 the next morning. The family had already heard back from two other providers.
- ×Out-of-network families. Half of intake’s week goes to families you can’t take, because the form never asked about the payer.
- ×No diagnosis yet. The parent is ready, but the pediatrician’s referral is months out and nobody told them you do evaluations.
- ×One listing for six centers. Google shows the wrong center, or none, and the in-home region has no page at all.
- ×A waitlist with no follow-up. Twenty families on a spreadsheet, none of whom have heard from you since the first call.
What a parent’s search actually looks like.
It usually starts with a pediatrician or a school saying the word “autism” and a parent opening their phone in the parking lot. The first search is rarely the clinical term. It’s “autism therapy near me,” “ABA therapy that takes Aetna,” “autism evaluation [town]” or, increasingly, a question typed into an AI assistant: “what is ABA therapy and how do I get it covered?”
From there the pattern is consistent across every market we work in. The parent opens the map pack, reads the reviews on the three closest centers, and submits a form or calls two or three of them the same evening. The provider that calls back first, confirms the insurance, and books an intake assessment gets the child. The others get a voicemail two weeks later saying “we went with someone else.”
That’s why our ABA work is built around three things most agencies ignore: showing up for the right families (payer and age range in the ad, not just the landing page), getting the inquiry to a human inside 15 minutes, and keeping the family warm while they wait for a slot or an evaluation. The campaigns are the easy part. Intake is where caseload is won.
What we build for an ABA provider.
Every piece reports into the portal, by center, so the executive team sees the roll-up and each center director sees their own numbers.
Insurance-first intake forms
The form asks payer, child’s age and diagnosis status before anything else, then routes accordingly. In-network families hit the 15-minute clock. Others get a private-pay path or a courteous redirect.
- Payer-aware routing to the right coordinator
- SMS and portal alert the moment the form lands
- Spanish-language forms where your centers need them
A page and a profile for every center and region
One Google Business Profile per center, verified, categorized and posted weekly. A location page per center and per in-home county, because “ABA therapy in Morris County” is a real search and “we serve New Jersey” doesn’t rank for it.
- GBP cleanup: duplicates, categories, service areas
- Location pages with payer, ages, hours and staff
- AI search optimization so assistants cite your pages
Google Ads written in payer language
Per-market campaigns with the insurers you accept in the headline. Landing pages scoped to the center-based or in-home service that location actually offers, with ages stated plainly so the clicks that arrive are ones intake can enroll.
- Campaigns per metro, budgets per center capacity
- Conversion tracking without PHI
- Health ad policy review handled before launch
Diagnostic evaluation funnels
Where you offer evaluations, we build standalone pages per center with age range, wait time, languages and payers stated up front, and route those inquiries to whoever books assessments. It’s often the least contested, highest intent front door you have.
- “Autism evaluation near me” pages per center
- No-waitlist messaging where it’s true
- Evaluation-to-therapy handoff tracked in the portal
The review engine
Review requests after every intake and every milestone, routed to the right center’s profile. Response drafts for the reviews you get. Below 4.7 stars, families scroll past you no matter what we spend, so this runs on every account.
- Automated requests via SMS after intake
- Per-center rating tracked in the portal
- Response templates your BCBAs can approve
Waitlist and referral-source nurture
A waitlist with no follow-up is a list of families calling your competitors. We build the sequence that keeps them yours, and we track which pediatricians, school districts and payers are actually sending you families.
- Status updates and “while you wait” guidance
- Referral-source tagging alongside digital
- Capacity-aware spend: budget moves to centers with openings
What one enrolled client is worth, and what it should cost to add one.
The numbers that matter in ABA are hours authorized, rate per hour and how long the client stays. Everything else follows from those.
| Program type | Hours / week | Revenue / year | Lifetime at ~2 yrs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focused, in-home | 10 to 15 | $35k to $50k | $70k to $100k |
| Comprehensive, center-based | 25 to 35 | $75k to $110k | $150k to $220k |
| Blended average we plan to | 20 | $60k to $75k | $75k conservative |
Figures assume $55 to $75 per hour blended across technician and BCBA time, 48 billable weeks, and a typical 18 to 30 month tenure. They are gross revenue, not margin, and vary by payer mix and state. At $75k per client and a Growth plan with $6k a month in ad spend, three new enrollments a month puts marketing at about 4% of lifetime revenue. Our target on every ABA account is under 10%.
Four things we ask of every ABA client.
They are written into the agreement. If intake can't meet them yet, we tell you what to fix before we take your money.
Answer the phone live during clinic hours.
A parent who gets voicemail calls the next center on the list. Front desk, intake coordinator or an answering service that can book: someone picks up.
Call or text every web lead within 15 minutes.
Our routing starts the clock and pings the on-duty coordinator. The portal records the time per inquiry and per center.
Mark every inquiry’s outcome once a month.
Enrolled, waitlisted, out-of-network, no diagnosis yet, or lost. Five minutes per center. It’s what makes cost per enrollment real.
Send the review request after every intake.
Automated, but someone has to let it run. Centers below 4.7 don’t get picked from the map pack.
From ABA founders we work with.
They're not a vendor. They're part of the operation. They built a system across all our locations and just kept improving it. The quality of families coming in, the consistency of the pipeline. It's not something we had before.
His understanding of how to navigate the specific challenges of our field, balancing sensitive communication with high-performance lead generation, has strengthened our ability to connect with the families who need our services most.
Quotes are from client emails and calls, used with permission. More on a qualifying call.
ABA providers we’ve done this for.
Client names and full numbers are shared on a call with their permission. Here is the shape of the work.
From referral-dependent to a paid and organic pipeline across every center.
Location pages for each center and each in-home region, Google Ads landing pages per metro with the local payers in the headline, and insurance-first intake routing into a single admissions team. About $30k a month in managed ad spend, reported by center in the portal.
Adding evaluations as a front door, with no-waitlist messaging where it was true.
Full site rebuild plus standalone diagnostic evaluation pages per center, scoped to ages 2 to 6, English-language, roughly two-week wait, with the real payer list. Ad landing pages narrowed to center-based care so the clicks that arrived were ones intake could enroll that month.
Compliance, handled before launch.
- ✓BAA available on request. Many of our clients' compliance teams require it, and we'll sign yours or ours before we touch a form or call log. Either way, no PHI goes to ad platforms.
- ✓No PHI in ad platforms. Conversion events carry no names, diagnoses or payer details. Google and Meta see a conversion, not a child.
- ✓Google healthcare ad policy. ABA campaigns get flagged for “health in personalized advertising” more often than you’d think. We structure them to pass review the first time.
- ✓Call recording consent. Tracking numbers announce recording where state law requires it (two-party consent states included). Recordings live in your account.
- ✓You own every asset. Domains, location pages, ad accounts, tracking numbers and portal data stay yours if we part ways.
Launch is day 25.
Intake, tech handoff, build, launch and QA, then scale. Nothing goes live until routing, tracking and the portal have been checked against real test inquiries. On Growth and Enterprise, if the first 30 days after launch don't produce qualified inquiries in your portal, the next month's retainer is waived.
See the 30-day roadWhat you get each month on a ABA account
- •Weekly GBP posts and review responses for every center
- •Google Ads managed daily against cost per enrollment, by center
- •Location and evaluation pages updated as capacity, payers and staff change
- •Speed-to-lead report per coordinator
- •Monthly enrollment loop: you mark outcomes, we move budget
- •A named account manager you can text
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Questions ABA operators ask us
How do you keep out-of-network families from flooding our intake?
The intake form asks for the payer before anything else and routes by the answer. In-network families go straight to your intake coordinator with the 15-minute clock running. Out-of-network families get a private-pay path or a polite redirect, so your coordinator's time goes to families you can actually enroll. Ads are also written with payer language ('accepts Aetna, Cigna and Medicaid in New Jersey') so the wrong families filter themselves out before they click.
We have a waitlist. Why would we spend on marketing?
Because a waitlist with no nurture is a list of families who are calling your competitors this week. We build the nurture sequence (status updates, what to do while you wait, evaluation scheduling where you offer it) so the family is still yours when a slot opens. And a waitlist in one center usually sits next to open capacity in another. The portal shows inquiries and capacity by center so spend moves toward the centers that can take clients now.
Can you market our diagnostic evaluations as well as therapy?
Yes, and for many providers the evaluation is the better front door. Families searching 'autism evaluation near me' are earlier in the process and less contested than 'ABA therapy near me'. We build standalone evaluation pages per center with age range, wait time, languages and payer details stated plainly, and route those inquiries to whoever books assessments.
How does this work across many centers and in-home regions?
Every center gets its own Google Business Profile, its own location page and its own tracking number. In-home service areas get region pages (county or metro) rather than a single 'we serve the whole state' page, because that's how families search. The portal reports inquiries, speed to lead and cost per enrollment per center, so a center director sees their own numbers and the executive team sees the roll-up.
What does ABA marketing cost per month?
Retainers are scoped by Google Business Profile location: $1,500 a month for one center (SEO, reviews, portal, no ads), $3,500 for two to four centers with Google Search Ads up to $10k a month in managed spend, and $5,000 and up for five to ten. Ad spend is billed to you directly by Google. Month to month, 30 days notice. Full details on the pricing page.
Do you work with new ABA practices or only established ones?
Mostly established, multi-center providers, because the intake standards assume a dedicated intake person. A new practice with one center and a founder answering the phone can qualify for Foundation if the founder commits to answering live and texting leads back within 15 minutes. We say no when we think the budget would be wasted.
Is this HIPAA compliant?
We sign a Business Associate Agreement before we touch a form or a call log. Conversion tracking is built so names, diagnoses and payer details never reach Google or Meta. Call recording announces itself where state law requires it and recordings live in your account, not ours.
How is this different from the ABA marketing agencies we've talked to?
Most report leads. We report enrollments, by center, with the cost per enrollment next to it, and we route and time every inquiry so the leads actually get a call back. We also know what kills ABA intake: out-of-network families, families with no diagnosis yet, a center director who was in session when the form came in. The system is built around those, not around clicks.
See if your ABA practice qualifies.
Fifteen minutes. We look at your centers, your payer mix and your intake, and tell you yes or no. If it’s no, we still tell you what to fix first.
- You answer the phone live during business hours
- You can call or text a web lead back within 15 minutes
- You will mark each inquiry's outcome once a month
- Your rating is 4.7 or you want help getting there
Prefer email? hello@lukrah.com