u/JusticeForSimpleRick

I’m running Google Ads for a law firm and currently optimizing toward free consultation bookings using Maximize Conversions.

Tracking is working well with GCLID and Enhanced Conversions. We use Clio, and I’m also in the beta for the Clio Grow scheduler, so consultation bookings are being tracked properly.

The next step I’m trying to figure out is how to optimize beyond just booked consultations.

Ideally, I’d like Google Ads to also know which leads actually end up paying a retainer and becoming clients. A booked consultation is great, but obviously a retained client is a much stronger signal.

Has anyone set this up with Clio, either natively or through a custom integration?

My ideal setup would be:

Google Ads click → consultation booked → consultation happens → client pays retainer

Then I’d want Google Ads to receive that final retained-client conversion, tied back to the original GCLID, so the campaign can optimize toward people who are more likely to actually retain the firm - not just book a free consultation.

Is this possible with Clio? Would this typically be done through offline conversion imports, Zapier/Make, the Clio API, or another setup?

Curious to hear how others are handling this for law firms or other lead-gen businesses with long sales cycles.

I’ve been experimenting with consultation models and would appreciate input from other law firms.

I’ve found that almost nobody wants to pay for a consultation in advance. Because of that, I moved to free consultations. The problem is that free consults come with their own issues: sometimes people don’t show up, and sometimes they do show up but haven’t completed the intake form or provided enough information to make the meeting productive.

I’m now thinking about testing a different model:

The “free consultation” would really be a short 15-minute discovery call. The purpose would be to briefly understand the issue, weed out tire kickers, run conflict checks, confirm whether the matter is something I can potentially assist with, and explain the next steps.

If it seems like a fit, I would then send the intake form, request any relevant documents, and book them for a 30-minute paid consultation where I would actually review the documents and provide substantive advice.

Has anyone here tried this type of structure? Did clients understand the distinction between a free discovery call and a paid substantive consultation? Did it help with no-shows, incomplete intake forms, or tire kickers?

Would appreciate hearing what has worked or not worked for others.

I’m running PPC for a law firm focused on civil litigation, business litigation, corporate/commercial litigation, etc.

Previously, we were offering paid consultations, but performance has not been great, so we’re switching to free consultations for now to drive more volume. The landing page will clearly mention the free consultation, and I’m also planning to test one ad headline that says “Free Consult.”

Here’s the issue: I currently have “free” added as a broad match negative keyword, which means I’m likely blocking searches from people specifically typing things like “free consultation” or “free legal advice.”

My thinking has been that people actively searching for “free consultation” are more likely to be tire kickers. But someone searching for “civil litigation lawyer” or “business litigation attorney” and then seeing that my ad offers a free consultation feels different. In that case, the free consult is more of an added incentive, not the main thing they were searching for.

So I’m debating whether I should keep “free” blocked as a negative keyword, or remove it now that the offer is actually a free consult.

For those who run legal PPC, especially in litigation, how would you handle this? Would you still block “free” to avoid low-quality leads, or allow those searches and filter harder on the landing page/intake side?

I’m trying to sanity-check the best setup for Google Ads “Calls from website” conversion tracking.

My business has a public phone number that appears on the website and Google Business Profile. That public number is a Microsoft Teams number.

The Teams number then forwards to whichever answering service we’re using. We previously used Smith AI and we’re now testing/switching to another answering service.

Right now, the Google Ads website-call conversion is set up like this:

Display number: public Microsoft Teams number
Destination number: answering-service number

That setup made sense when the answering service was stable, because Google would route tracked calls directly to the answering service. But now that we may switch vendors from time to time, I’m wondering if the cleaner setup is:

Display number: public Microsoft Teams number
Destination number: public Microsoft Teams number
Then Teams forwards to the current answering service

So the flow would be:

Google forwarding number → Microsoft Teams number → current answering service

My question: for Google Ads “Calls from website” conversion tracking, does the destination number need to be the answering-service number, or can/should it be the public Teams number if Teams is handling the forwarding?

My instinct is to use the public Teams number for both display and destination so Google Ads, the website, and GBP all point to the stable public number, and any answering-service changes happen only inside Teams. I mainly want to confirm this won’t hurt call conversion tracking, attribution, or Google forwarding number behaviour.

I’m running PPC for a civil litigation market where CPCs are relatively cheap and search volume is medium.

We do offer free consultations, and it’s mentioned on the landing page. But I’m unsure whether putting “free consultation” directly in the ad headline helps or hurts lead quality.

My concern is that it may attract people who are mainly looking for free legal advice rather than someone with a real civil litigation matter who is likely to convert. For that reason, I’m currently blocking “free consultation” as a negative keyword, even though we technically offer it.

The idea is: I don’t want to target people specifically searching for free advice, but I also don’t want to hide the fact that the consultation is free once they’re on the page.

For legal PPC, especially civil litigation, have you found that “free consultation” in the headline improves conversion rate enough to justify the lower intent clicks? Or is it better left on the landing page and not emphasized in the ad copy?

I’m running Google Ads to a Squarespace PPC landing page. Users click my ad, land on Squarespace, click “Book Now,” and then get sent to a Clio Grow Scheduler page on a different domain.

I recently joined Clio Grow Scheduler’s Google Ads beta. I added the Google Ads conversion tag and conversion label into Clio, and Clio confirmed the scheduler sends hashed email/phone through enhanced conversions when someone completes a booking.

My campaign is now set to optimize for completed scheduler bookings, not just outbound “Book Now” clicks.

Question: is enhanced conversions likely enough here, or should I also set up GCLID pass-through from Squarespace to the Clio scheduler URL? My understanding is that GCLID would be an extra matching signal, but I don’t want to overcomplicate the setup unless it would materially improve attribution/bidding.

Looking for fellow Ontario residents to do some review swaps asap. Let me know. DM please.

Google Ads is recommending that I add structured snippets at the account level.

Right now I have sitelinks with descriptions and strong ad headlines/descriptions, but I’m not using structured snippets at the account level. I also don’t remember seeing an option to add them when creating the ads themselves, so I’m wondering if I’m missing something.

Do you generally add structured snippets at the account/campaign level whenever Google recommends them, or only when they add meaningful information that’s not already covered elsewhere?

Has anyone seen a noticeable impact from adding them, or is it mostly just an Ad Rank/real-estate play?

Curious what the consensus is.

I’m planning a PPC campaign for litigation services and I’m trying to figure out how broad or narrow to go.

The work I actually want is corporate/commercial litigation: shareholder disputes, contract disputes, business torts, partnership disputes, commercial debt issues, etc. That’s the area I’d rather build around because the matters tend to be more economically viable.

The issue is that, from what I’m seeing, people don’t necessarily search “corporate commercial litigation” as a keyword. They seem more likely to search broader terms like “civil litigation lawyer,” “litigation lawyer,” or issue-specific terms like “contract dispute lawyer.”

Would it be a bad idea to bid on broader civil litigation keywords but make the ad copy and landing page clearly focused on corporate/commercial litigation? For example, the ad and page would speak directly to business owners, companies, shareholders, partners, and commercial disputes.

My concern is lead quality. I previously tried marketing around wrongful dismissal / employment claims and got a lot of tire-kickers or low-value inquiries. I want to avoid repeating that.

So I’m wondering:

Is “civil litigation” too broad for PPC if I only want commercial files?

Should I market the campaign specifically toward corporate/commercial litigation even if the search volume is lower?

Or is the better approach to bid on broader civil litigation keywords but use the ad copy, landing page, negative keywords, and intake process to filter out consumer/general civil matters?

Am I overthinking this, or is niching down the safer move here?

Would appreciate thoughts from anyone who has run PPC for litigation or legal services.

Question about negative broad match vs positive broad match in Google Ads.

I’m running search ads for a law firm and want to make sure I’m understanding this correctly.

Positive broad match can match to related searches, synonyms, close variants, and intent-based searches that do not necessarily contain the exact keyword.

But my understanding is that negative broad match does not work the same way. Negative broad match is more literal. It generally blocks searches that contain all the words in the negative keyword, in any order, but it does not broadly block synonyms or loosely related meanings the same way positive broad match can.

For example, if I add this as a broad match negative:

free

It should block searches containing the word “free,” like:

• free lawyer
• free legal advice
• lawyer free consultation

But it would not necessarily block:

• pro bono lawyer
• legal aid lawyer
• no win no fee lawyer
• cheap lawyer

So I would need separate negatives for those terms.

Similarly, if I add:

small claims

as a broad negative, it should block searches where both “small” and “claims” appear, even in a different order. But it would not necessarily block every search with similar meaning, like “minor lawsuit” or “low value civil claim.”

Is that right?

For legal PPC, would you use broad negatives for obvious one-word junk like:

• free
• jobs
• salary
• template
• sample
• pdf
• reddit
• quora

And then phrase negatives for more specific bad-intent searches like:

• “no win no fee”
• “legal aid”
• “pro bono”
• “small claims”
• “landlord tenant”
• “how to sue”
• “free consultation”

Just trying to avoid overblocking while still keeping the search terms clean.

I’m testing Google Search Ads for a law firm in Ontario with about $100/day budget.

The goal is to figure out which practice area is most lucrative:

1. Wrongful dismissal / severance
2. General employment law
3. Civil / commercial litigation

Keyword Planner shows CPCs are relatively cheap for legal in my jurisdiction, at least on the low-end top-of-page estimates. Examples:

• “employment lawyer” — 8,100 avg. monthly searches, $4.46 low / $15.51 high
• “employment lawyer near me” — 2,400 searches, $3.12 low / $16.42 high
• “wrongful dismissal lawyer” — 720 searches, $4.15 low / $12.53 high
• “wrongful termination lawyer” — 390 searches, $4.34 low / $15.14 high
• “civil litigation lawyer” — 1,300 searches, $3.98 low / $16.89 high
• “litigation lawyer” — 1,600 searches, $5.01 low / $20.31 high
• “commercial litigation lawyer” — 110 searches, $10.03 low / $36.73 high

The volume is very uneven. General employment has way more volume than wrongful dismissal/severance, so I’m worried that if I put everything in one campaign, the higher-volume general terms will eat most of the budget and I won’t get a fair test of the more specific areas.

Would you run:

A) One campaign with separate ad groups so Google gets more conversion data in one place

or

Three separate campaigns with separate budgets so each practice area gets a fair test?

Goal is to learn which area produces the best qualified leads/retainers, not just cheapest leads. Is 2 weeks enough for an initial read, or would you run it longer?

I’m running Google Search ads for a law firm. The goal is paid consultation leads that can turn into hourly files, not people looking for free advice, legal aid, contingency, or “no win no fee.”

For campaign-level negatives, I’m debating whether to use broad match negatives for terms like:

• free
• contingency
• pro bono
• legal aid

And then phrase match for:

• “no win no fee”
• “contingency fee”
• “free consultation”
• “free legal advice”

My thinking is that broad negative free is probably useful because anyone searching “free employment lawyer,” “free legal advice,” or “free consultation” is not the right lead.

I’m also leaning toward broad negatives for contingency, pro bono, and legal aid, because those seem almost always wrong for a paid-consult/hourly model.

Question for PPC people:

Would you set free, contingency, pro bono, and legal aid as broad match negatives at the campaign level, or would you keep all of them as phrase match to avoid overblocking?

Any risks I’m missing for legal PPC?

I’m running Google Search ads for a law firm and trying to structure employment law PPC more intelligently.

I’m considering two ad groups in the same campaign:

Ad Group 1: General Employment Lawyer

• Landing page: broad employment law page for employers, executives, and employees
• Keywords: broad “who” terms like “employment lawyer,” “employment law firm,” “workplace lawyer,” etc.

Ad Group 2: Employment Law for Businesses

• Landing page: employer/business-only page
• Same or very similar positive keywords, but with more employee-side negatives
• Ad copy would be very business-side: “For Ontario Businesses,” “Workplace Legal Advice for Companies,” “HR Legal Defence,” etc.

The idea is to capture business owners who search generic terms like “employment lawyer” instead of more specific terms like “employment lawyer for employers.”

My question: is it a bad idea to have the same positive keywords in two ad groups if the landing pages and negatives are different?

Would Google just choose one ad group unpredictably and muddy the data?

Would it be better to separate them like this instead:

• General employment page gets generic keywords like “employment lawyer”
• Employer-only page gets only employer-intent keywords like “employment lawyer for employers,” “employment law for businesses,” “employment defence lawyer,” etc.

Goal is not just leads — it’s higher-quality hourly retainers, preferably business/employer-side clients.

Curious how PPC people would structure this.

I run a small Ontario law firm and I’m trying to make a PPC/Google Ads decision.

Goal: generate more hourly paid files, ideally business owners/companies willing to pay retainers, rather than low-value consults or people looking for free/contingency work.

I’m debating between two broad “who” landing page strategies:

Option 1: Civil Litigation Lawyer landing page

But the page and ad copy would be heavily framed around commercial/business disputes, not personal disputes. Something like:

“Civil & Commercial Litigation Lawyer for Ontario Businesses”

I would use tight negatives to exclude personal injury, family, estates, neighbour disputes, landlord/tenant, small claims, free legal advice, etc.

The attraction is that “civil litigation lawyer” has decent search volume, but I worry the intent is messy and will still bring in a lot of people with personal disputes, low budgets, or “can I sue?” type inquiries.

Option 2: Corporate / Business Lawyer landing page

This would be more of a business-owner page focused on services like:

• shareholder/business partner disputes
• employer-side employment law
• workplace investigations
• wrongful dismissal defence
• commercial contract disputes
• civil fraud/business misrepresentation
• shareholder/partnership agreements
• business purchase/sale support
• ongoing business counsel

The attraction is that “corporate lawyer” or “business lawyer” may attract more business owners and companies who are already expecting hourly billing. The downside is that some searchers may be looking for cheaper transactional work like incorporations.

For lawyers who have run PPC or intake-heavy marketing: which broad page do you think is more likely to generate $2,500+ hourly files?

Would you rather start with:

1. a civil litigation landing page with commercial/business framing and very tight negatives, or
2. a corporate/business lawyer landing page that includes litigation, employer-side employment, and business dispute services?

Curious how others think about search intent here.

I’m looking for input from people who have run Google Ads for law firms.

I’ve been thinking about the “who vs. why” framework for legal PPC. As I understand it, a “why” search is where the searcher tells you the specific legal problem they have, such as “wrongful dismissal lawyer,” “shareholder dispute lawyer,” “severance review lawyer,” or “partnership dispute lawyer.” Those seem like they should probably go to specific landing pages with specific ads.

A “who” search is where the person knows the type of lawyer they want, but not necessarily the exact legal issue. For example, “employment lawyer,” “employment law firm,” “commercial litigation lawyer,” “business lawyer,” or “workplace lawyer.” These searches are broader and more ambiguous. The searcher may not know the exact legal category, or they may not know how lawyers would label their issue.

My question is: for those broader “who” landing pages, would you generally use phrase match, exact match, or both?

For example, if I build a general employment law landing page that speaks to employees, employers, executives, and business owners, should I run terms like:

“employment lawyer”
“employment law firm”
“workplace lawyer”
“employment lawyer near me”

as phrase match because the page is broad enough to handle related variations?

Or would you still keep those in exact match because legal intent can get messy quickly and phrase match may pull in too much unrelated traffic?

My instinct is that the “why” pages should be mostly exact match because the page is narrow and I do not want Google matching adjacent intent to a specific landing page. But for the “who” pages, I’m wondering whether phrase match makes sense, as long as there are tight negative keywords and regular search term reviews.

In other words:

Specific “why” page = exact match, tight intent, niche landing page.

General “who” page = maybe phrase match, broader intent, general landing page with sections that route people to the right service.

Does that structure make sense, or am I overthinking it? How would you structure match types for a general law firm landing page where the searcher knows they need a type of lawyer, but may not know the exact service they need?

I’m looking for input from people who have run Google Ads for law firms, especially employment law or other legal campaigns where the search intent can be ambiguous.

I’m building a general employment law landing page. The idea is that this would be the page for broader “who” searches like “employment lawyer,” “employment law firm,” “workplace lawyer,” “employment lawyer near me,” etc. These searches do not always reveal whether the person is an employee, an employer, an executive, or a business owner, and they also do not always reveal the exact legal issue.

For more specific “why” searches, I would probably use more specific landing pages. For example, wrongful dismissal, severance review, workplace harassment, employment contracts, employer-side employment advice, and so on. But for the general employment law page, I’m trying to figure out how to qualify the traffic without killing conversions.

One thing I’m considering is making the CTA more explicit, something like “Book a premium paid consultation” or “Book a paid employment law consultation.” The idea would be to weed out low-quality employee-side leads, tire-kickers, people looking for free advice, or people who are not serious about retaining counsel.

I’m also considering a softer version where the consultation is paid, but the fee is credited toward legal services if they retain the firm within a certain period, such as seven days. That seems like it might filter for seriousness without making the offer feel too harsh.

My question is: would you put that paid-consultation language directly in the ad copy, in the landing page CTA, or only later in the intake flow?

For example, would you test ad copy like:

“Book a Paid Employment Law Consultation”

or is that too much friction at the ad stage?

Would it be better to keep the ad broader, send them to the general employment law page, and then use the landing page to qualify them with language like:

“Premium paid consultations for employees, executives, and employers seeking legal advice.”

I’m especially curious how people handle this when the page targets both employees and employers. Employees may be more price-sensitive and may include more tire-kickers, while employers or executives may be more comfortable with a paid consult if the positioning is right.

So the question is: for a general employment law landing page, would you explicitly position the offer as a premium paid consultation to improve lead quality, or would you avoid that because it may suppress too much volume from otherwise good prospects?

Has anyone tested free consult vs. paid consult vs. paid consult credited toward fees in legal PPC?

I’m looking for input from people who have run Google Ads for law firms, especially firms targeting business / enterprise clients rather than individual consumers.

I’m a law firm owner thinking through the offer on my landing pages. If the goal is to attract enterprise or higher-value business clients, would you recommend offering free consultations or paid consultations?

My instinct is that a free consult may create more volume but lower qualification, while a paid consult may filter for more serious prospects. I’m considering a middle-ground approach: charge for the consultation, but credit that amount toward legal fees if the client retains the firm within seven days.

The idea would be to reduce tire-kickers while still making the consult feel low-risk for serious prospects.

Curious whether anyone has tested this in legal PPC. For higher-value B2B / enterprise legal work, does paid consultation pricing hurt conversion too much at the landing page stage, or does it improve lead quality enough to be worth it?

Second question: I’ve also been thinking about keyword intent and landing page structure. I’ve been introduced to the “who vs. why” framework. As I understand it, a “who” search is where the person knows the type of lawyer they want, but not necessarily the specific legal issue. For example, “employment lawyer” or “commercial litigation lawyer.” A “why” search is where the person’s specific problem is clear, like “shareholder dispute lawyer,” “partnership dispute lawyer,” “wrongful dismissal lawyer,” or “severance review lawyer.”

Based on that, I’m thinking of handling match types differently depending on the page.

For a specific “why” landing page, I’m leaning toward mostly exact match keywords because I do not want Google matching the ad to unrelated or adjacent searches that do not really fit that niche page. For example, if I build a landing page around shareholder disputes, I want the keyword intent to be very tight.

For the broader “who” landing page, like a general employment lawyer or commercial litigation lawyer page, I’m thinking phrase match may make more sense, but only with very tight negative keywords and close search term monitoring. Since the page is broader, it can absorb more ambiguous searches, but I still do not want it attracting irrelevant traffic.

So the rough structure would be:

Specific “why” pages: exact match, tighter ad groups, more specific copy.

Broader “who” pages: phrase match, broader but still relevant copy, strong negatives, and careful search term review.

Does that approach make sense? Or would you structure the match types, ad groups, and landing pages differently for legal PPC?

Mainly trying to figure out two things:

For enterprise / business legal clients, should the landing page offer be free consult, paid consult, or paid consult credited toward fees if retained?

For law firm PPC, does it make sense to use exact match for narrow “why” landing pages and phrase match for broader “who” landing pages, or is that too rigid?

For those of you who run PPC or Google Ads for your own firm, I’m trying to think through how granular to get with landing pages and ad groups.

For example, let’s say I want to market partnership disputes and shareholder disputes as services. Would you treat those as distinct enough to justify separate ad groups and separate landing pages? Or would you put them together under one broader “business disputes” or “commercial litigation” landing page?

Part of me thinks partnership disputes and shareholder disputes are closely related enough that one strong landing page could cover both, especially if the page is framed around disputes between business owners, partners, shareholders, closely held corporations, etc. But another part of me wonders whether someone searching “shareholder dispute lawyer” expects to see that exact language and might convert better on a more specific page.

I’m also thinking about this more broadly. If I want to market several commercial litigation services — partnership disputes, shareholder disputes, contract disputes, real estate disputes, debt collection, oppression remedy claims, etc. — is it better to have one main commercial litigation landing page with sections for each service, or separate landing pages for each specific service I’m advertising?

The same issue comes up with more ambiguous or neutral keywords. For example, in employment law, some people search very specifically, like “wrongful dismissal lawyer for employee” or “employment lawyer for employers.” Those seem easy to separate. But other searches are more general, like “employment lawyer,” “workplace lawyer,” or “employment law firm.” In those cases, the searcher might be an employer or an employee, and they may not even know exactly what kind of legal issue they have yet.

How would you structure that? Would you send ambiguous employment law keywords to a general employment law landing page that speaks to both employers and employees, with clear paths for each? Or would you avoid targeting those broader terms unless you can separate the intent more clearly?

I’m basically trying to figure out the right balance between:

• one broader landing page that captures multiple related services;
• separate landing pages for each specific service;
• separate ad groups for each service;
• and a general “hub” landing page for people who know they need a lawyer but do not know the exact legal category.

For those who have tested this in legal PPC, what has worked better in practice? Do highly specific legal landing pages actually outperform broader practice-area pages enough to justify the extra work, or does it depend on search volume and how distinct the services are?

I’m trying to understand best practices for landing pages within a Google Ads ad group, especially from an optimization and conversion standpoint.

Let’s say I have a tightly themed ad group built around one service. My understanding is that the main ad headline/final URL should usually go to the primary landing page for that ad group. But what about sitelink assets — the additional blue links under the main ad that might say things like “Service A,” “Pricing,” “Book a Consultation,” or “Related Service B”?

Should those sitelinks also point to the same main landing page, or is it better/acceptable for them to point to different but closely related service pages?
I’ve heard conflicting advice. On one hand, people say to niche down as much as possible and keep the ad group, keywords, ad copy, and landing page highly aligned. On the other hand, sitelinks seem designed to send users to more specific supporting pages.

For optimization purposes, what’s the best setup?

For example:

Main headline/final URL → primary landing page for that ad group
Sitelink 1 → pricing section/page
Sitelink 2 → booking/contact page
Sitelink 3 → related service page
Sitelink 4 → testimonials/case studies page

Is that a good structure, or does sending sitelinks to different URLs hurt relevance, Quality Score, conversions, or campaign learning?

Would love to hear how experienced Google Ads people structure this, especially for service businesses with multiple related service pages.

I’m looking for input from people who have run PPC for law firms, especially in smaller or less competitive legal markets.

I understand the usual advice, which is to go niche: build tightly themed campaigns, niche landing pages, and niche ads around specific legal services. For example, instead of sending everyone to a generic “business lawyer” page, you might build separate pages and ads for shareholder disputes, contract disputes, employment defense, real estate litigation, and so on. That makes sense to me in theory.

The issue I keep running into is that in my market, Ontario, Canada, a lot of the really niche legal keywords do not seem to have enough search volume on their own. They may be very high intent, but in isolation they are too low volume to build much around. On top of that, a lot of people who need a lawyer do not actually know what type of lawyer they need. They might search something broad like “commercial litigation lawyer,” but that could mean several very different things. It could be a company looking to defend a wrongful termination claim, a real estate dispute, a shareholder dispute, a contract dispute, debt collection, a partnership issue, or some other kind of business dispute.

So I’m trying to figure out the best way to structure campaigns and landing pages in that situation. Do you still build out many niche campaigns, ad groups, and landing pages, and just stack them together even if each one has very little volume? Or do you add broader commercial-intent keywords like “commercial litigation lawyer” or “business dispute lawyer” and send those users to a broader landing page? Another thing I’m wondering is whether broader keywords should ever go into multiple niche ad groups, or whether that just creates overlap and makes the account messier. Should the broader keywords go into both?

One thing that makes this more confusing is that in Ontario, legal PPC clicks can be surprisingly cheap compared to some U.S. markets, so CPC is not really the main issue. The bigger issue is matching intent properly, keeping landing pages relevant, and not over-fragmenting the account when the search volume is already low.

Curious how others handle this. When the best-practice “niche keyword + niche ad + niche landing page” approach runs into low search volume and unclear user intent, what campaign structure has worked best for you for a campaign with a budget of $100 a day?