Law firms, just like all businesses investing in Google Ads, should know that paid marketing campaigns are not a “set them and forget them” strategy. They require fine-tuning and optimizations. To ensure that your Google Ads strategy yields the maximum ROI, you should understand, monitor, and track the following KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

  1. Clicks

It might look like an oversimplified KPI but think about it as the beginning of all other KPIs. How do you get conversions? How does your law firm sign new clients through digital marketing without getting traffic on your ads?  Clicks are the first indication of a well-performing campaign that has the potential to grow further or, perhaps, needs to be revised. This isn’t an absolute make-it or break-it factor, though. Certain practice areas and specific high-intent keywords might not get too many clicks but may still yield results that can be measured differently. We wouldn’t, for example, compare the clicks of a car accident ad to those of a PPC campaign for an Immigration attorney, as the latter tends to be more generic and generate more traffic.

  1. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR is the total number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. So if, for example, your Personal Injury law firm’s Google Ads got 70 clicks over 1000 views, your CTR is 7%. It’s an important KPI that will allow you to potentially understand how relevant your ad is and how desirable your services look to the searchers. There is no golden standard for CTR. So although the legal vertical average is close to 3%, you should look at it case-by-case and campaign-by-campaign, measuring your progress against your competitors.

Tip: If your CTR appears to be below average, you can work on your ad copy to improve its conversion rate and add the appropriate Google Ad extensions.

CTR average per industry:

  1. Quality Score

We’ve covered Quality Score in multiple instances, but we have to include it in this list as well. Having high Quality Scores on your keywords (7 or over) will allow you to outperform your competitors and achieve better ad rankings without necessarily paying more.

  1. CPC (Cost Per Click)

This is one of the first KPIs any business, including law firms, measures, or even asks about before kicking off their campaigns. The competitive CPCs are among the many reasons we strongly advocate for Spanish Google ads, as they are generally more competitive than English. Google Ads is a bidding platform that will consider many different parameters, including the CPC, and determine who is getting the top spot. Monitoring your law firm’s CPC is one of the most valuable KPIs, as it will allow you to set your budget and effectively distribute it.

  1. CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) 

In a few words, this is how much your law firm will pay for each conversion. This doesn’t necessarily mean a signed case. It could refer to a prospective client that called, initiated a live chat, or filled a web form. It’s calculated by dividing the total cost by the number of conversions.

Tip: Don’t mix it with Target CPA, a bidding strategy that automatically aims for conversions at a CPA that equals or is below your set target CPA.

  1. Impression Share

Impression share lets you grasp the total impressions your law firm’s Google ads are receiving and compares it to the total available impressions. For example, if you are running a PPC campaign for MVAs (Motor Vehicle Accidents), there are 1500 overall impressions in a month, and your law firm gets 1000 of those, you have an impression share of 75%. If you use Google Auction Insights, through this metric, you can discover who else is showing ads on your desired keywords and benchmark against competitors.

  1. Top of page & absolute top of page rate

Other marketers might list the average position instead of these two metrics, but we firmly believe that top of the page and absolute top of page rate can give you a complete understanding of your performance. To put things into perspective, you don’t want your Google ads to be placed at the bottom of the page. On the contrary, you need them above the organic results, ideally in the top spot. The top of the page will show you how often your law firm’s Google ads show over the organic results, while the absolute top of the page will show how often they appear on the first position. Depending on your particular goals, you can adjust the bids or the strategy for your campaigns to get better results.

  1. Lifetime Value (LTV)

That is the KPI that actually takes into consideration your law firm’s signed clients and their value to your business. This is a metric that will allow you to better understand not only your PPC performance and ROI but also your law firm’s overall management and long-term, sustainable growth.

What are the key takeaways?

  • Performance indicators are likely to be interconnected, so measuring all of the most significant KPIs will give you a complete understanding of your PPC campaigns.
  • Improving those metrics will help you achieve your end-goals and maximize your digital marketing ROI.
  • Measuring your law firm’s KPIs is as important as tracking your CTAs.