Detox. Residential. PHP. IOP. Virtual outpatient. We shoot the video, run the ads, build the website, and automate the admissions CRM. The agency Preston wishes had existed when he was the owner.
Each level of care has different buyers, different keywords, different ad platforms that will approve, and different content that converts. PELORA tunes the engine for the level your program actually delivers.
The highest-intent search category in behavioral health. Buyers are families in crisis. Conversion windows are measured in hours, not days.
The flagship product for most programs. Highest LTV per admission. Buyers research deeply before deciding. Video and alumni stories convert here.
Step-down from residential or step-up from IOP. Often paired with sober living. Local SEO and referral relationships matter as much as paid.
The volume engine for most programs. Lower LTV per client but higher census potential. Insurance-aware messaging is critical.
The fastest-scaling level of care in 2026. Multi-state licensure unlocks national paid media. Telehealth-style funnel performs.
Preston Durnford co-founded Fresh Start of California Detox in 2015 and ran admissions, intake, clinical operations, BD, and the back-office stack hands-on for nine years. The program was acquired in 2024. He co-founded SoCal Mental Health and raised $12M in capital. Twelve years sober. Author of The Epic Journal, 20,000+ copies sold. PELORA is the marketing agency he wishes had existed when he was the client.
That operator history is the difference. We do not need to be educated on what a UR cycle looks like, why your VOB process matters more than your CTR, or why a $400 cost per lead can still be too expensive. We have lived it.
From the founder · 2 min
Preston Durnford · PELORA
Families do not enroll loved ones in detox or residential treatment based on a banner ad. They enroll because they watched a video that built trust. The treatment centers that compound are the ones telling the real story on camera, from every angle, every week.
The why behind the program. The clinical philosophy. What makes you different. The non-negotiables. This is the trust foundation every other video builds on.
TrustMedical director, clinical director, primary therapists, case managers. Walk through methodology, modalities (CBT, DBT, EMDR, somatic, group, family), and clinical day. Builds professional credibility.
CredibilityBHTs see what the clinical team does not. The 3am moments. The milieu. The small interactions that make or break a stay. Most underused video subject in the industry.
AuthenticityHonest stories from graduates, with full HIPAA-compliant media releases. The single most powerful conversion asset a treatment center can hold. Long-form, short-form, every channel.
ConversionMom. Dad. Spouse. Sibling. The people who paid for treatment, picked up the phone at 2am, and now have their loved one back. This is the most overlooked content category and the most persuasive to the actual buyer.
The buyerThe same shoot becomes a website hero, a blog inset, alumni reels, ad creative, YouTube long-form, TikTok cuts, Instagram carousels, podcast clips, and email and SMS autoplay. Strategic, not scattershot.
Long-form behavioral health and recovery interviews with people who actually move the conversation. Plus event work powered by PELORA.
Watch · Long-form
State of Mind
Featured · State of Mind with Maurice Benard
Maurice Benard. 3x Emmy-winning General Hospital star and one of the loudest mental-health advocates in the country.
Episode 46
The Epic Journal
The Epic Journal · Ep. 46
Recovery, founder mindset, and the lessons behind building treatment programs.
Watch · Long-form
Founder interview
Long-form interview
The same playbook PELORA walks every behavioral health client through, told from the operator side first.
1h 26m
Cambria Judd, MD
Functional medicine · Behavioral health
Preston Durnford x Cambria Judd, MD on functional medicine inside behavioral health and recovery programs.
49 min
Sam Mandel
Ketamine clinic · Mental health
Preston Durnford x Sam Mandel on ketamine therapy, IV protocols, and how clinics are scaling responsibly.
1h 01m
Dr. Kristi Vaughan
Functional medicine · Recovery
Preston Durnford x Dr. Kristi Vaughan on functional medicine protocols inside behavioral health treatment.
Alumni story
Will Mansfield · Pacific Shores
Alumni interview · Pacific Shores Recovery (partner program)
The exact format we shoot for treatment center clients. Real alumni, with full media release, telling the story their way. This is what one day of shooting at your facility produces.
1 min · Brand asset
The Epic Journal
Brand video · The Epic Journal · 20K+ copies sold
The behavioral health book Preston created. The same brand-asset format we produce for treatment centers, mental health programs, and consumer health brands.
Powered by PELORA
Red Songbird Foundation
Event work · Red Songbird Foundation
Sheckler, Alvarez & Bereman activation. The kind of event content treatment centers can produce for their alumni days, family weekends, and community partnerships.
Verified Google reviews from clients of Epic Journey Recovery (epicjourneyrecovery.co), the behavioral health program Preston operates as a sister company to PELORA Marketing. Same founder. Same operator hands. Same standard.
"I can't say enough good things about Epic Journey Wellness. They are truly changing lives in the most powerful way. This incredible team takes people in early recovery and gives them something most programs never do: show you that you can actually have a fun life sober. Real, exciting, soul-filling experiences in the outdoors. Skydiving, motocross, surfing, epic camping trips in Joshua Tree, and so much more. They've created a program that doesn't just help people stay sober, it helps them fall in love with life again. They helped transform a very close friend's life, and they've had a profound impact on my own journey as well. The growth, confidence, and joy I've witnessed is nothing short of miraculous. The staff is passionate, caring, and genuinely invested in every person they work with. They don't just facilitate adventures, they build community, resilience, and lasting hope. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health and needs a fresh, empowering path forward, I cannot recommend Epic Journey Wellness highly enough."
"Epic Journey and specifically Preston have been a God send over the last few years while we have been trying to help my son with his addiction and mental health challenges. Even though we don't have a lot, I feel every penny spent was invaluable in helping us as a family deal and helped inform us of what we should and shouldn't be doing, providing guidance of different options for treatment and for modeling such an amazing role model for my son. I highly recommend Preston, his positivity and knowledge make him a pleasure to work with and he really cares and works to connect with his clients."
"I'm incredibly grateful for the support and guidance I received from this company during one of the most important times in my life. I especially want to recognize Preston, who has been my biggest mentor throughout this journey. His guidance, encouragement, and belief in me made a huge difference during some of the toughest moments. Having someone like him in my corner gave me the strength and confidence to keep moving forward."
"This program and the people involved have created something amazing. They help people in recovery and their family as well with the right resources. There's not many people that offer services like this and it really shows how much they care for the people they work with. A+ tools towards a healthy lifestyle. Epic Journey has very special place in my heart."
"Been working with Preston for the last decade. His heart comes through in every experience he puts together. His passion and purpose is contagious."
"During my time in treatment Epic Journey showed me that there is a ton of fun in the world that doesn't involve substances. It also showed me that there is so much out there for me and that I'm not alone in this."
"My sister was going through serious challenges with addiction and mental health, and I was struggling with my own at the same time. Epic Journey genuinely helped. The support felt real, not scripted. They understood that when someone you love is in crisis, you're in one too. I left with better tools, more clarity, and a lot more hope than I came in with."
"Epic Journey has been doing incredible work in the space. I've seen countless lives changed throughout my time with Preston and his team. They truly care about their clients which is a quality that is so rare to come by these days."
"I can't say enough great things about Epic Journey Wellness. The owner is a good friend of mine, and I've seen firsthand how much passion, care, and intention he puts into helping people improve their health, mindset, and overall well-being. Epic Journey Wellness is built on genuine service, integrity, and a real desire to help people feel better and live better."
"Epic Journey has been really great. They genuinely care about the people they're helping and take the time to support both individuals in recovery and their families. It doesn't feel generic or forced, you can tell they actually want to make a difference."
"Epic Journey wellness is going above and beyond with their work in helping people with recovery and their families who love them. To say they care is an understatement, but they truly do care about the people they work with and it shows!"
"During some of the hardest times of my life, Preston believed in me and helped me see the value in myself when I couldn't see it on my own. From mountain biking to skydiving, an adventure always awaits with Epic Journey."
"Epic Journey Wellness isn't just about recovery. It's about building a life you actually want to live. Through their approach, I've seen what it means to focus on inner work, real growth, and creating a life filled with purpose, connection, and experiences that make using feel unnecessary, breaking the cycle of addiction."
"Epic Journey Wellness is doing amazing work helping people in recovery and the families who love them. They truly care about the people they work with and it shows."
"Epic Journey Wellness is doing incredible work in the recovery and mental health space. They helped impact numerous friend's lives and I can't recommend them enough!"
"Epic Journey Wellness is doing incredible work in the recovery and mental health space. They helped change one of my employees lives and I can't recommend them enough for their professionalism and integrity."
"The best place ever! Showing so much support and so much excitement being life back is the best experience ever."
"Preston is doing incredible work with Epic Journey Wellness and leading the recovery and mental health space for like-minded people. I 100% recommend them, they helped change my friend's life around."
"The founder, Preston, and staff have personally spent many days, weeks and months with me showing me I can grow and have fun in my recovery as well as my mental health. If you want real results with permanent life changes, I would highly recommend this place."
"They're changing the game in the recovery and mental health space, so if you're looking for a different, exciting and non-cookie cutter approach to once again taking control of your life then I highly recommend them. Thank you Preston!"
"Epic Journey is exactly what it is, Epic. People in recovery want to feel life again. Preston is an excellent example of that. From sky diving to snorkeling and more awesome adventures, you will feel joy again. Most importantly, Preston cares!"
Behind every PELORA engagement is a founder who has actually moved people through recovery, scaled a multi-million dollar treatment business, and earned this kind of feedback in the hardest category that exists.
Book a Strategy CallNo four-vendor handoffs. The same team shoots the video, runs the ads, builds the website, and tunes the CRM. Operator-led. Premium output. No junior team handling your brand.
Multi-day shoots capturing owners, clinical team, BHTs, alumni, and alumni family. Shot in-house at your facility (with HIPAA-compliant releases) or off-site as needed.
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn. Strategy, calendar, posting, captions, hashtags, community management, DM workflow, and integration to your admissions team.
LegitScript and TID compliant Google Ads (paid search, YouTube, display, retargeting). Meta ads through healthcare review queue with restricted-category compliant creative.
Conversion-focused websites and landing page builds. Built on Webflow or WordPress with full Schema.org structured data, Core Web Vitals tested, mobile-first, AI-search ready.
4 to 8 blog posts per month written in your voice, with FAQ Schema and internal linking. Ranks in traditional SEO and gets cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews.
HubSpot or GoHighLevel as the marketing front-end. Integrates to Kipu, Sunwave, BestNotes, Lightning Step, AdvancedMD. Speed-to-lead under 5 minutes. Missed-call text-back.
Behavioral health is the most regulated marketing vertical that exists. PELORA does not pretend to be a law firm, but we know the playing field. We work alongside your compliance officer and healthcare-marketing attorney on every engagement.
Treatment centers must be LegitScript certified to advertise addiction services on Google Ads. Application is roughly $1,995 per facility plus annual renewal. Google TID adds call-tracking compliance. PELORA helps every client through both processes.
2018 federal statute prohibits anything-of-value payments to induce patient referrals. Applies to every state. Our retainers are flat fee. We do not buy or sell leads. We do not pay employees commissions tied to specific admissions.
Stricter than HIPAA for SUD records. No current-client filming without specific written auth. Alumni media releases must explicitly cover marketing channels and duration. We structure creative on the safe side of Part 2.
Alumni testimonials and influencer content must carry FTC-compliant disclosures (#ad, paid partnership, sponsored). Outcomes claims must be substantiated. No "guaranteed sobriety" language. Ever.
Florida 817.505 and California-specific statutes carry criminal penalties for patient brokering. We avoid contingency-fee referral relationships entirely. Marketing is structured as flat-fee services.
Meta classifies addiction and behavioral health as a restricted vertical. Ads run through healthcare review and may require Special Ad Category. We structure creative for approval first time, every time.
The standard PELORA onboarding for a behavioral health program. Built so your admissions team feels new lead flow inside the first month, not the third.
30 minutes with Preston. Your category, levels of care, current funnel, current spend, current census gaps.
Free audit on website, ads, social, and CRM. Tier recommendation. Scope sent within 72 hours.
Multi-day shoot at your facility. Owner, clinical team, BHTs, alumni (with release), family. Asset library built for 90 days of distribution.
Website or landing pages live. CRM and SMS automation wired. LegitScript queued. Meta and Google creative staged.
Paid traffic on. Daily optimization. Weekly admissions team sync. Monthly performance review with Preston.
Behavioral health pricing reflects what the work actually costs to deliver at compliant, on-location, operator-led quality. For full retainer breakdown across all six PELORA tiers, see the main pricing page.
Smaller programs ($300K to $1M monthly revenue) can start on our $2,500 Launch or $4,500 Growth tier and scale into the bigger work as census grows. See all six tiers →
PELORA Marketing is a behavioral health marketing agency in Newport Beach, California, founded by Preston Durnford, who has owned and operated licensed treatment programs since 2015. We work with detox, residential, PHP, IOP, virtual outpatient, mental health, dual-diagnosis, eating disorder, and trauma programs. Our edge: operator experience. We have run admissions, intake, clinical operations, BD, and back-office stack as the operator, not the vendor. Marketing for behavioral health is fundamentally different from any other vertical because of restricted ad categories, LegitScript and TID requirements, HIPAA, 42 CFR Part 2, and state patient-brokering laws. PELORA builds the engine end to end.
Yes. PELORA markets across the full continuum: medical detox (5 to 14 days), residential treatment (30, 60, 90 days), partial hospitalization (PHP), intensive outpatient (IOP), virtual or remote outpatient (telehealth, app-based), sober living, mental health residential, dual-diagnosis, primary mental health, eating disorder treatment, trauma programs, and family programs. Each LOC has different buyer personas (the patient, the family, the referral source, the case manager, the EAP), different keyword targets, different ad platforms that approve, and different content needs.
Video is the highest-trust format and behavioral health is the highest-trust purchase a family will ever make. People do not enroll a loved one in detox or residential treatment based on a banner ad. They enroll because they watched a video of the owner explaining how the program works, the clinical director walking through a clinical day, the BHTs talking about the milieu, alumni telling their honest story, and family members of alumni explaining how the program changed everything. PELORA captures all of that on location and distributes it across the website, blog, social, ads, email, and SMS. One day of shooting can fuel three months of distribution.
PELORA films five distinct subjects: 1) Owners or executives on philosophy and differentiator; 2) Clinical team (medical director, clinical director, primary therapists, case managers) on methodology and modalities (CBT, DBT, EMDR, somatic, group, family); 3) Behavioral health technicians on the milieu and 24-hour experience; 4) Alumni with full media release; 5) Alumni family members with full media release. HIPAA compliance is preserved through written authorization (HIPAA-compliant media release forms), blurring of identifying details when requested, off-property filming when required, and never filming current clients without explicit written consent. We work alongside your compliance officer and clinical director on every shoot.
Yes. Treatment centers can run Google Ads when LegitScript-certified and Telephone Identification (TID) verified through Google. Initial fee is roughly $1,995 per facility plus annual renewal, with an inspection cycle. PELORA helps clients through the LegitScript application, Google's addiction services policy, and the TID requirements. Once certified, we run paid search across high-intent terms (detox near me, residential rehab + city, IOP + insurance, mental health treatment + state), display, YouTube, and remarketing. We track CPL, qualified-lead rate, admission rate, and cost-per-admission by source.
Yes, with care. Meta classifies addiction and behavioral health as a restricted vertical. Ads must be approved through Meta's healthcare review queue. PELORA structures creative around education, family resources, alumni stories with permission, and softer entry points (free family guides, masterclasses, podcasts, audio content) rather than direct intake calls in cold creative. Once a prospect engages, we move them to our LegitScript-certified site and the high-intent funnel. We have shipped Meta creative for behavioral health programs that has cleared review and scaled past $500 cost-per-action thresholds without violations.
PELORA integrates with the EHR and admissions platforms behavioral health programs already use: Kipu, Sunwave, BestNotes, Lightning Step, AdvancedMD, TenEleven. On the marketing side, we use HubSpot or GoHighLevel as the marketing/admissions front-end CRM. Critical features: speed-to-lead under 5 minutes, missed-call text-back, two-way SMS for admissions, family contact tracking, insurance VOB workflow integration, referral source attribution, and outcomes tracking back to the source channel. We tune for cost-per-admission, not cost-per-lead, because anyone in this industry has been burned by cheap leads that never convert.
Industry benchmarks for behavioral health spend run 15 to 25 percent of gross revenue for growth-stage programs and 8 to 12 percent for steady-state. A 30-bed residential program doing $1.2M to $2.5M in monthly revenue typically allocates $30,000 to $80,000 per month across paid ads, ad management, video, social, web, CRM, and SEO. PELORA retainers for behavioral health start at $6,500 per month (Scale tier), $12,000 (Enterprise), and $18,000+ (Full-Service). Smaller programs can start at our $2,500 Launch or $4,500 Growth tiers and scale into the bigger work as census grows.
LegitScript is the third-party certification body Google requires for any business advertising addiction treatment, drug rehab, alcohol rehab, or substance use treatment on Google Ads. The application reviews clinical licensure, accreditation (Joint Commission or CARF), staffing, treatment philosophy, ownership, operating history, and compliance with state and federal law. Initial fee roughly $1,995 per facility plus annual renewal of $1,995 per facility, with an inspection in the first cycle. Without it, Google will not approve ads in the addiction services category. PELORA helps every client through the LegitScript application and Google TID setup once certification is approved.
42 CFR Part 2 is the federal regulation governing confidentiality of substance use disorder patient records. It is stricter than HIPAA and applies to any program that holds itself out as providing SUD treatment. On the marketing side: no current-client filming without specific written auth, alumni media releases must explicitly cover the marketing channels and duration of use, no PHI in ad creative, no client photos in social posts without consent. PELORA structures creative on the safe side of Part 2: alumni stories run under written release, current clients are never filmed in identifiable ways, clinical content is permission-cleared by your compliance officer before publishing.
Yes. The federal Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act (EKRA, 2018) prohibits paying or receiving anything of value to induce patient referrals. State laws are tighter. Florida 817.505 carries criminal penalties. California enforces aggressively under multiple statutes. EKRA applies to addiction treatment in any state. The practical impact: we do not buy leads from third-party referral aggregators on contingency, we do not pay employees commissions tied to specific admissions, and all paid relationships are flat-fee marketing services rather than per-patient incentives. PELORA retainers are flat fee. We do not sell leads. We do not take commissions on admissions.
Preston has been inside the behavioral health space for 12 years as both operator and marketer. The order matters: marketing was the first business. Originally called Epic Journey, the marketing agency profits funded the opening of the first detox in 2015 (Fresh Start of California Detox, sold 2024). From there: co-founded SoCal Mental Health ($12M raised), authored The Epic Journal (20,000+ copies sold, 1,000 to 1,500 monthly organic), and now operates Epic Journey Recovery (epicjourneyrecovery.co) as the sister behavioral health company to PELORA. Preston has been featured on State of Mind with Maurice Benard (3x Emmy winner, General Hospital, one of the loudest mental-health advocates in the country), The Epic Journal podcast, and other long-form behavioral health interviews. PELORA is the agency he wishes had existed when he was the client. Full founder story →
Yes. PELORA works with behavioral health programs across the United States. We are headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with concentrated client work across Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego, the Bay Area, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee, Utah, and remote nationwide. We travel for on-location video shoots and have a vetted network of regional camera operators and creative directors so production quality stays consistent regardless of location.
Your category, levels of care, current funnel, current spend, current census gaps. I run the call personally. No pitch deck. Yes-fit or no-fit on the call. If we are a fit, scope follows in 72 hours. If not, you leave with a punch list you can hand any agency.