Significant Changes to PPC Advertising For Law Firms

“Discover the recent changes in the Google 2021 – 2022 pay-per-click landscape and learn how the updates impact your law firm’s advertising campaigns.”

Did you know that statistics show that 76% of people who search for something near their location on a smartphone will visit a business within one day? Imagine the number of opportunities your firm could open up just by being where people are searching. Being in the right place at the right time is the key to your firm’s growth. Digital advertising efforts like pay-per-click, PPC, make this possible. 

PPC is a prominent form of digital advertising that uses a bidding system to place your ads in visible positions (usually above the fold, where it’s most visible). It responds to users’ relevant searches and queries, using search engines like Google and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok. 

There are countless benefits PPC can bring to your firm’s bottom-line results. Still, perhaps the most important one is that it places you in the best position to take advantage of profitable advertising opportunities. The other benefits are: 

• Immediate results 
• Personalized campaigns that fit your firm’s needs 
• Highly-targeted reach within your firm’s jurisdiction 
• Increased exposure and brand awareness
• Quantity and quality leads 
• Trackable and measurable results 

While your digital ads can be displayed in numerous channels, the focus here is on Google PPC advertising. Besides being the biggest search engine in the market, Google ads’ economic impact has proven to be significant! Take a look at the estimates: 

With this in mind, stay with us to discover what’s new in Google’s PPC and learn how to make the best-informed decisions regarding your paid campaigns.

 

In Layman’s Terms, How does PPC for Lawyers Work?

Before delving into the most critical PPC updates, let’s quickly cover how PPC for lawyers works. 

Pay-per-click involves bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to your target market. You pay for each “click” that you receive through these advertisements based on your bid. While a variety of components are taken into consideration, there are 2 advertising factors you should be aware of:

1. Keyword strategy: In paid advertising, what you say in your ad is vitally important, and this is where keywords come in. Keywords don’t just magically rank; there is a bidding process behind them. 
   1. Therefore, by determining the keyword searches that are most relevant to your firm’s offerings, you can later bid to place your ads in search results related to relevant keywords. 
2. Ad optimizations: This is the action of making your ads (from copy to design, and placement.) as functional and effective as possible. 

Those are 2 constants in all your paid campaigns, but what’s new in paid advertising? 

 

1. More Automation with Google Performance Ads 

Google’s performance ads are a new campaign format that allows advertisers to access all their Google ads inventory channels from one campaign. According to Rebeca Guerrero, Digital Marketing Manager at Consultwebs, “[performance ads] are very much a powerful new campaign that is going to simplify a lot of the setup when it comes to campaign creation in PPC.” 

This is linked to one of the latest trends tech giants like Google are pushing: simplification and automation. As Rebeca adds, “we can sense that we’re moving towards a more automated landscape as far as ad copy, creation, and campaign creation.”  

Firms can leverage plenty of benefits from performance ads, e.g., maximizing conversion, but only if firms are crystal clear about their campaign goals. The other benefits one can expect from performance ads include:  

 

1. Increased Conversions with Responsive Search Ads 

Google has focused on expanded text ads (ETAs) and responsive search ads (RSAs) for a very long time. However, starting June 30, 2022, businesses will no longer be able to create or edit ETAs, which means 100% of the focus is shifting to RSAs. This update will completely change the way legal marketing agencies write PPC ads.

By definition, RSAs are responsive search ads that let you create ads that adapt to show more relevant messages to your clients. Again, these recent updates favor Google’s shift towards simplification and automation. In this case, it opens up the number of creatives you can add to your campaigns. Here’s what we mean:  

RSAs also drive more conversion  as it adapts to your customer’s ever-changing behavior. According to Google, “we’ve seen advertisers that add responsive search ads in their ad groups achieve up to 10% more clicks and conversions.” 

This development raises a critical question, how does Consultwebs, a legal digital agency, deal with the discontinuation of expanded text ads? 

According to Rebeca, “One of the steps we have been taking within our client’s campaigns is to create several variations of our top contenders/ top ads to make sure that we have enough inventory for when the change happens.“

 

1. Better Keyword Matching Capabilities 

Remember that everything you say – or don’t say – in your ad is important. Every single word of your ad counts, and this is why keywords play one of the most critical roles in your legal campaigns.

Firms need to ensure that the keywords they’re bidding for match the terms prospect’s and client’s searches. Take a look at the different keyword matching options: 

Here’s a scenario to help you better understand how keyword matching affects your firm’s intake. If you use the term ‘personal injury lawyer near me‘ and prompt the exact match type, your ads would drive only the people searching for that very specific query.

On the other hand, with a broad match modifier, your ads match with phrases related to ‘personal injury lawyer near me,’ thus matching with different search queries like ‘lawyers near me‘ or less qualified keywords.

The question is, what happens when firms end up getting traffic from non-relevant searches and clicks? 

For example, using a broad match keyword like ‘law firm‘ or ‘legal services‘ attracts prospects looking for law firms but are perhaps looking for a different practice area than your firm handles. 

This is what Consultwebs does to ensure your keyword bidding strategy matches your prospect’s search query: 

To counteract this issue, Rebeca notes, “Now we’re able to create a more limited number of keywords that are going to bring all that traffic regardless. We’re spending our time more on recalibrating our campaigns to make sure we are directing traffic to the most relevant ad groups and ads.”

 

Stay competitive and drive immediate leads to your firm’s doors.

You can guarantee that will happen when an experienced legal digital marketing agency sets up your digital advertising efforts like PPC.

Additionally, driving traffic, improving your firm’s image, and producing more sales are other benefits you can expect from a robust PPC strategy. To see how it works, or if you have questions specific to paid digital ads for law firms, Facebook, YouTube, and more, we’re ready to answer them, so please don’t hesitate to reach out! 

 

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