If your firm’s getting clicks but not clients, chances are it’s not your ads, it’s your approach.
With SEO, PPC, and social media competing for your marketing budget, it’s easy to throw money at platforms like Google Ads, hoping something will stick.
But when campaigns aren’t set up with structure or strategy, what you’re really doing is pouring money down the drain.
Price is always a factor for clients, especially in a tight economy. But if price objections are your norm, it’s worth looking at your branding, messaging, and targeting. Because too often, firms aren’t attracting the wrong clients and they’re simply failing to communicate with the right ones.
Let’s take a closer look at the key marketing mistakes costing family law firms over £3,000 a month in wasted ad spend.
KPI and ROI Tracking
Running ads without any form of conversion tracking is like driving to an unknown destination with no map.
You wouldn’t do it in a car, so why do it in marketing?
If you don’t know where your leads are coming from, or which keywords are converting, how do you decide what’s working?
Tracking phone calls, web form submissions and live chats is essential if you want to optimise performance.
We’ve seen firms pour thousands into campaigns and then blame the platform. In reality, they lacked the insight to identify what was effective.
Top-performing firms know down to the penny which keywords bring results. That only happens with data.
- Average monthly savings: £500–£1,000
Poor Messaging
We must remember that we’re helping people through some of the hardest moments in their lives.
Using vague phrases like “Expert Legal Help” or “Trusted Family Lawyers” won’t cut through.
Instead, try “We’ll Fight With You” or We’ve Won 85% of Our Cases” or even something like “You Need Us In Your Corner”.
This type of messaging speaks to fear, stress and urgency, the real emotions people are feeling when looking for a lawyer or solicitor.
Write messaging that resonates with them, that empathises with their situation and that gives them a reason to choose you.
- Average monthly savings: £250–£500
Lack of Structure and Strategy
Many legal firms are running Google Ads. The problem is, it’s executed poorly.
Keywords such as “lawyer”, “solicitor”, “attorney”, and even “divorce lawyer” are too vague and expensive to advertise for.
And if left to its own devices, it can spiral out of control, and all of a sudden, you’re wasting your marketing budget on people looking for “how much do divorce lawyers make?”, “How can I become a family law solicitor?” and other low-level searches that are eating away at your budgets.
So let’s take a step back and first, let’s do some market research for what we want.
- What is your reason for running ads in the first place?
- Do you want more divorce cases with property and assets? Do you want child custody cases with parents at war with one another?
- Once we identify the goal, we can build a strategy around this, and we start by doing keyword research.
Add to this the fact that a lot of high-spending family law firms are wasting a lot of their marketing budgets advertising outside of their locations.
I have seen accounts where top family law firms have spent £5,000+ over a 6-month period, advertising in places such as the UAE, Europe, Africa and even South America!
When I presented this data, they were dumbfounded that this had been going on for so long!
- Average monthly savings – £500-£1,000.
Your Website Is Your Branding, Your Landing Page IS Your Offer
Most businesses send people to their websites. After all, what is the point in having a website online if nobody is seeing it?
The problem is, your homepage is not built to convert, it’s built to inform.
Instead, we want to craft a landing page that brings everything together. It’s the equivalent of going to a restaurant and ordering a main that matches your expectation of what you thought it would be. Satisfying.
The same can be said for landing pages. You’ve done the hard work in your messaging, your landing page is aligned with your ad copy and has a clear-cut offer speaking directly to your target audience.
With certifications, accreditations, reviews and more, everything comes together to make it easy for your prospect to get in touch with you.
Your landing page should answer the visitor’s question before they even ask it. If someone’s dealing with a custody battle, the page should reflect that urgency and empathy.
“You’re the person I’ve been looking for and who I need, I’m so glad I’ve found you”, they’re thinking.
- Average monthly savings – £250-£500.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve gone through, we’ve roughly saved your family law firm £1,500 at least on marketing each month, best case scenario, it could be closer to £3,000.
If you focus on just three things, doing proper market research, improving your messaging, and having clear KPIs that are in place and being tracked, you’ll likely reduce 75% of your ad spend wastage.
That’s easily a saving of £3,000 or more each month.
The difference between thriving and merely surviving in today’s legal market often lies in the details of your digital approach. Make them count.
Ryan Fenton is Director at CaseFlow PPC
