Law Firm PPC: Social Media and Google PPC For Lawyers & Lawyer PPC Agency

Law Firm PPC

So much of marketing today is measuring clicks and conversions, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and gaining your audience’s attention. All of this is measured, analyzed, and researched so that the people who see your online advertisements can become clients who walk through your front door.

PPC for lawyers is one of the most useful tools for your marketing strategy. PPC puts your name and brand in front of the audiences that most need your services. However, PPC in its entirety isn’t quite as simple as that. Below, we’ll explain what PPC is, how it can be implemented successfully, and what to look for in a lawyer PPC company. Let’s start at the very beginning!

What Is Lawyer Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising?

PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. It is a branch of digital marketing that brings your law firm in front of the eyes of internet users. PPC can be used on search engines and social media to present your ads to specific users. In the simplest terms, PPC advertising works like this:

1. Your advertisement is shown to an audience.
2. Someone clicks your advertisement.
3. Your law firm pays for their click.

But PPC isn’t as easy as 1, 2, 3. The amount you pay for every click depends on the keyword(s) the user typed into their search bar.

When it comes to PPC, words are currency. Keywords cost, and some cost more than others. Broad keywords such as “lawyer” and “attorney” can cost a pretty penny, and by penny, we mean upwards of $100 per click. If 10 users click your ad using a costly keyword, you pay for it—literally. That’s why PPC needs to be conducted strategically in order for you to see a return on your ad spending.

SEO and PPC for Lawyers: What Is the Difference?

There are two main differences between SEO and PPC: cost and time.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO develops organic searches, which are search engine results that are unpaid. When you type a question into Google, the unpaid results appear because of SEO. Google analyzes the quality of a website’s content and makeup and presents the optimum sites that answer a user’s search query. Building SEO takes a lot of time, strategy, content creation, website building, backlink building, and more. Though attaining SEO is technically free, optimizing your website takes a lot of time and energy. But don’t let that turn you away from SEO. We are firm believers that you need SEO for successful longevity.

In the meantime, however, PPC can come into play and guide the success of your online traffic. PPC advertisements are a way to get online visibility fast. PPC also takes a large amount of strategy, research, and commitment, but the results are a lot faster.

Ultimately, increasing SEO should be a goal for your law firm’s websites and web pages. SEO increases as the quantity and quality of your audience increases. So, in order to introduce people to your site and build an audience, using PPC is a useful tool and technique to introduce users to your website.

Is PPC Right for Your Law Firm?

Every law firm needs its own, individualized marketing strategy. PPC law firm advertising can be a highly functional strategy to gain some online visibility. However, it can be costly, so developing a strong SEO strategy may be more beneficial. The best way to figure out if PPC is right for your law firm is to sit down with a digital marketing company that specializes in law firm marketing. Together, we can discuss options that best fit your budget, and decide how to conduct PPC advertising.

How to Be Successful at Law Firm PPC

PPC advertising is meticulous. Multiple, data-driven steps must be practiced in order to optimize and maximize the money you are putting forth for your PPC campaigns.

Conduct Keyword Research and Intentionally Select Target Keywords

Keywords are the search terms that you need to use to essentially “make contact” with your audience. Keyword selection takes careful detail and precision and keywords need to be data-driven. Using broad, ambiguous words—such as single-word keywords—can waste your time and money; taking the easy way out for keyword selection will ultimately be detrimental as keywords are highly competitive.

Instead, a carefully curated selection of target keywords will positively impact your law firm’s PPC. Keywords must be intentional, specifically matching words with your clients and cases.

Knowing Your Target Audience and Demographics

For a successful law firm PPC strategy, your keywords need to match your client’s needs. Knowing your clients, or simply a certain type of client is going to be the guiding force to your keyword research—that’s where buyer personas enter the picture.

Buyer personas are characters, meaning they are semi-fictional and are used as guiding points that represent your target audience. Your buyer personas should represent the audience you are aiming to attract. When creating buyer personas, you need to ask questions such as:

• Who is this person?
• How old are they?
• What is their gender?
• What do they do for a living?
• What are their interests?
• Where do they live geographically?
• How often are they on their phone?

Creating these character profiles will give you a better, more precise idea of who to tailor your law firm PPC ads to. When you know your target audience, you can form a more direct line of communication with them because you know what they need. When you know what your audience needs, you can provide information on how you can meet those needs. It all starts with knowing the type of people you’re advertising to.

Communicate Clearly in Your Visuals and Copy

PPC marketing for law firms is all about quick, concise moments. When someone sees an advertisement, you have a short window of opportunity to get their attention and tell them what you need to convey. Visual and copy techniques are your primary tools to communicate what you need to tell in that brief period of time.

Think of your PPC advertisements like an elevator pitch, but instead of your usual 20 to 30 seconds, you have just an instant to catch your audience’s attention. Using attractive, data-driven designs is essential to hone in on your audience.

And yes, visuals and copy should be data-driven. Just like the other components of PPC for lawyers, the visual and copy components also need to be backed by analysis. Researching which advertisements work by looking for what visual aids get the most views and clicks will help you plan for how your next advertisements will look and sound. Beyond keyword searches and knowing your audience, the ad itself is really the direct, tangible communication you have with your audience. You want it to make a good first impression that will leave users thinking about your law firm long before any of your competitors.

Continually Managing Bids and Budgets in Your PPC Campaigns for Lawyers

When it comes to lawyer pay-per-click advertising, you want to get the most bang for your buck. For the sake of marketing, the exact term is cost-per-conversion rate. Let’s get into some math, shall we?

The equation for cost-per-conversion (CPC) is:  CPC = total click amount / number of conversions. Our goal as a lawyer PPC company is to maximize the rate of CPC, along with your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

Law firm PPC budgeting should work like this:

• Cover enough clicks per day at the start of your ad
• Collect data from the ad
• Adjust your budget to adhere to bids

Because managing bids need to be definitive, it’s best to work with a lawyer PPC company that has extensive knowledge and experience managing bids and budgets. You want to make the most out of your budget. Finding a lawyer PPC agency that can commit to the research will maximize the outcomes of your PPC expenses.

Additional Strategies and Placements for Law Firm PPC

PPC is one of many ways you can practice marketing for your law firm. Several techniques can be used concurrently with PPC.  Check out some of the ways you can be seen on the web by the right people.

Retargeting Ads

Have you ever gotten a little message that asks if you want to “block cookies”? Well, that’s because Google uses a technique called remarketing, which uses cookies to show website visitors ads after they leave a website. Using retargeting, you can redirect a visitor back to your website by presenting an ad later on.

Social Media Ads

Social media is a great platform for law firm PPC. Paid social campaigns can target ads based on demographics such as:

• Age
• Marital status
• Geographic location
• A person’s interest
• Other information used on social media

Targeting law firm PPC ads on social media takes a deep knowledge of the tools social media provides. Using social media ads correctly can get you the best visibility to potential clients.

Video Ads

Video content done right can lead to higher amounts of engagement and connection with your audience. Videos show your target audience exactly who you are. The more they get to know you through video content, the more you can build trust with your clientele. Video ads, however, must be done well. High-quality, informative videos are attractive, whereas pixilated and obscure videos can be detrimental to your marketing. Video advertisements can also reach a group of users who frequently stream and watch video content online.

Geo-Fencing

Geo-fencing is the strategy of using GPS technology to send focused ads into a specified geographic location. When a person enters into your ad area—or, as the term implies, your “fence”—they trigger an ad. Geo-fencing uses a technique called PPC micro-events.

Geo-fencing technology sends ads to the nearby devices of those individuals who fit inside a defined geographic parameter. When someone types in “lawyers near me,” and you use geo-fencing, your advertisement (relative to location) will ping on their phone.

As an additional suggestion, if you do not have a Google My Business account, we highly recommend you register right away to take full advantage of the potentials of geo-fencing.

Display Advertising

Display advertising is the typical advertising that you probably see whenever you’re on a website. This includes:

• Banners
• Texts
• Images
• Animations

All of these are shown in sidebars and around folds. Display advertising, to put it simply, is a distraction.  The aim is to catch the user’s attention and get them to click on the advertisement. Instead of ads that pop up on search engine pages, they are on web pages themselves and act as a disruption in the content the audience is reading/watching.

Display advertising is fairly low-cost and is less intentional to a specific audience. It’s typical to measure the views/impressions of display advertising rather than the clicks.

Paid Content Marketing

Paid content marketing incentivizes users to read more of your content by having a paid link following a piece of content. Paid content marketing promotes engagement with your law firm. This can be done by providing links to additional blog posts or your web pages relating to the content your user is viewing.

Local Service Ads (LSA)

Local Service Ads, also called LSA, follows a pay-per-lead model and is now the top result on a Search Engine Result Page (SERP). But first, let us explain what pay-per-lead is.

Pay-per-lead is an alternative to pay-per-click. When your advertisement shows up on Google, you only have to pay if the customer directly contacts you via your advertisement. LSAs are a way to connect you with the people who enter a search query into Google related to a service you offer. If you get contacted, boom, your LSA worked. If not, you don’t owe anything.

Think of LSAs as mediators between you and your clients. In fact, if you do a Google search for a law firm, take a look at the results. The law firms will appear in this order:

• LSA
• PPC with Google Ads
• Google My Business
• Organic Search Results (based on SEO)

LSA can be a tremendous help when it comes to connecting clients to your law firm.

How Much Should You Spend on PPC?

The answer to this question is: it depends. Spending more money on PPC campaigns for lawyers will not necessarily mean you will be more successful. Of course, since each click requires payment, money is an important factor. However, budgeting for law firm PPC needs to be done in tandem with a clear PPC strategy. Relying solely on a budget will not produce results.

In addition, every law firm has different PPC needs and goals. Discussing budget options with your lawyer PPC agency is the best way to decide how much you should spend on your PPC advertising.

Is it a Good Idea to Spend on PPC for Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness is built over time by establishing trust with a customer base who can recognize your law firm. Brand awareness grows over time by strategically placing advertisements and building clientele. As you get more clients, your audience expands into each of their spheres of life.

Brand awareness is, essentially, storytelling. You are letting your audience know who you are. PPC will not build your brand. That happens with patience over a long period of time. But PPC can help jumpstart your narrative and/or introduce yourself as your brand.

Successful Law Firm PPC Focus on ROI

ROI stands for return on investment. It is a measurement of your profitability in congruence with your efforts and efficiency. ROI is really the goal for PPC campaigns for lawyers. Your advertisements should be generating more profit for your firm.

A successful lawyer PPC agency will know to focus on ROI. PPC advertising becomes damaging if you are spending more over time on advertisements than getting investment back in return.

When done correctly, your paid advertising will utilize data-driven techniques including:

• Checking leads
• Cost per case
• Cost per acquisition
• Customer contact for a specifically targeted ad

When your data is analyzed well and used to promote upgraded PPC ads, your total ROI should be greater than the budget you set for your PPC.

What to Look for in a Lawyer PPC Company

PPC marketing for law firms is a sector of marketing that takes advanced skill, attention to detail, and expert proficiency in the world of paid advertising.

One of the most important factors in all of these attributes is the willingness for an agency to be transparent with you about what they are doing with your PPC budget. You should be in the know about how your money and time is being utilized to maximize your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

An expert lawyer PPC company will also show competency in the basics of budgeting and will use intentional techniques to optimize your PPC. Concepts that your agency should focus on when it comes to PPC are the following:

• Lifetime Customer Value (LTV) is the net profit (total worth) to a business over the time of the relationship with a client.
• Conversion Rate is how many visitors come to the desired action (conversion). The equation is the number of conversions divided by the number of visitors and is an extremely useful tool in measuring data for PPC marketing for attorneys
• Cost Per Acquisition measures the cost it takes to acquire a new customer.

A good marketing company will make sure that your business is being shown to the right people.

Signs of a Bad Lawyer PPC Agency

First and foremost, you want your lawyer PPC company to communicate directly with you. Transparency is key when it comes to digital marketing agencies. A company could be taking advantage of you if they do not explain what is happening with your ads.

Take a look at your ROI. Yes, sometimes PPC can go belly-up, but if your experienced PPC agency is on top of things, they will let you know right away. If they don’t and you continuously lose money, it’s time to look for another digital marketing agency.

Metric Marketing Is a Law Firm PPC Agency With Integrity and a Proven Record of Success

Our team here at Metric Marketing is made up of digital marketing experts that work hard for the success of our clients. Above all, we prioritize the relationships we cultivate with our clients. We believe that as our relationship grows, so do results.

We will work together with you through the successes and the business challenges. We’re here for you to use our skills, knowledge, and expertise to spotlight the amazing qualities of your law firm.

We are a lawyer PPC agency specializing in law firm marketing. We work with you with transparency and integrity to get you positive results.

But don’t let just us tell you about proven success for our clients. See for yourself! Law firm PPC really does work—and our case study results prove it.

Reach Out Today for a Consultation With Our Team

If you are ready to take full advantage of law firm PPC, we’re the marketing team for you! We can take care of the whole shebang, from keyword research to ad development to creating designs and much, much more. As we’ve discussed, PPC marketing for law firms takes serious intention. That’s something that we’re really good at, and we’d like to share our skills with you! Call us for a consultation at 734.404.8714 or fill out an online contact form today. We look forward to talking to you!