Paid Ads Management For Law Firms

Why Paid Ads for Law Firms?

Pay-Per-Click, or PPC, advertising allows you to target ads to potential clients who are searching specifically for the services and practice areas you offer.

PPC is an important piece of a law firm’s overall marketing strategy because, generally, it can get you a much faster return than a SEO-only strategy. An increased PPC budget will almost immediately result in an increase in leads and traffic if run properly.

How Does It Work?

With PPC advertising, your ads are shown on various platforms (like Google, Bing, Facebook, and others) when a set condition matches a potential client. For more intent-based networks like Google Ads, it may be that your ad only shows when someone searches for "car accident lawyer in Atlanta".

PPC advertising only results in charges when your link is clicked by the user. This is an extremely efficient way to approach your law firm ad spend because you only pay for the traffic you actually get.

PPC also increases the benefit of creative and outreach keywords (ex: searches relating to car accidents, not just legal car accident questions). This way, you can increase visibility to potential clients without overspending on impressions alone.

How Is PPC Different Than SEO?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a strategy that uses a number of different tactics that aim to build your website’s reputation online over time, whereas PPC aims for quick results. With PPC, when you turn off the campaign, the additional leads and traffic stop, whereas with SEO there is a residual effect.

We like to compare it to building a fire - PPC is gasoline and SEO is the wood. The gas provides an immediate result (like PPC), but if you want something that goes for a long time and is sustainable, wood (SEO) is the best way to do it.

Measuring PPC Campaign Success

How do you calculate the cost and success of a law firm PPC campaign? Although we recommend that you base your success on the last two metrics, there are multiple commonly-used metrics that help measure and hone the effectiveness of a pay-per-click campaign.

• CTR (Click-Through Rate)
• CPC (Cost Per Click)
• CPL (Cost Per Lead)
• CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

What is CTR - Click-Through Rate?

CTR stands for click-through rate. This is a simple measure of how many times your ad compared to how many times it's seen. If you are showing up for the right keywords and your ad is well-configured for the users you find there, your CTR will increase along with your potential to create and convert a lead.

What is CPC - Cost-Per-Click?

CPC stands for cost-per-click. Cost per click is the amount that you pay for each potential client that actually clicks on your ad to go to your website or landing page. It is the quoted price provided by your PPC platform like Facebook or Google. Your deposited ad spend will slowly deplete with each click based on the CPC, whether or not that click results in a conversion.

What is CPL - Cost-Per-Lead?

Cost per lead is a critical metric to the success of your PPC campaign. To calculate cost per lead, take the number of verified leads (that is, people who need what you're offering and have reached out through your ad) and divide your total ad spend by that number.

As a simple example, if you spend $1,000 advertising your family law practice, and you get 20 legitimate leads out of it, your cost-per-lead is $50 ($1,000 / 20 leads).

What is CPA - Cost-Per-Acquisition?

CPA stands for cost-per-acquisition. You may also hear us (and others) reference this as cost-per-case in the legal world. This is where your sales process comes into play. How many of those 20 leads from the above example are turning into clients? 50%?

If you're able to turn 50% of the leads into clients, your cost per case would be $100 ($1,000 / (20 leads * 50% conversion rate)).

From that number, you can tell how successful your advertising is based on practice area metrics, or even simpler - if you could pay $100 for a new client, you'd probably want to spend that money all day long, right?

How is a Law Firm's PPC Budget Determined?

Recommended PPC budget can be roughly determined based on the number of searches in your area for your practice areas, the cost per click of relevant keywords, and your amount of desired new cases. You can also work backwards from that - how many new cases do you want? Then determine budget based on the other metrics.

What are LSAs (Google Local Services Ads) and How Do They Work?

Google Local Services Ads for lawyers are yet another type of ads - Pay Per Lead (PPL) ads. LSAs are charged per lead when Google delivers a lead to you that, in theory, is prequalified for your services. And, if they're not, you can dispute the lead and potentially get a refund.

These ads are automated suggestions when Google things someone might be searching for a local service. For example, "car accident advice" might be searching for basic tips, emotional support, or a personal injury lawyer. Therefore, the 3 Google LSA suggestions that pop up would be local law firms associated with those keywords.

LSAs are Google trying to guess what a client wants based on intent analysis, then providing local solutions to what might be an IRL problem. Law firms have a lot to gain from setting up Google's Local Service Ads for this reason.

Up Your Law Firm's Paid Ad Results With LegalScapes

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