Algorithms shape the way people experience technology. In sensitive sectors like elder care, it’s not enough to optimize for clicks or revenue. Empathy and impact must guide design choices.
Elderado is heavily impacted by these realities to ensure we create a safe haven for our users free from unconscious bias that may impact long term and sensitive life decisions.
This forces us down a different fork in the road than traditional ad tech and lead generation companies go.
Traditional ad tech companies optimize heavily for conversions and monetization. The leads get sold to the highest bidder.
In the elder care space, we believe the value to the family in finding the right fit retirement home is the most critical metric to optimize for.
This is the exact reason why we always say no to advertisers that ask if they can give us money to send them customers.
Empathy matters in this industry. If we make our business around driving leads to the companies that pay us the most money, then we inherently fail at connecting families with the best fit retirement or long term care homes that they may potentially be interested in seeing. It's a simple conflict of interest.
Elderado's Approach to Algorithmic Ad Serving
The reality is that Elderado is a for profit company, and we make money by displaying ads on our website.
So, how do we walk this line?
Simple: we always make family first decisions. If we execute a certain business tactic or strategy, would we still use Elderado to find a home for our aging love one personally?
For example, we have a "Nearby Companies" widget listed on company pages.
Even customers on our highest plans (currently the gold package, click here to learn more) have no guarantee to even appear here.
Often times, companies that aren't even customers of ours will occupy the top spots in these premium ad placement locations.
Why?
Because we optimize for what we value: Helping families find the perfect home for their elderly loved one that matches what they are looking for.
This means if a retirement home is paying us money, we prioritize its placement on homes that are similar to it.
Of course, paying customers get an edge over non paying, but it isn't a simple "pay to play" game. Relevance to the end user is the most important metric, and ultimately has the biggest factor in when a company is shown within the Nearby Companies widget.
This compromise simply boils down to an empathy driven approach. Our users are often already in a stressful period of their life while trying to determine what options exist in the market, who has availability and what is within their budget. The last thing we want to do is add yet another hurdle by showing them irrelevant ads that don't add value to their life.
Ad Free Zones in Elderado
I mentioned earlier that we explicitly deny advertisers that offer us money in exchange of sending them direct leads or customers.
We also go one step further and have certain internal rules that restrict any monetary aspect to influence certain areas of Elderado.
Two areas that we feel are important to keep bias free:
First: The availability registry: we believe giving users access to relevant and up to date information without having to worry about any sort of bias is critical. This decision is because of how critical this information is to have when in a crisis scenario. If we can help reduce the time it takes for a family to find a respite or other type of arrangement to help discharge from the hospital, we're all for it.
Second: The Elderado map: we believe there should always be a very basic way to search and filter for homes that are specific to our users' individual circumstance. Whether it is distance, language, types of care or otherwise, we want them to find what they're looking for fast and easily.
Takeaways
- Empathy must be built into algorithms from the ground up.
- Impact > revenue as the north star metric.
- Clear values simplify tough product and monetization decisions.
- Alignment with all stakeholders maintains both trust and profitability.
- Ad-tech principles can be adapted responsibly to serve vulnerable communities.