Law firm PPC agency: account ownership and fee models in the UK
A PPC agency runs your spend, so two things decide the engagement before any campaign does: who owns the Google Ads account, and how the agency is paid. In Milton Keynes, personal injury carries a cost per click of around £139.50, the highest figure in our UK data, measured across 20 cities on 3 August 2026.
- Highest UK click price
- Milton Keynes personal injury, around £139.50 a click, 3 August 2026
- Cities measured
- 20 UK cities, measured 3 August 2026
- Referral fee restriction
- LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees in prescribed legal business
- Suppliers publishing a price
- 12 of 40 published a price, 5 of those a range only, 3 August 2026
- Our landing page prices
- £890 Price Transparency Pack over ten working days; Firm Site £2,400
- London immigration demand
- 2,900 searches a month at around £18.75 a click
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What is a PPC agency actually responsible for?
The account, the bids, the keywords and the negative list. Not the page the click lands on, and not what happens when the telephone rings.
That boundary is worth drawing before the first invoice, because the three parties involved usually assume it sits somewhere else. The agency assumes the site is somebody's problem. The firm assumes the agency will fix the page. Nobody owns the ten seconds after the click, which is the part that decides whether the spend produced anything.
Paid search in this market is expensive enough that the boundary is not academic. In Milton Keynes, personal injury work carries a cost per click of around £139.50 — the highest figure in our UK data, measured across 20 cities on 3 August 2026. One click. A supplier who cannot say which pages the ads point at, in writing, before the account goes live, is not ready to spend that.
Who owns the Google Ads account?
The firm should, and this is the item most often signed away without anyone noticing.
An account carries more than campaigns. It holds the conversion history that the bidding uses, the negative keyword list built up over months of paying for the wrong queries, and the record of what has already been tried. All of that is learning the firm has paid for.
If the account sits under the agency's own billing and the agency's own manager identity, none of it necessarily leaves with the firm. The campaigns can be recreated. The history cannot, and a new supplier starting on an empty account is starting the expensive part again.
Three things to settle before signing:
- The account is created under the firm's own billing, with the agency granted access rather than ownership.
- The firm holds administrator access, not the agency alone, so access can be granted and removed by the firm.
- Analytics and conversion tracking sit in the firm's own property, for the same reason.
None of these is unreasonable and none costs anything. A supplier who resists all three is telling you what the end of the relationship will look like.
How should a PPC agency be paid?
Three models exist, one of them is not available here, and the other two reward different behaviour.
| Model | What it rewards | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| A percentage of ad spend | Increasing the spend | The adviser recommending the budget is paid more when it rises |
| A fixed monthly management fee | Doing the work regardless of budget | A small account can be neglected without the fee moving |
| Payment per enquiry or per matter | Volume, at the firm's regulatory risk | Not available in prescribed legal business |
The third row is not a preference. LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees in prescribed legal business, which includes personal injury, and it binds the firm paying as well as the party being paid. A supplier proposing it has told you something about what they know, and the firm accepting it is not protected by whose idea it was.
Between the first two, the percentage model is not dishonest — it is simply a structure in which the person advising on budget has an interest in the answer. If a firm uses it, the mitigation is to fix the budget in writing for a quarter at a time so the recommendation and the fee are decided separately.
For context on what the market does with pricing generally: of 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, twelve published a price at all, five of those showed only a range, and eight claimed a guarantee of some kind. Nobody controls Google's results, paid or otherwise.
What reporting should a firm demand every month?
Four documents. Three of them are one click to produce, so a refusal is informative.
- The search terms report — the queries people actually typed, not the keywords the agency bought. This is the single most useful document in paid search and the one most often left out of a monthly summary. It is where you find that a personal injury campaign paid for people looking for jobs.
- Spend by practice area, not spend in total. A firm with three areas of work and one invoice cannot tell which of the three is consuming the budget.
- Negative keywords added this month. An account with no additions is an account nobody read the search terms report for.
- The conversion definition, in writing, unchanged. What counts as a conversion decides every number above it. If the definition moves mid-engagement, the trend line is meaningless and the report cannot be compared with last quarter's.
A monthly report showing clicks, impressions and an average position, with none of the four above, is a report about the agency's activity rather than about the account. Ask for the search terms report first — it takes a minute to export and it tells you whether anyone has been reading it.
Why do we not manage ad spend?
Because we are not set up to do it well, and the admission belongs on the page rather than in a meeting.
No account management, no bid strategy, no keyword lists, no media buying of any kind. A firm that wants campaigns run needs a PPC agency, and this page exists to make that purchase better rather than to redirect it.
What we do is the page the money lands on, at a published price: £890 for the Price Transparency Pack over ten working days, £2,400 for a Firm Site, £4,200 for Firm Site+, £6,900 for the Authority Build, and retainers at £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month with no minimum term. Take £700 off a build taken with six months of retainer. Nothing is charged per enquiry, per lead or per matter, in any market, including work the referral-fee restriction does not reach.
If the work being advertised falls within the SRA Transparency Rules, in force since 6 December 2018, a paid landing page is still a page on the firm's website. Which of a firm's services fall in scope is a question for the firm and its COLP, not for any supplier.
What does this traffic cost to buy in your city?
In London, 2,900 people a month search for immigration help, and Google charges around £18.75 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages the rules ask for are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
No call required. Our own prices are on that page.
Which related law firm marketing pages should I read?
If paid search is one line in a bigger plan: lawyer marketing plan and marketing strategy for law firm.
If the practice area is the expensive one: personal injury lawyer marketing.
If the pages behind the ads are thin: lawyer content marketing.
If the firm looks wrong rather than ranks wrong: law firm branding agency.
Frequently asked questions
Who should own our Google Ads account?
The firm. Create it under the firm's own billing and grant the agency access rather than ownership, keep administrator rights internally, and hold analytics and conversion tracking in the firm's own property.
What happens to the account if we change agency?
The campaigns can be rebuilt but the history cannot. Conversion data, the negative keyword list and the record of what has been tried all sit in the account, and a new supplier starting on an empty one is repeating the expensive part.
How should a PPC agency be paid?
A fixed monthly management fee, or a percentage of spend with the budget fixed in writing a quarter at a time so the recommendation and the fee are decided separately. Never per enquiry or per matter.
Can a PPC agency be paid per enquiry?
Not in prescribed legal business. LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees there, including personal injury, and it binds the firm paying as well as the party being paid.
What should a monthly PPC report contain?
The search terms report, spend broken down by practice area, the negative keywords added that month, and the conversion definition in writing and unchanged. Clicks and impressions without those four describe the agency rather than the account.
Why does the search terms report matter most?
Because it shows the queries people actually typed rather than the keywords the agency bought, which is where wasted spend is visible. It exports in about a minute, so a refusal to supply it says something on its own.
Do you manage ad spend?
No. No account management, no bid strategy, no keyword lists. We build the landing pages campaigns point at, at published fixed prices, and never charge per enquiry or per matter.