Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 3rd, 2020 and was updated on August 17th, 2020 for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

COVID-19 has impacted our personal and business lives in numerous ways, but what’s the pandemic’s impact on digital marketing for Personal Injury Attorneys?  

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen our lives change. We’ve altered our lives and activities, we spend more time at home, we socialize online, and we got familiar with the home-office culture. As expected, digital marketing has also been affected in multiple ways, including search volumes, organic and paid traffic, and CPC, among others. Today, we’ll dive into the specific case of bilingual digital marketing for Personal Injury law firms, and how it’s been affected by COVID-19.  

According to our experience, some of the best cases for our clients come from clients involved in car accidents. Early predictions stated that we should expect a significant drop in interest and searches for MVA cases as people were in lockdown and traffic was very limited. What happened, though, is very different from the initial expectations. At first, we saw a notable spike in searchers during March, followed by a stabilization in the next couple of months. We preached from the first moment that you should stay proactive and this seems to be backed by data. People who might have been previously involved in an accident potentially found themselves with more time and therefore looked into their cases. 

Here is the supporting graph for “car accident attorney near me”.

And here you can find the graph for “accident attorney near me”.

What is noteworthy at this point is that we identify a drop in mobile searches, especially in March. This comes hand-in-hand with the reports showcasing that desktop has been re-gaining grounds in search. This is a fact that you need to keep in mind for an effective PPC strategy. Different devices, sometimes, require different approaches in terms of targeting, bidding, intake process, and tracking.  

Tip: Use landing pages to maximize your ROI from PI Google Ads campaigns, and combine them with the appropriate call-to-action buttons that fit the searcher profile/device and increase your conversions.

Let’s move now to the keywords in Spanish, “abogado de accidentes de auto”. Compared to what we saw in English, we can’t spot a significant spike for search volumes in Spanish. What we see is a slight drop in April, but this quickly changed in May, when we started seeing search volumes recover. Another interesting point here is that mobile search volumes are dominating the chart. If you read our blog, you already know that Hispanics are mobile power users and power consumers. This is justified by the data provided by Google. We can attribute the initial slight drop in volume to fear for the unknown in the Hispanic communities as a significant percentage of the demographic saw their lives change in a matter of days.

Tip: An important percentage of the Latinx professionals work as first responders. Experts expect to see a wave of pandemic related cases, and you can help your prospective clients by getting in front of them with Google Ads in Spanish.

  • Let’s look at what matters the most, conversions.

Now that we covered the initial part, search volumes, it’s time to move into what matters even more for any Personal Injury lawyer who invests in Google Ads, conversions. We won’t talk high-level here, for this article, we gathered data from two of the PI accounts we handle for bilingual PPC, and we are ready to present them to you. We can’t disclose specific information on the law firms, but the reports are pulled straight from the accounts without any retouching. Also, please note that advertising budgets didn’t change during the months we are sharing with you.

Personal Injury law firm 1:

We are examining a time-span of 6 months, starting from December 30, 2019, and going to today. Here, you can see a total of 491 leads that converted through our Google Ads campaigns. If you follow the graph, you’ll spot a significant spike starting in late March. Our clients decided to stay loyal to what has been working for them for months and this paid off. One of the reasons why they saw their performance improve was their loyalty to Google Ads, staying active can help your law firm get a better quality score. 

Personal Injury law firm 2:

You can’t find a better real-life example than that. This Attorney decided to come on board and start investing in Spanish Google Ads right before the beginning of the pandemic-related restrictions in the US. Instead of unplugging the campaign, the PI law firm decided that the time is now and as you can see in the graph, we generated 318 leads for them in just four months. If that’s not an amazing ROI, then what is?

Tip: With our Lead Tracking Dashboard, we give our clients the possibility to score their leads and qualify/disqualify them. This way, they keep track of the prospects that matter to them, their signed cases. We therefore understand what campaigns work best for them and optimize accordingly.

No matter how unfortunate this is, we have to get used to living under the new normal. COVID-19 is not gone yet, and everybody needs to adjust and adapt. Our lives are moving more and more to the online world, and so is the interest of your local audiences and their interactions. People will keep searching online for Personal Injury services, and if you don’t get in front of them with bilingual Google Ads campaigns, optimized for conversions, then you are missing out on a great opportunity. What’s even worse? You are leaving the whole pie to your competitors, and they won’t sleep on that chance.

Remember: Social Platforms are constantly attracting new users, and their engagement has been higher than ever. Facebook Ads can be a powerful complementary tool to your law firm’s PI Google Ads. With effective remarketing and retargeting techniques, you can make sure that you eat the whole stake leaving nothing on the table.

What are the key takeaways?

  • Search volumes for high intent Personal Injury-related keywords are stable. We noticed some spikes and slight drops, but interest remains high, higher than usual.
  • There is some shift in devices, with desktop gaining some grounds over mobile.
  • Leads and conversions remain in more than healthy standards amid COVID-19. Our clients have reported some of their most memorable months during the pandemic.

Do you have questions regarding your Personal Injury bilingual PPC strategy? We are the bilingual digital marketing experts, and we are here for you, so don’t hesitate to contact us.

 

August 17th update

As the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing and we need to keep on with our personal and professional lives under the new normal, we want to update you with the latest graphs and data regarding its impact on PPC for Personal Injury Law Firms.

Below, you will find the new graph for the query accident attorney near me.

You will understand that the search volumes have stabilized, showing demand that is at least of the levels we monitored in 2019. What is notable here is that mobile queries seem to have recovered and are again on the rise.

Here, you can see the graph for the query in Spanish, abogado de accidente de auto.

What we identify here is that it keeps rising, and this means that your law firm’s opportunities are steadily growing within the Spanish speaking population. Hand in hand with the overall rise comes to the surge in mobile intent, and we can see that now that Hispanics are not in a home lockdown, they are back on their mobile devices, proving their preference to these devices.