The Client
The Law Offices of Patricia L. Parker is a family law firm in Jacksonville, Florida, and our Google Ads for family law turned its budget into 630+ calls and inquiries from people facing divorce, custody and child support cases.
The firm handles divorce, child custody, child support and other family matters across Jacksonville and the surrounding Northeast Florida communities. In family law, the client who calls first usually hires first.
Before we started, the account ran one Search campaign. From September to mid-November 2017 it spent about $2,500 and produced one lead.
One lead before us. 630+ in the eighteen months after we rebuilt the account.
The Challenge
Family law is one of the most expensive local markets in Google Ads:
- Costly clicks. Divorce and family law keywords are among the priciest local legal searches.
- Emotional, urgent buyers. People in a custody or divorce crisis want to talk to an attorney today, not browse a website.
- Free-help and DIY searches. "Free divorce lawyer", "pro bono" and "divorce without a lawyer" bring clicks that never become clients.
- A tight service area. The firm only wants cases in and around Jacksonville.
What We Built
1. A call-only campaign for the people ready to talk
We built a Call-Only campaign whose ads ring the firm directly, organized by practice area: divorce, family law, child support and alimony. Every click is a phone call.
2. A Search campaign for researchers
A companion Search campaign with expanded text ads, sitelinks and callouts sent people who wanted to read first to the firm's practice-area pages, with a contact form to finish the job.
3. Tracking that counts real leads
Calls from the ads and contact-form submissions are the conversions. Directions, website visits and other engagements are not counted.
4. Tight Jacksonville targeting and negatives
The campaigns target Jacksonville and its ZIP codes, Orange Park, Fernandina Beach and St. Johns County, with 200+ ad-group negative keywords to cut "free", "cheap", "pro bono", do-it-yourself and out-of-state searches. Bids are set manually by keyword.
5. Daily Optimization via Ad Campaign Concierge™
Every campaign was reviewed through our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ system: search-term mining, negative keywords, and bids moved toward the practice areas that produced calls.
The Results
The numbers below are from the firm's Google Ads account: before us (September to mid-November 2017) and the campaigns we built (November 2017 to May 2019).
- 630+ real leads from $54K+ in ad spend, about $86 a lead
- 580+ phone calls straight from the ads, plus 40+ contact-form submissions
- 50+ leads a month by March and April 2018
- 2018, the first full year: 450+ leads on $38K+ of spend
- Cost per lead fell from about $110 in the first full quarter to about $68 in March to May 2018
Leads Since Launch
Key Takeaways
- In family law, the phone is the conversion. Call-only ads produced over 90% of the leads.
- Start with tracking. Before us the account could show one lead; once calls and forms were counted, the budget could follow them.
- Negatives protect an expensive market. Every free-help or DIY click is costly when a single click can cost more than lunch.
- Keep it local. Tight geographic targeting kept the spend on cases the firm could take.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a family law lead cost on Google Ads?
For this Jacksonville firm, $54K+ in ad spend from November 2017 to May 2019 produced 630+ real leads, about $86 each. The call-only campaign, which produced most of them, ran at about $69 a call. Before we started, the account had spent about $2,500 for a single lead.
Do divorce clients call or fill out a form?
They call. Of the 630+ leads, 580+ were phone calls from the ads and 40+ were contact-form submissions. People going through a divorce or custody fight want to talk to someone now.
Are call-only ads worth it for a law firm?
In this account, yes. The call-only campaign took about three quarters of the budget and produced over 90% of the leads, because every click was a phone call to the firm.
How long does it take Google Ads to work for a family law firm?
The campaigns launched in mid-November 2017. By the first full quarter they produced about 70 leads at about $110 each, and by March to May 2018 it was over 150 leads in three months at about $68 each.
About This Campaign
Family law and divorce lead generation on Google Ads, built with our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ optimization system.
Industry: Legal (Family Law & Divorce) Platforms: Google Ads (Call-Only, Search) Location: Jacksonville, Florida Account Duration: November 2017 to May 2019 (the engagement has ended)
Leads are calls from the ads and contact-form submissions from the campaigns we built. Directions, website visits, phone-number taps and other engagements are excluded. "Before us" is the account's original Search campaign, September to mid-November 2017. Figures are rounded down. All amounts are in US dollars.