Pay-per-click advertising has quickly become a staple for law firms with a strong and growing online presence. However, as the numbers of attorneys using PPC have grown, the challenge of breaking through and being seen by potential clients has become more difficult. New skills and tactics are constantly employed, from sophisticated keyword research tools to AI-driven software.
That’s why any law firm serious about their PPC advertising should access a legal consulting program like the one Brain Trust Legal runs. The tried and true formulas used by founders Rob Levine and Darryl Isaacs in their 50+ years of successful law firm ownership can be invaluable in growing and improving your PPC game. Below are some insights and information that only begin to scratch the surface of what you can learn by working with Brain Trust Legal consulting.
This is a great and important question, and many attorneys have no idea how something as simple as narrow versus broad targeting can have such an enormous impact on PPC results. Let’s start with an example to illustrate:
If you’re an attorney looking for clients, you might think terms like “lawyer” or “personal injury” might be ideal terms to target your ads with; however, there are big problems when going that wide. Think about how many potential searches could contain the word “lawyer” that aren’t looking for your specific practice area. You’ll be paying every time someone clicks on your ad to ask about estate planning and dog bites and criminal defense, none of which might be your focus. That doesn’t even include searches for “lawyer” where the person searching doesn’t even actually need a lawyer, they’re just looking for a definition or even searching a description of a legal TV series they can’t remember the name of.
The phrase “personal injury attorney near me” is a popular phrase for targeting because it makes clear which type of attorney it is, and adding “near me” means they’re likely looking for someone to represent them in their local area. Half the job of good keyword and phrase targeting is not just knowing words that relate to you, but considering the way in which potential clients would phrase their searches when looking for you. When you can crack that code, that is the kind of narrow-focus PPC targeting that will really help your ads perform well without costing a ton.
Law firm owners frequently ask about the efficacy of working with an outside vendor to handle their PPC versus having a trained team member in-house handling all their PPC needs. The truth is there are benefits and deficits to both, and factoring which ones matter most to you can make the difference in your decision.
First, there’s the challenge of making sure you’re finding the right team member. As an attorney without a strong understanding of PPC, you may not be fully equipped to know if you’ve made the right hire. However, the same can be true of hiring vendors as well as in-house team members, so that risk exists to different degrees for both options.
The second is that, while PPC is an important and complicated skill set, the amount of work and responsibility does not rise to the level of needing a single dedicated team member. Because of that, one of two options would be necessary. First, a team member could be hired to handle PPC in addition to other tasks such as website maintenance or SEO; however, that would mean finding a team member that has training in more than one area of expertise, and that can be challenging. Second, you could bring on a team member part time or in a contract capacity to handle PPC. In that case, that situation is not much different from having a vendor.
One of the most difficult things for a law firm owner to do is sift through the complicated technical language that vendors use. They frequently attempt to speak over a client’s head in an attempt to avoid answering tough questions or admitting that a campaign is not doing as well as it should. While no attorney will ever know everything about PPC campaigns, it does help to know a few key concepts and terms that are used frequently and reveal information about PPC campaigns. Terms like:
A click-through is simply when someone clicks on your ad. The rate is determined by dividing the total number of impressions (an impression is when your ad appears in front of someone) by the number of click-throughs. The final number gives you a sense how many people who have seen your ad end up clicking on your ad.
The cost per click shows you how much of your budget has been spent for each time someone clicks on your ad. You get this by taking the entirety of your budget over a certain amount of time and dividing it by the number of clicks the ad received in the same amount of time. This helps you establish how much each click costs you.
An impression, unlike a click, doesn’t necessarily require any action from a user. AN impression simply means that the ad appeared in front of them. They may click on it, or they may ignore it, or they may glance at it and then scroll away. All of them would be considered an impression. You find this number by taking the budget and dividing it by the number of impressions.
This is also known as cost per customer/client, and it is an important number because it tells you how much you’re spending to get clients in any given PPC campaign. You get this number by taking the budget and dividing it by the number of clients you acquired.
The conversion rate measures the number of people who became a client once they clicked on your ad. This percentage is a helpful metric because it gives you an idea of ad performance, allowing you to make decisions on what to change to improve.
It’s not good enough to do as much as you did last year for your PPC campaigns, or even last month. Technology changes and evolves, and more attorneys get into the game every day. All of these are unique challenges that make finding potential clients more complicated than ever before. That’s why working with Brain Trust Legal consulting is ideal for serious law firms looking to grow their online awareness and strengthen their PPC strategy.
To learn more about how Rob Levine and Darryl Isaacs can provide the fuel you need to see your firm take off, you can call (855)743-1636 from anywhere nationwide to speak with a member of the BTL team.
