On Expensive AdWords Legal Keywords

Gyi Tsakalakis
June 27, 2016

The most expensive AdWords legal keywords in the US usually aren't as high as reported.

Headlines purporting astronomical cost-per-clicks make for great "internet bait."

For example, when ClickZ's Chris Lake published their top 100 most expensive U.S. keywords, it generated some decent social buzz and even some links.

After all, "$935 for a single click?" Wow!

However, there's little question that legal AdWords clicks can be expensive, it's worth understanding a few things about how this data is derived and the factors that contribute to the actual cost-per-click (CPC) that a lawyer is likely to pay.

TL;DR: Legal CPCs can be much lower than these reports if you know what you're doing.

Why Are Legal CPCs So High?

If you're completely unfamiliar with how AdWords works, check out our post on the AdWords auction first.

Generally speaking, lawyers (particularly personal injury lawyers) are willing to pay a lot of money per click on AdWords because of the high value of the fees that they are able to obtain from a significant injury case.

For example, if a lawyer spends $100,000 on AdWords with an average cost-per-click of $100, they can purchase 1,000 highly-targeted click from users who are searching for their services. If only one percent of those clicks leads to an inquiry from a potential client, that equals one-hundred potential client inquiries. If only one percent of those inquiries turns into a case with a $200,000 fee, the lawyer has realized a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 200%.

Obviously, any given campaign can perform much better or a lot worse than this example. But it's a good starting point for understanding why legal CPCs can reach such heights.

However, there are a variety of reasons why the CPCs that you ought to pay can be wildly different from the typical most expensive keyword post.

First, many lawyers tend to overpay for keywords. Some lawyers who manage their own AdWords campaigns simply have no idea what they're doing. They'll do things like broad match to legal terms (i.e. lawyer, attorney, etc). They'll set their maximum CPC (the most they're willing to pay for a click) with the intent to maintain an average number one position. Sometimes this is can be attributed to inexperience. Other times, to ego. Whatever the reasons, in my experience auditing legal PPC campaigns, bids are set without much regard to conversion.

To be fair, it isn't always the lawyers who are unnecessarily driving the costs of clicks. Many paid search management agencies are compensated on percent of ad spend basis. This means that they are paid a fee based on the amount of money their lawyer-client spends on AdWords. Therefore, the more money they persuade their client to spend on AdWords, the higher their fee.

This arrangement isn't inherently wrong, but the agency must be held accountable for delivering meaningful results to the firm. Typically, this should in terms of things like return on ad spend, cost-per-client or some other meaningful business metric.

Second, if you read our AdWords auction post, you know that there are a variety of other factors that contribute to the actual cost-per-click in any given account. For example, your Quality Score can have a significant on your actual cost-per-click. These factors typically aren't accurately reflected in the average most expensive keyword post.

In other words, by improving Quality Score factors, you can greatly decrease the amount you pay per click in your AdWords campaigns.

Third, many most expensive keyword posts aren't reporting actual campaign data. Instead, they are reporting from tools that attempt to predict cost per clicks. For example, the ClickZ post appears to have used a dataset provided by SEMrush.

What are the most expensive AdWords keywords in the US  Here’s the top 100   ClickZ

Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not specifically calling-out ClickZ or SEMrush here. Without access to specific campaign data, tools like SEMrush serve to give advertisers a general sense of advertising trends. However, in my experience, most of these tools can be markedly different when compared to actual campaign data. Cost-per-click happens to be one area where the data is particularly inaccurate.

In any event, lawyers ought to be cautious in relying on posts like this to benchmark the performance of their own campaigns. Ultimately, as with any advertising, AdWords performance must be measured in terms of meaningful goals. Usually, they should be somehow connected to fees specifically generated from the campaign. If your campaigns aren't delivering fees at target multiples above your ad spend, you should probably get someone to give you a second opinion.

Gyi Tsakalakis
Co-Founder of AttorneySync
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Let's Discuss Your Growth

Helping law firms grow profitably with digital marketing and can prove it.

Barry Conybeare

We are so impressed with AttorneySync and their digital marketing services. We started with an audit of our digital presence and hired them thereafter. Fixes to the website and other platforms quickly followed and we have seen a substantial increase in online traffic, new client calls, and new client contracts. Strongly recommend AttorneySync!

Let's Talk

How can we help?

More From Our Blog

April 25, 2025
Do Confidentiality Rules of Professional Conduct Prohibit Use of Google's Local Services Ads?

On April 22, 2025, Google sent an email updating Local Services Ads Additional Terms for Providers: Subject: Action required: important updates to Local Service Ads Additional Terms Many people are arguing that lawyers cannot participate in Local Services Ads, as this would constitute a per se violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct related to […]

Read More
March 13, 2025
Lawyerist + Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Collaboration

Conrad and I recently joined Zack at Lawyerist to record a conversation about AI and marketing. You might think that we spend the whole time on how lawyers can use AI to publish content. You'd be wrong. While AI can certainly support publishing, there are many more interesting ways to use it in legal marketing. […]

Read More
March 11, 2025
ChatGPT Legal Services Consumer Journeys and Marketing Attribution

As more legal services consumers turn to ChatGPT for local law firm recommendations, a fascinating intersection between AI, search, and maps unfolds. While Google remains the undisputed leader in local business data, ChatGPT is increasingly becoming an entry point for searchers seeking legal representation. But here’s the kicker: instead of keeping users within its ecosystem, […]

Read More
March 10, 2025
Law Firm Brand Amplifies All Marketing

When law firms contact us, they usually want to talk: • PPC Ads • SEO Rankings • Lead Generation Very few want to talk: • Brand • Trust & Recognition • Emotional Connection Admittedly, much of this concerns that AttorneySync is known for lead generation across those common digital channels. But even when we start […]

Read More
March 6, 2025
Artificial Intelligence Overviews (AIO) in Legal SEO

According to an October 2024 study by SE Ranking: "The legal niche triggers the highest percentage of AIOs (77.67%). The average number of links matched between the AI Overview resources and the top 20 search results was 6.49 for legal topics. AI Overviews for legal topics most frequently link to NYCourts.gov (114 links), YouTube.com (48 […]

Read More
February 27, 2025
You Can’t Hire for Law Firm SEO If You Don’t Understand It

I'm grateful for my friend, Charley Mann of Law firm Alchemy. If you're a lawyer, subscribe to his Free Email List. In a recent email, Charley calls out bad guru advice on hiring: "Trying to execute a major SEO improvement? You need to find people who will help you, instead of trying to DIY it […]

Read More
February 26, 2025
Law Firm SEO Success Isn't What You Think It Is

If you’ve spent any time on LinkedIn, you’ve likely seen posts from law firm SEO experts showing off charts with an “up and to the right” trajectory. These screenshots, often pulled from tools like Semrush or Ahrefs, are meant to signal SEO success. And it’s not just the agencies celebrating—𝗹𝗮𝘄 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 […]

Read More
February 15, 2025
What "Meh, Links" Means

Meh, links! All things being equal, links still tend to move the dial more than any other factor in legal SERPs. Maybe links are having a diminishing impact internet-wide. But in my experience, quality links, especially relevant links (both topically and geographically), tend to improve law firm visibility in search more than most everything else. […]

Read More
February 11, 2025
Law Firm Community Leadership: Do Well by Doing Good

When you think of "marketing," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Ads? SEO? Social Media? What about: Helping others?Taking the lead? Rallying around your community? Need an example? Learn from Bart Siniard at Siniard Law Injury Attorneys efforts to help rebuild Mary's Pit BBQ. These efforts aren't about marketing. They're about supporting a […]

Read More

Let's Discuss

Questions or comments? Let's discuss on social!
Testimonials on this site are from examples of real client results. The results you see are not typical. They do not guarantee similar results. Individual results may vary based on a variety of factors. Your results may vary.
envelope
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram