The year is almost over. We’re just a month short of 2021. 2020 has been a rough year in every aspect of our lives, social and business-wise. The COVID-19 pandemic has been dominating everything since late February. The US elections left their significant mark well, but life goes on, and so did digital marketing in 2020.

This year, we’ve been very active on our blog, providing you with content for Your Law Firm’s bilingual digital marketing. Several times, we’ve concentrated on Attorney PPC, we’ve given tips for Your Law Firm’s success, we’ve explored the latest trends and best practices. Today, we’ll look back at what happened in 2020. We’re going to recap the most crucial components of PPC for Law Firms, and we’re going to focus on the most vital tips we gave you, and we’re going to focus on what’s here to stay.  Join us as we look back, but always keeping an eye on the future and what’s next.

That’s undoubtedly one of the game-changers we saw Google introducing in 2020. LSAs were previously available to a limited selection of home services and a couple of locations for Immigration and Estate Planning Attorneys in the US. In the Summer of 2020, this changed. Google expanded LSAs to a wide selection of Law Firms across the Nation, adding tools for their digital marketing success. We’ve covered them with multiple articles in the past months, but we’d keep the following points if we had to recap.

  1. LSAs for Law Firms are a great addition to Google Ads campaigns but can’t substitute all other campaigns.
  2. They are not available in Spanish, so they can’t effectively target US Hispanics.
  3. You have no customization options on your Ad copies.
  4. They can prove effective if used wisely, helping you capture more space on the screen, increasing the chances for more conversion.
  5. You get the Google screened badge, adding an extra layer of trust with your prospective clients.

That’s nothing new, meaning that it didn’t pop up in 2020 as LSAs, but the importance of CTA tracking has been increasingly high. With more PPC options, your Law Firm needs to understand what’s yielding a lucrative ROI, what’s not, where you need to invest more, what you can change, new opportunities. That can become possible through a call-to-action tracking system. Additionally, you can gather valuable data about your personnel’s performance.

Remember: Being able to attribute signed cases to their original sources allows you to focus on what yields the best ROI.

  • The impact of COVID-19 on several practice areas

We’ve looked into several practice areas, such as Personal Injury, Workers Compensation, Bankruptcy, and the impact of the pandemic on their PPC. As a general overview, we noticed an initial drop in March-April, followed by a stabilization in the next months. Search volumes have been rising, with PI and WC recording annual peaks in October. That is a sign for Law Firms to not withdraw from their PPC campaigns in fear of the second wave. There is “food on the table,” and those who follow a long-term growth strategy will manage to benefit from it. Considering that, inevitable, some Law Firms will stop or pause their campaigns, CPCs might drop, CPAs will improve, and Google will “appreciate” the commitment attributing higher Quality Scores.

Google Ads is the golden standard for Law firm digital marketing, but other options can contribute to your efforts and guide you to success. The strategies that we focused on in 2020 were Facebook Ads for Attorneys and the Display Network. Their ability to enhance your brand awareness and image, together with the relatively lowers costs, put them in the epicenter last year. We don’t see that changing in 2021, so keep an eye out for opportunities to effectively add them to your Law Firm’s PPC campaigns.

Lead form Google Ads was introduced before 2020, but the internet behemoth extended its usage and options this year. You can use them on the Search Network and, next to that, on YouTube Ads. Their introduction to the video-sharing platform is an important addition, giving Law Firms the ability to collect new leads, targeting YouTube-native audiences.

  • Video Marketing and YouTube

Video and YouTube Ads have been on the rise in 2020. Not just for PPC, but SEO as well. Today, we’re focusing on bilingual PPC, so when we look back in 2020 highlights, we single out the new ways to create videos and advertise on the Video platform. Google introduced the Video Builder tool, allowing you to create short videos, ideal for bumper and other non-skippable YouTube Video Ads for your Law Firm.

How can a Law Firm target prospective clients without knowing the ideal profile? A buyer persona is what you need to look into before committing to any long-term strategy. If, for example, US Hispanics represent a significant percentage of your local population, they are crucial for your Law Firm’s success. Creating the buyer persona will allow you to spot the opportunities and target them in an effort to increase your caseload, maximizing your ROI.

  • Auction insights and branded ads 

In a way, this ties to the previous point. Auction insights are what will help you identify areas of improvement and opportunities. A data-driven strategy, together with a solid buyer persona, will maximize your chances, minimize errors, and fill the gaps. Hand in hand go the branded Ads. It has been a hot topic for PPC in 2020, and we predict that it’ll keep this way in 2021. Competitive Law Firms will continue to try and benefit from your brand name, showing their Google Ads over your organic result. Why do we mix it with auction insights? Because the tool provided by Google is one of the most effective ways to spot and understand if others are bidding on your branded keyword.

Cybersecurity has always been among the top subjects of digital marketing. In PPC, you are charged for every valid click. Why do we bring up “valid” here? Because competitors or click farms can create a series of fraudulent clicks, depleting your budget. If you don’t have a click fraud prevention strategy in place, you are susceptible to the threat, and you might end up wondering why your Google Ad campaigns didn’t work, while competitors can sign multiple cases every month. That’s a topic that will keep trending in 2021, so keep an eye on it, and if you are investing in PPC for your Law Firm, ensure that you or your partner have a prevention strategy in place.

Conclusion:

2020 has been an unprecedented year, dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It impacted our lives in every possible way, and so it did with PPC for Law Firms. However, we saw that Attorneys who want long-term, sustainable growth didn’t pull out from their campaigns. On the contrary, they consolidated their efforts and saw them paying off. If we had to single out one more dominating event for PPC in 2020, we’d go for Google LSAs for Attorneys. It’s something new for Law Firms. It can prove to become a tremendous additional format to existing campaigns, but be cautious as it doesn’t seem to be enough for a standalone strategy. Holistic strategies always perform better, so don’t work in silos.

This our re-cap for 2020, with a view on 2021. With a month left on our calendars, we’ll keep our eyes open, and if something groundbreaking pops up, we’ll update the article.