Lawyers are wrestling for cost-effective, qualified leads for their firms but because of the incredibly competitive digital playing field, the cost per qualified lead has spun way out of control. Law firms need to take advantage of all the digital channels available to them in a tightly orchestrated strategy by a competent agency or marketing team.

One of the highest yielding and most popular digital lead generation channels for law firms remains Google Ads. When implemented well, Google ads allows you to tap into an audience of users who are actively searching for your legal expertise and are anxiously ready to book a consultation with you. A poorly executed Google Ad campaign however, is a leaky pipe that can be costing you thousands in wasted ad dollars.

Google Ads For Attorneys

Some of the most expensive keywords in Google are related to the legal space due to their competitive nature, with lawyer and attorney related keywords costing well over $100 CPC (Cost per click).  In a quick search on the keyword Personal Injury Lawyer Near Me in the SEO management platform SemRush you can see that even low volume keywords can cost as much as $245 a click!

Three Big Risks To Your Law Firm Ad Campaigns

(Not Using) Negative Keywords in Google Ads

According to Google a negative keyword is a “type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. Your ads aren’t shown to anyone who is searching for that phrase. This is also known as a negative match”. In other words, negative keywords ensure your ads don’t appear on irrelevant, non-targeted searches.

Let’s say you are bidding on the term “car accident lawyer” (with a CPC of $209) but Google serves your ad up to a user who has searched for the query “ will insurance provide a car accident lawyer”. If a user searches for this term and then clicks on your ad, that will cost you over $200!

By utilizing negative keywords, you can make sure that your ad simply does not show when users search for a phrase which includes the term “insurance”, and plug this leak.

Using negative keywords effectively is key to a successful campaign. When we take on a new client and review their campaign, one of our first activities is to audit their keywords to see if they have properly utilized negative keywords. This adjustment usually brings an immediate gain, by translating into more qualified leads for less ad spend.

Not Using Broad Type in Your Google Campaigns

One of the first steps in creating a successful campaign is to refine your audience in order to ensure your audience targeting is on the mark.  Broad Match, Google’s default ad option, is sometimes referred to as the modus operandi of a lazy marketer (or the pitfall of a new marketer).

Let’s say you want to target users who search for the term “car accident lawyer in Denver”. If you utilize broad match, your ad can show any time someone searches for any of the words in that phrase. So even if someone just searches for “lawyer near me”, your ad can show. So if you’re a car accident lawyer, and the person who searches “lawyer near me” is really searching for, let’s say, a family lawyer, your ad will show, even though in this case it will be completely untargeted. The end result will be thousands of dollars in wasted ad spend.

Sound bad? Well, the reality is that using broad match is even worse than the example above. The truth is that when you use broad match, Google can hypothetically show your ad even if none of the words in the search term match your target keyword. Just as long as Google thinks there is some kind of correlation, it can show your ad, and charge you for clicks.

Beginners to Google Ads might think this is a good thing, but trust us, it is not. You want absolute control over the search terms which trigger your ads, and this means that utilizing broad match is a bad practice. Instead, you’ll want to use a combination of exact match, phrase match, and broad match modifier (BMM), which give you far more control over when your ads appear.

Not Considering Message Match In Your Ad Campaign Landing Pages

A well targeted and crafted ad can only get you so far. Post click your user needs to land on a page that is relevant, informative and that solves a problem they have. Furthermore, one of the best methods to increase conversions on landing pages is through the use of “message match”. Message match refers to the practice of fine-tuning the landing page experience according to the context of the ad.  The better the congruence between the ad and landing page (and search term, when relevant), the higher the likelihood of success.

The first image shows an example of an ad. The second image shows the top portion of the landing page. Notice how each of the selling points in the ad (affordability, approachability, finding a solution for you and your children) is mirrored on the landing page.  By utilizing this approach, we are able to generate conversion rates of over 19%, which is far above the industry average.

About the Author

Fran Jakubowicz is the CEO of SunHouse Marketing, a full service digital marketing agency with a track record of excellence. A digital lead generation expert, Fran and her team have generated hundreds of thousands of leads and millions of dollars in sales for her clients. Working across multiple verticals including tech, health, pharmaceutical, finance, law, education, non-profit and eCommerce, Fran and her team have been helping organizations reach their digital goals since 2009.