Law firms have multiple options to choose from when building a marketing strategy. Getting the right mix of tools is critical to ensuring the best ROI for your marketing dollars. SEO, LSAs, billboards, TV ads – the choices are endless, leaving many to wonder how to decide if PPC is right for your law firm.

PPC advertising can be highly effective; when done right, PPC campaigns can supercharge a multi-layered online marketing strategy that elevates your law firm’s visibility and competitive edge. PPC offers a unique opportunity to directly target and reach clients who are actively seeking legal services. By bidding on keywords directly related to your firm’s practice areas, you can appear at the top of search engine results, thereby attracting more traffic to your website.

But a law firm must be strategic in its approach to PPC to avoid overspending and redundancy. A PPC campaign should be tailored, monitored, and measured to ensure optimal results. How to decide whether PPC is right for your law firm requires the following things:

• Define clear goals and objectives.
• Know your target audience.
• Conduct keyword research.
• Craft compelling ad copy.
• Utilize ad extensions.
• Set specific and realistic budgets.
• Monitor and optimize campaigns.
• Continually test and refine different ad formats.
• Implement conversion tracking.

If all of this sounds a bit heady and complicated, it can be. Attorneys who’d rather focus on winning cases may want to hire a law firm marketing agency to craft and manage your customized PPC for lawyers strategy.

A PPC campaign should be tailored, monitored, and measured to ensure optimal results.

A Closer Look: What Is PPC?

PPC stands for “pay-per-click,” a form of online marketing in which a law firm pays each time a user clicks on one of their ads. A common type of PPC advertising is through search engines, such as Google Ads, where law firms bid on keywords that potential clients search for – such as Chicago personal injury lawyer, car accident lawyer, divorce attorney, and so on. PPC advertising can also be done through display ads on websites and through social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

PPC can be a fabulous tool because it allows for extreme customization when it comes to targeting such things as:

• Geography
• Device (desktop vs. mobile)
• Landing page (you get complete control over which page the user sees)
• Budget
• Demographics (like income).

Additionally, PPC starts to produce immediate results that you can see because it catapults your firm to the top of search engine results. So, what’s not to like?

Downside of PPC for Law Firms

PPC has demonstrated the capability to add increased value to your advertising spend in many ways. When implemented strategically, PPC allows for flexibility of objectives and the ability to track spending to tangible business outcomes. Successful PPC campaigns generate ROI that other advertising channels find difficult to rival. Yet, for every PPC success story, there will be an example of campaigns that burned budget with little to nothing to show in terms of desired outcomes. Why does PPC produce such disparate results? The answer lies in the details. Let’s consider the downside of PPC for law firms.

The Bell Curve

With marketing, you can’t spend a little and get a little. If you don’t have the money to get over the bell curve, then it isn’t worth pursuing. This is particularly true for more volatile practice areas. A practice area is going to be highly volatile if the difference between the lowest possible value of a case is extremely different than the maximum possible value of a case.

Car accidents are a good example. When someone googles “Car Accident Lawyer,” do they have a $5,000 case or a $500,000 case? No one knows. It’s a roll of the dice. If each case is going to cost your firm $1,000 in PPC expenditure, then it isn’t such a big deal, because you are going to make money either way. But what if the PPC expenditure is $10,000? How many cases are you willing to lose money on to get that $500,000 case? If you run out of money before you get that $500,000 case, then you are on the wrong side of the bell curve.

You Have a Terrible Website

Would you put gas in a car that has a hole in its gas tank? No, you wouldn’t. PPC is the gas that gets your website noticed. If your website isn’t designed to convert, it makes no sense to pay to get people to visit it. First impressions mean everything when it comes to online advertising. Many law firm websites can create a poor impression because:

• they aren’t mobile friendly
• they appear lackluster compared to competitors’
• they have sparse content that offers no solutions
• they don’t build a meaningful brand for your law firm.

Before you invest in a PPC campaign, you want to spend those finite marketing dollars on creating a dynamic, compelling, and user-friendly website that speaks volumes about the legal services you provide.

Low/High-Involvement Decisions

How involved is someone when deciding on an attorney? Does that change depending on whether they have a good case? Those are important questions. A person who is unwilling to invest any of their own time in finding the right attorney will most likely click on the first result in the search engine. This happens to be a PPC ad. If the person isn’t willing to put in the effort to find the best attorney for themselves, then what is the likelihood they have a good case? Not great. So, PPC ads tend to generate more poor-quality inquiries. That begs the question, do people with good cases click on PPC ads? Yes, but they are more likely to click on multiple ads and/or organic listings. People who are more involved in the decision-making process will consider multiple attorneys, and this results in comparison shopping. If you find that you get a ton of bad calls and no good calls, re-read the section above about having a bad website. You are probably losing those competitor comparisons.

Trust Issues

Some people just don’t trust advertisements, and there is nothing you can do to change that. This is a strong selling point for a strategy that utilizes both PPC and SEO. There are dozens of factors that you must consider when crafting your marketing strategy. For most law firms, PPC is an add-on but not the central or only strategy. You need to take the time to understand how to integrate PPC into a larger marketing plan.

There are upsides and downsides to PPC marketing. Make sure your PPC strategy is smart, targeted, and cost efficient and is integrated into your bigger marketing plan.

Benefits of PPC for Law Firms

A well-executed PPC campaign can enhance a law firm’s conversion rate, driving more leads to become paying clients. This is one of the benefits of PPC for law firms. When choosing elements to include in your online marketing strategy, your law firm should track and measure marketing ROI to ensure that you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck.

The benefits of PPC for law firms can include increased traffic to your website, higher visibility among your competitors, and increased cash flow from conversions. By measuring these, you can determine whether PPC should be in your marketing mix and how much you should spend on your PPC campaign.

Quality Score in PPC Campaigns

Quality Score is a crucial metric in Google Ads, and this score can help you assess the cost and effectiveness of your PPC campaign. This data can help you with decisions about your strategy and budget. It’s essentially a measure of the relevance and usefulness of your ads to the user, based on factors like click-through rate (CTR), ad relevance, and landing page experience. A high Quality Score indicates that Google thinks your ad is on point, helpful, and compelling to the user, leading to higher ad positions at lower costs. On the other hand, a low Quality Score results in your ad being placed in a lower position on the page or not shown at all.

How Much Should Your Law Firm Spend on PPC?

How much your law firm should spend on PPC is dependent on several factors – the cashflow of your firm, the size of your market, and the results you’re hoping for. That’s why it’s so important to define clear goals and objectives. You won’t know whether you hit the target if the target doesn’t exist.

Budgeting is a crucial aspect of PPC campaigns. Without a well-planned budget, you risk overspending without a proportional return on investment. Start by determining how much you’re willing to spend on your PPC campaign, and then stick to your budget. Don’t chase the ever-elusive “golden opportunity.” Allocate your resources strategically and consider factors like the competitiveness of your keywords, the average cost per click in your industry, and the conversion rates that you hope to achieve.

Be willing to revisit your budget periodically, because setting your PPC budget isn’t a one-time task. Measure results and adjust accordingly. If a PPC campaign isn’t delivering, adjust your budget downward. If you’re achieving meaningful and lucrative results, consider increasing your PPC budget.

Gladiator’s team of professionals can accelerate your law firm marketing strategy by creating a multi-faceted digital campaign that produces measurable results.

Get Good, Strategic Advice About PPC

Whether you’re interested in how to decide whether PPC is right for your law firm, where the current state of the law firm marketing industry stands, which marketing ideas for personal injury lawyers are most effective, or what the future of digital marketing looks like, the award-winning professionals at Gladiator Law Marketing can help you make sense of the legal marketing landscape and shine a light on the best ways to increase your brand visibility and convert leads into income. Our team possesses decades of experience in website design, SEO strategy, optimized content curation, and all aspects of law firm marketing. We can put that experience to work for you.

PPC can be a smart addition to your existing marketing portfolio. As with any business tool, marketers need to assess their organization’s capabilities to implement an effective PPC strategy. Put simply, look before you leap. Join forces with a law firm marketing agency that has been there before and can lead the way. For a free consultation about your law firm marketing strategy, contact Gladiator at 1-888-683-3212.