Making the Most of Your Law Firm’s Google Ads Budget

I’ve been working with law firms on their online ads for several years now, and I’ve noticed how legal keywords have gotten really expensive over time. When you search for terms like “mesothelioma attorney” or “car accident lawyer,” those clicks can cost anywhere from $50 to $600 each, which means you need to be careful about how you spend your money.

When clicks cost this much, how you set up your bidding can make the difference between making money or losing it. While working with law firms, I’ve seen that those who use more thoughtful bidding approaches tend to get about 30-40% better results than those who just use the basic settings.

Expert Insight: I’ve found that the most successful law firms don’t just focus on the cost per click but on the entire client acquisition journey. One firm I advised started tracking not just leads but also consultation quality, which revealed that their cheapest leads were actually costing them the most in wasted consultation time.

Two Ways to Approach Bidding for Legal Ads

Let me explain the two main ways you can set up your bidding for law firm ads:

1. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Bidding

This is where you tell Google something like, “I want to pay around $200 for each new lead.” Google then tries to get you leads at that price or lower.

This works well if:

You focus on just one type of law with similar case values
You’re newer to Google Ads and want costs you can predict
You don’t have a lot of past data on how your ads perform

I’ve worked with several family law firms, and I’ve found that using CPA bidding helps them keep their monthly marketing costs more consistent, even if they might not get the absolute best return on their money.

Expert Insight: When helping law firms set their initial CPA targets, I recommend starting 15-20% higher than your ideal cost per lead for the first month. This gives Google’s algorithm room to learn and gather data before you tighten the target. I’ve seen this approach prevent the common problem of campaigns stalling due to overly aggressive initial targets.

2. Conversion Value Bidding

With this approach, you tell Google how much different types of leads are worth to your firm. For instance:

A personal injury lead might be worth about $1,200 to you (if the average case brings in around $30,000)
An estate planning lead might be worth about $400 (if those cases typically bring in $10,000)
A traffic ticket lead might only be worth about $100 (for cases that bring in around $2,500)

Google then focuses on getting you the leads that are worth more to your practice.

This works well if:

You handle different types of cases with varying values
You’ve been running ads for a while and have good tracking set up
You care more about the quality of leads than just getting a lot of them

I worked with a firm in Chicago that handles several different practice areas, and when we switched to this approach, the value of their cases went up by about 42% without spending any more on ads.

Expert Insight: The secret to successful value-based bidding that many firms miss is constantly refining your values. Each quarter, I recommend reviewing all cases that came from Google Ads and adjusting your conversion values based on actual client value, not just estimates. One personal injury firm I advised discovered their motorcycle accident leads were undervalued by nearly 40% compared to their actual case values.

A Step-by-Step Approach to Better Bidding

Based on what I’ve seen work with many law firms, here’s how I’d suggest you approach this:

Step 1: Start Simple and Gather Information (First 1-3 months)

Begin with CPA bidding to get a steady flow of leads while you learn what’s happening in your campaigns. During this time, keep track of:

How much you’re paying for leads in each practice area
How many of those leads actually become clients
How much the average case is worth in different areas of your practice

This gives you the information you need before trying more complex approaches.

Expert Insight: While collecting this initial data, create separate tracking for leads that mention specific case details (like “rear-ended at intersection”) versus those with vague inquiries (like “had an accident”). I’ve consistently found that leads with specific details convert to clients at 2-3 times the rate of vague inquiries, which should inform your future bidding strategy.

Step 2: Set Up Better Tracking (Months 2-3)

Before you move to the next level, make sure you’ve got:

Something that tracks and records phone calls
A way to see which form submissions relate to which practice areas
Your Google Ads connected to your client management system
A way to tell which Google Ads clicks actually turned into signed clients

I worked with a personal injury firm in Dallas who only figured out which keywords were bringing in real clients after they started recording and analyzing their phone calls.

Expert Insight: Don’t overlook call quality scoring in your tracking setup. I developed a simple 1-5 quality scale for our call tracking system where intake staff rate each call. This allowed one firm to discover that certain ad groups consistently brought in higher-quality consultations that were more likely to become cases, even though their cost per lead was about 30% higher.

Step 3: Switch to Value-Based Bidding (Month 4 and beyond)

Once you know which keywords and campaigns are bringing in actual signed clients (not just leads), you can move to conversion value bidding by:

Figuring out how much a typical client is worth in each practice area
Deciding how much you’re willing to spend to get a client (usually about 10-20% of what they’re worth)
Putting those values into Google Ads
Setting up separate campaigns for the practice areas that bring in more money

Expert Insight: For personal injury cases, I’ve found it’s worth creating separate value tiers based on injury severity mentioned in the lead. For example, you might assign $500 value to general injury inquiries, $1,000 to mentions of hospital visits, and $2,000 to mentions of surgery or long-term treatment. This nuanced approach has helped several firms dramatically improve their campaign performance by prioritizing potentially higher-value cases.

Common Mistakes to Watch Out For

In my time working with legal ads, I’ve noticed a few mistakes that come up often:

Thinking all leads are the same: A person looking for bankruptcy help is usually worth a different amount to your firm than someone with a personal injury case.
Not tracking what happens offline: If you don’t know which clicks actually turn into clients, you’re just optimizing for leads instead of real business.
Using wishful thinking instead of real data: It’s better to base your values on what cases have actually been worth in the past, not what you hope they might be worth.
Forgetting that some cases take more work: Some high-value cases also require a lot more of your time. You should think about this when deciding how much to bid.

Expert Insight: The biggest mistake I see firms make is over-focusing on cost per lead without considering lead quality. I developed a “Client Value Timeline” for one firm that revealed their most profitable cases came from keywords that initially appeared too expensive. When we analyzed actual revenue over 6 months, these “expensive” keywords produced double the ROI of their “efficient” keywords because of much higher client values and conversion rates.

What You Can Do Next

If you want to improve your bidding approach:

Look at what you’re doing now: Are you setting bids manually, using basic automation, or already using some kind of value-based strategy?
Check your tracking: Can you see the whole journey from when someone clicks your ad to when they become a client?
Figure out what cases are really worth: Talk to your accounting team to find out the average fees for different types of cases.
Take it one step at a time: Start by improving your tracking before you make big changes to your bidding.

Expert Insight: When reviewing your current approach, look beyond just the ad platform. Some of the most effective optimizations I’ve implemented came from improving the intake process itself. One firm recorded their consultation calls and discovered their intake team was much more effective with certain types of cases. We adjusted their bidding strategy to focus on these case types and saw a 35% improvement in their client sign-up rate.

As more and more law firms compete in online advertising, having a smarter approach to bidding can give you an edge. I’ve worked with firms that cut their cost per new client by about 45% by properly implementing value-based bidding.

I’d be happy to talk about the specific challenges and opportunities for your firm. You can reach me at the contact us page if you’d like to chat about how to get more from your legal advertising.

About Me: I’ve managed legal advertising for firms across many states. I focus on helping law firms get better returns on their ad spending, especially in competitive practice areas. I sometimes speak at legal marketing events and help train marketing teams at law firms.