Get More Leads for Your PI Firm With PPC
Personal injury law is one of the most competitive verticals for Google Pay-Per-Click. Since a click can result in a multi-million dollar case, PI attorneys are willing to invest heavily in PPC.
The goal of this guide is to provide you with tactics to succeed with your PPC advertising in this competitive space.
Before diving into execution, let’s dive into some competitive metrics, so you know what to expect when launching or optimizing campaigns.
Overall Competition:
The average cost per click across our client portfolio of personal injury lawyers is $19.44. This includes branded keywords, which reduces the average cost per click. The cost per click varies by practice area.
Average Cost Per Click For Each Practice Area:
- Auto Accidents: $90 Per Click
- Truck Accidents: $23 Per Click
- Personal Injury: $45 Per Click
- Medical Malpractice: $4 Per Click
- Dog Bite: $41 Per Click
- Nursing Home Abuse: $12 Per Click
SEO is one of the most profitable forms of marketing. Learn about our recommendations for your PI firm's SEO.
View Our PI SEO GuideImportant Notes:
- Oftentimes, for PI attorneys, PPC isn’t profitable for the first 6-12 months. It’s once that big case hits where you start to see the ROI.
- More established firms with higher revenue and profits can easily reinvest in Google PPC. For smaller firms, the high cost of pay-per-click makes it intimidating, especially if it’s unprofitable in its early stages.
- The competition for personal injury varies based on the market you’re in and whether you’re using city references. If you’re bidding on [Personal Injury Lawyer], it’s going to be less expensive than if you’re bidding on “Personal Injury Lawyer Pittsburgh.” The intent is stronger when the keyword includes a city reference.
- If you’re a PI attorney in Butte, Montana, with only three competitors, the cost per click will be significantly lower than if your firm is in Pittsburgh with 100+ competitors.
- Many attorneys don’t handle medical malpractice cases; they refer them out, meaning there’s less competition and a lower cost per click.
Campaign Structure
You want to create separate campaigns for each practice area (if you have the budget). This allows you to allocate funding based on your most profitable practice areas. It also provides a clear view of which practice area is performing best.
Google Ads Campaign Structure for PI Law Firms
Separate campaigns for better budget control and performance tracking
Keyword Structure
- For each campaign, we like to keep it simple with 4-5 keywords.
- We utilize one exact match keyword without the city reference, which usually yields a lower cost per click
- We like going with phrase match for the remaining keywords to ensure quality search terms are coming through
We don’t like using broad match in this campaign structure, as it can dilute quality. There will be times when we set up a broad match campaign (with only broad match keywords) as this tends to generate a lower cost per click. The downside is that you can be paying for non-relevant keywords.
4-Keyword Structure for Each PI Campaign
Pittsburgh market example • Focused targeting without budget-draining broad match
Why This 5-Keyword Structure Works Across All Practice Areas
- Consistent Framework: Same structure applied to each practice area for easy management and optimization
- Complete Coverage: Each campaign captures attorney/lawyer variations and synonyms specific to that practice
- Budget Allocation: Higher CPCs (Auto: $90) get more exact match focus, lower CPCs (Med Mal: $4) allow broader experimentation
- Scalable Performance: 35 total keywords (7 campaigns × 5 keywords) is manageable while covering your entire practice
- Match Type Strategy: 1 exact match for highest intent, 3 phrase matches for variations, 1 broad match for discovery
Advertising Copy
- We like to buildout our ad copy in a Google Sheet. This allows us to work quickly while receiving client feedback. We believe that building copy directly in Google Ads doesn’t allow you to be as creative.
- Anything that differentiates your firm should be included. In the example for Schiff & Associates, you’ll see we included the following for Truck Accidents:
- Recent $6 Million Client Win
- 40+ Years Proven Experience
- Local & Accountable
- Father & Son Owned Firm
- Make sure that within the copy, there is a reference to the keywords you’re bidding on. This is one of the reasons we bid on only 4-5 keywords: to ensure alignment between keywords and copy, which bolsters the authority score.
Landing Page
- You must have a landing page for each campaign.
- The headline (H1) and subheadline (H2) on the landing page should align with the keywords you’re bidding on
- Make the landing page bullet point heavy so it’s easy to scan
- Add pictures of your team to show that you’re an established firm, not a fly-by-night out-of-town practice.
- If you have multiple attorneys at your firm, highlight the attorneys who specialize in the respective practice area. Videos do a great job of doing this.
- Include verdicts and settlements, so visitors know about the compensation your clients have received.
- Include testimonials from your clients (video testimonials are considered elevated content)
- Make the phone number and contact form prominent and above the fold so people can easily reach you.
- List out any accreditations or accomplishments (example: SuperLawyers Top 1%)
Importance of Quality Score Alignment
Quality score assesses the relevance and quality of your PPC ads and keyword targeting, as well as the alignment of your landing page. In layman’s terms, when there’s alignment on your keywords, ad copy, and landing page, it gives you a higher grade on a scale of 1-10. The higher your grade, the more profitable your campaigns become. You not only achieve better positioning on Google, but your cost per click decreases.
The illustration below shows the impact this can have.
Quality Score = Profitability
How keywords, ad copy, and landing page alignment drives down costs and increases ROI
The Alignment Formula
Quality Score Impact on Campaign Profitability
Quality Score: 3/10
Quality Score: 9/10
Why Alignment Drives Profitability
- Lower Cost Per Click: Google reduces your CPC when keywords match ad copy and landing pages
- Better Ad Positions: Higher quality scores get better placement without paying more
- Higher Click-Through Rates: Relevant ads get more clicks, improving campaign performance
- Better Conversion Rates: Consistent messaging from keyword to conversion builds trust
- Compound Effect: All improvements stack together for dramatically better ROI
Other Key Items:
Tracking
We recommend that all our clients sign up for CallRail to track each phone call and contact form conversion. You can rate the quality of each lead, attribute revenue to clients, and see the keyword and source they came in from. Many Google campaigns are now optimized for conversion, so it’s imperative to have a service like CallRail in place to measure the ROI of your leads. Just because you’re seeing conversions come through on Google Ads doesn’t mean it’s the proper conversion.
Google Local Service Ads
Google Local Service Ads are pay-per-lead ads, not pay-per-click. The average cost per lead across our PI portfolio is $249. In addition to Google PPC, we recommend setting up Google Local Service Ads.
Monitor Search Terms
Each cost-per-click is prohibitively expensive for PI attorneys. Monitoring search terms to ensure quality. We tell our clients that when your search terms are above 90% quality, it’s one of the biggest drivers of campaign success.
Location Targeting
Personal injury lawyers often want to target multiple cities or the entire state with PPC. Think back to the Pittsburgh quality score example. A high-quality score was achieved because the keyword aligned with the ad copy and landing page. In addition to Pittsburgh, targeting Philadelphia would require building out additional campaigns and landing pages. It can be accomplished, but requires strategic guidance and implementation.
Don’t Forget About Bing
Bing is 42.8% cheaper than Google. In a test run by SpyFu, Google’s average CPC was $2.69 vs. Bing’s $1.54. Bing can drive strong quality at a lower price point. We recommend incorporating Bing Ads into the advertising mix.
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