Law firms
Legal clicks are among the most expensive in paid search. How many become signed cases?
Family law, divorce, criminal defense and personal injury are the cases people search for at the worst moment of their week, and the auction prices them accordingly. We build practice area campaigns, pages that make the phone ring, and call tracking down to the retainer, and we run ChatGPT Ads while legal clicks there still cost 2.80 USD.
A New York law firm, two channels, one tracking setup.
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96.92 USD
Cost per lead
ChatGPT Ads, New York law account
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248 USD
Cost per lead
Google Search, same account, same period
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41.23 USD
Average Google Search cost per click
Same account
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103
Tracked leads in two months
ChatGPT Ads
The gap
At legal click prices, waste is a five figure line item
Legal is one of the priciest corners of the Google auction, and at those click prices the habits that quietly drain an ordinary account become expensive fast.
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Research queries
Broad match sprays budget across research queries.
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One homepage
Ads point at a homepage that lists every practice area.
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No retainer data
Nothing in the account records which campaigns produced retainers rather than voicemails.
A person choosing a lawyer is scared, rushed, and comparing three firms in one evening. They hire the firm whose page speaks to their exact situation and whose phone gets answered first. Most legal ad budgets buy expensive clicks and then lose the case at the landing page or in the intake queue, so we build all three layers as one system.
How we run a law account
From a panicked search to a signed case
We build Search around the cases that pay: family and divorce, criminal defense, real estate, personal injury, immigration, employment. High intent hiring searches are bid separately from research queries, and negatives keep "free consultation forum," "pro bono," and job seekers out. The bid follows the value of the case type.
Each campaign points at a page about that one situation: the car accident, the custody fight, the DUI charge. Attorney credentials, results the bar rules allow you to state, and a call button that works at 11 at night. A homepage that lists nine practice areas converts none of them well.
Most legal leads are phone calls, so we track calls as first class conversions, with recording where your state allows it. Where the firm shares intake outcomes, we feed signed against unsigned back into the account, so bidding learns the difference between a tire kicker and a case.
People now describe their legal situation to ChatGPT before they ever type it into Google. On the law account we publish, those ad slots cost 2.80 USD a click against 41.23 USD on Google Search. The auction will fill up. The window is open now, and we run it with the same tracking discipline as Search.
Measurement
From the first search to the signed retainer, tracked end to end
A law account earns its budget on a handful of signed cases a month, and those are exactly what a loose tracking setup cannot see. Here is the chain we wire into every firm's account.
- Searchpractice area and city
- Ad + landing pageone page per case type
- Call / formtracked and recorded
- Signed caseintake outcome
- Case valuefed back to bidding
When all five steps connect, bidding chases the searches that end in a retainer. When the chain breaks at the phone call, the account is guessing with some of the most expensive clicks in paid search.
Intake
The case is won or lost at the phone
A person who just searched for an injury lawyer is calling three firms tonight, and the first competent human they reach usually gets the case. Marketing budgets rarely account for this. Firms pay hundreds of dollars to generate the call and then let it ring to voicemail on a Saturday.
Because we track every call with its source and outcome, we can show you exactly how many paid calls go unanswered and what they cost you. That report has paid for our fee on its own more than once. Where intake needs help, we bring the data to the conversation, and the ads get better because the firm sees what happens after the click.
Law case
The first ChatGPT Ads account we can put numbers on
From June 1 to July 31, 2026 the firm ran Google Ads and ChatGPT Ads side by side. Google Search produced 270 leads at 248 USD each on 41.23 USD clicks. ChatGPT produced 103 leads at 96.92 USD each on 2.80 USD clicks. Google converted clicks far better, 16.63% against 2.89%, and ChatGPT still won on cost per lead because the clicks were 15 times cheaper. The ChatGPT campaigns were built and run by the senior specialist who runs Totem accounts, and the firm is now scaling the channel to 15,000 USD a month.
Read the full case
Feedback
Rated five stars by clients
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+200%Lead pipeline
Working with Waseem and his team has been a game changer for us. They have helped grow our lead pipeline by over 200%. He also set up advanced tracking, making it easier for us to see what works from Google Ads. Additionally, he implemented a smart CRM solution that has saved us a lot of time and money. If you are looking for someone reliable and skilled who truly cares about your success, you will not be disappointed!
Jakob BjørnFounder & CEO, Nemovo -
Through our collaboration on Google Ads, Waseem has been a great sparring partner for our content and landing pages. It is always nice to have feedback from someone who is truly engaged in our content and goals. I can definitely recommend having Waseem on board when the whole marketing team starts getting creative!
Anne PapeHead of Marketing Nordic, Billwerk
Capabilities
Built for law firms
Practice area Search
Campaigns split by case type and city, with tight negatives and bids that respect what an injury case is worth against a traffic ticket.
Local Services Ads
Google Screened placements sit above every result and charge per lead rather than per click. We handle screening, dispute junk leads, and track LSA next to Search so you see one cost per case.
ChatGPT Ads
Early mover campaigns on OpenAI's ad platform, built and run by the senior specialist who runs Totem accounts. Cheap clicks, honestly reported conversion rates, tracked leads.
Landing pages that get the call
A page per practice area with credentials, permitted results language, and a phone first contact flow. Built and tracked as part of the campaign rather than bolted on after.
Call tracking and intake feedback
Calls tracked as conversions, recorded where permitted, and scored against intake outcomes, so the account optimizes toward signed cases rather than call volume.
Brand defense
Competitors bid on your firm's name and settlement mill directories outrank you for it. We defend the brand shelf cheaply and keep the directories from taxing cases that were already yours.
Our take on AI
AI does the reading, humans do the deciding
Our in house layer runs the weekly account health checks, flags budget that is pacing wrong, and queues search terms and anomalies for a person to judge. The moves that carry money, and anything a client or a court could ever see, stay with a senior operator who owns your account. It is real tooling we run on every account we manage.
Common questions
Law firm marketing questions we hear
01Our cost per lead keeps climbing. Is that just the market?
Partly. Legal click prices rise every year because the cases are worth so much. But inside most accounts we audit, a meaningful share of spend goes to research queries, wrong city clicks, and practice areas the firm does not even want. Cutting that waste usually moves cost per lead more than any bidding trick. The other lever is new supply. Local Services Ads charges per lead instead of per click, and ChatGPT Ads is the cheapest legal traffic we have measured, at 2.80 USD a click against 41.23 USD on Google Search in the account we publish. Both take pressure off the Search auction.
02Which practice areas do you work with?
Family law and divorce, criminal defense, real estate, personal injury, immigration, employment, and bankruptcy. These are consumer practice areas where the client finds the firm through search and decides quickly, which is where paid search earns its budget. Big ticket corporate work wins clients through relationships rather than ads, and we say so rather than selling you campaigns for it.
03Should we be on Local Services Ads or regular Search?
Both, run as one system. Local Services Ads sits above everything, charges per lead, and carries the Google Screened badge, which makes it the cheapest qualified call in many metros. Its volume is capped and you cannot control the message. Search takes over where it runs out: specific case types, specific neighborhoods, and the story you want to tell. We track both into one cost per case view, so budget flows to whichever is signing cases that month.
04Is ChatGPT Ads real or hype?
Yes. On the law account we publish, ChatGPT clicks converted at 2.89% against 16.63% on Google Search, because a person asking ChatGPT about their situation is earlier in the decision. The click price absorbs that and more. At 2.80 USD a click, every 10,000 USD of spend produced 103 leads against Google's 40. The cheap auction will fill up, which is why the right time to build your playbook is now.
05How do you charge?
A flat monthly management fee, agreed in the proposal once we have seen your account, your metros, and the landing pages involved. Your ad budget is billed by Google directly to the firm, in the firm's own account, and we never mark up media. A percentage of spend would give us a reason to grow your budget rather than your caseload, which is the wrong incentive at legal click prices. There is no long commitment.
06How fast do we see results?
Tracking fixes show signal within weeks, because we are repairing what the account can measure, and unanswered call reporting starts immediately. Structural gains build over the first two to three months as rebuilt campaigns and clean conversion data give bidding something honest to learn from. Anyone promising a flood of signed cases in week one is describing luck. We would rather commit to a timeline a careful operator can stand behind.
07Do we keep our account and landing pages if we leave?
Yes. Your Google Ads account, your Local Services Ads profile, your tracking, and your landing pages are yours. We build inside your accounts rather than hiding your campaigns in an agency shell, and if we ever part ways you keep everything, including the call tracking history. We earn the relationship each month, which is how it should work.
Send us your firm's account. We will show you which cases your ads are losing.
A three day teardown, no obligation, and an honest read on your call tracking.
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30 minutes on Google Meet with the specialist who would run your account.