Law firm PPC agency: how to judge the ad account
We do not run advertising accounts, so this page is about judging somebody who does. Most wasted legal ad budget is spent inside the account rather than on the management fee: on search terms nobody read back, on hours nobody answers the phone, and on conversions counted 3 different ways.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What does a wasteful legal ad account look like inside?
Not obviously wasteful, which is the problem. It looks like a working account with a report attached.
The fee is the visible number and it is rarely the expensive one. In this profession the clicks are the cost: Philadelphia personal injury was $151.31 a click when we measured 20 US cities on 3 August 2026, the highest in the dataset, with Houston at $114.87 and Chicago at $72.77. Arithmetic, not a forecast: ten clicks on one search term the firm cannot serve, at Philadelphia's price, is $1,513.10. Nobody notices a single line item that size on a monthly invoice, and it can recur every month for a year.
The admission that costs us this page: we do not manage ad spend, so nothing here is a pitch, and we cannot audit an account we have no access to. Every check below is one the firm runs itself or asks its supplier to run in front of it. A supplier who declines to show any of them has answered the question.
| What it looks like | What it costs | How to check it |
|---|---|---|
| Broad match with a thin negative list | Clicks on searches for other professions, other cities, other problems | Read the search terms report, not the keyword list |
| Ads running 24 hours, phone answered nine to five | Full price for a click that reaches a voicemail | Compare the ad schedule with the staffed hours |
| Location targeting set to interest rather than presence | Clicks from people who will never instruct | Open the location settings and read the radius |
| Every form submission counted as a conversion | A conversion rate that cannot be wrong | Ask what the conversion action actually is |
| One landing page for every ad group | High cost per click, low relevance, higher price for the same position | Click your own ads and see where they land |
| No call tracking, or call tracking counting rings | Calls credited that nobody answered | Ask for the call length threshold |
Which search terms is the account actually buying?
Not the ones in the keyword list. The ones in the search terms report, which are a different document.
This is the single largest leak in legal advertising accounts and it is invisible from the outside. A keyword set to broad match buys adjacent searches the firm never chose, and in this profession the adjacent searches are expensive and useless in the same breath — job seekers, students, people looking for free help, people in a state the firm is not admitted in, people looking for the opposing side.
Ask for the last ninety days of search terms, sorted by spend. Two things should be visible: terms the firm would never have chosen, and a negative keyword list that has grown month on month. A negative list that has not changed since the account was built means nobody has read the report either.
The second question follows from the first: what did you turn off last month, and why. A supplier who has never turned anything off is running an account rather than managing one.
What is the account counting as a conversion?
Whatever was easiest to configure, unless somebody insisted otherwise.
Three different things get reported under the same word, and the gap between them is where a report stops being useful:
- A form submission. Counts a robot, a wrong number and a real inquiry identically.
- A call connected. Better, but a three-second call that rang out counts unless a duration threshold was set.
- A matter the firm actually took. The only one worth optimizing against, and it lives in the firm's own system rather than in the advertising account.
The third is the one that changes decisions, and it requires the firm to feed something back. Nobody outside the firm knows which inquiries were any good. A supplier optimizing toward form submissions will faithfully produce more form submissions, including from the searches the firm least wants, because that is the target it was given.
Ask which of the three the reported number is. Then ask what happens to the campaign when the answer changes.
When is the account allowed to spend?
At the hours somebody answers, unless there is a written reason otherwise.
An ad schedule that runs continuously while the firm answers the telephone between nine and five is buying attention it cannot receive. That is a defensible decision for a practice area where the search happens out of hours and a form is genuinely enough. It is an expensive accident everywhere else, and it is set once and rarely revisited.
The related setting is geographic. Location targeting can be set to people present in a place or people showing interest in it, and the second is much broader than most firms assume. At Houston's $114.87 an injury click, measured 3 August 2026, a radius drawn generously is not a rounding error.
What should the monthly report contain?
Four documents. Anything else is presentation.
- The search terms report for the period, sorted by spend, with the negatives added since last month.
- Spend, clicks and conversions by campaign, with the conversion action named in words rather than assumed.
- What changed in the account this month — keywords paused, budgets moved, ads rewritten, and by whom.
- The account's own history, exportable. Years of data has real value and it belongs to the firm.
Two things that should not appear: a position or ranking claim, and a guarantee. Eight of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026 claimed a guarantee of some kind. Nobody controls the auction, and a supplier who says otherwise is describing something they cannot deliver.
Of those same 40 suppliers, twelve published a price at all and one offered work with no minimum term. Fifteen of the 62 questions buyers ask on these searches are price questions.
Why will we not run the account for you?
Because it needs somebody in it most days, and that is not what we sell.
$1,450 for the Practice Sprint, $2,900 for the build. Fixed, published, no minimum term. Never per inquiry, per matter or per client — we charge for the work, by scope and time. Referral fees are restricted in prescribed legal business, which includes personal injury, and the restriction binds the firm paying as much as the party being paid. Lawyer advertising in the United States runs through ABA Model Rule 7.2(b), adopted differently by state, and how it applies to a particular firm is for that firm and its own advisers to judge.
A firm that needs matters this quarter should be running campaigns with a specialist. Saying so sends the work somewhere else, and it is still the right answer. What we do is the destination the clicks land on and the organic side, where nothing is priced by the contact by construction.
What this is worth where you are
In New York, 14,800 people a month search for personal injury, and Google charges around $73.14 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages a prospective client looks for are missing from your site, and which of 40 suppliers publish a price.
Where should I read next?
On what day-to-day management of an account involves: law firm ppc management.
If the budget is small and the firm is small: small law firm marketing strategies.
A second paid channel with different mechanics: law firm facebook marketing, and a practice area with its own advertising problems, criminal law firm marketing.
On what happens to an inquiry once the account produces one: law firm marketing automation.
Frequently asked questions
Do you manage Google Ads for law firms?
No. We build sites and do the organic side on fixed published fees, and a firm that needs matters this quarter needs somebody in the account most days rather than a fixed-scope build.
Where does most legal ad budget get wasted?
Inside the account rather than on the management fee. Ten clicks on one unwanted search term at Philadelphia's $151.31 injury click price is $1,513.10 by arithmetic, and it recurs quietly every month until somebody reads the search terms report.
What is the difference between the keyword list and the search terms report?
The keyword list is what the agency chose. The search terms report is what people actually typed and what the account paid for, and only the second one shows the waste.
How should a PPC agency count a conversion for a law firm?
Ideally a matter the firm actually took, which lives in the firm's own system. A form submission counts robots and wrong numbers identically, and a connected call counts a three-second ring unless a duration threshold was set.
What should a monthly PPC report contain?
The search terms report sorted by spend with the new negatives, spend and conversions by campaign with the conversion action named in words, a log of what changed in the account and by whom, and the exportable account history.
Should a law firm PPC agency guarantee results?
No, and 8 of the 40 suppliers we read on 3 August 2026 claimed a guarantee anyway. Nobody controls the auction or the ranking, and a guarantee describes something the supplier cannot deliver.
Can a PPC agency charge per inquiry delivered?
It should not for a law firm. Referral fees are restricted in prescribed legal business including personal injury, and the restriction binds the firm paying as well as the party being paid.