In this week’s episode, Grace and Liel fearlessly dissect the 2023 Wordstream Google Ads Benchmarks for the Search network. Brace yourselves for a rollercoaster ride of click-through rates, conversion rates, costs per click, and costs per lead. We’ll reveal what’s been climbing up and what’s been taking a nosedive and how it all affects your prestigious law firm.
But wait, there’s more! Our conversation will equip you with the top-notch lingo and terminologies you need to effortlessly translate the insights from this year’s report into cold, hard projections for your law firm. Or, better yet, use them to size up your firm against those fancy benchmarks in the report.
And that’s not all! Liel will uncover the juicy secrets behind the winners and losers in this captivating report. Prepare to have your mind blown as he unravels the mysteries of how the search platform has evolved thanks to the ever-changing whims of consumer behavior. Oh, and don’t worry, he won’t leave you hanging—Liel will dish out practical tips on how your law firm can conquer the brave new world of AI-powered search.
So buckle up, dear listeners, because this episode will take you on a wild, witty ride through the intriguing world of Google Ads benchmarks and the enchanting realm of legal marketing.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
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Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] Google has become proficient at predicting user search queries, and with the aid of AI, it’s now generating highly compelling real time ads that captivate users. I’m Liel Levy, cofounder of Nanato Media and author of Beyond Se Habla Español How Lawyers Win the Hispanic Market. And this is In-camera podcast, where we believe that the Google search generative experience will further increase CTR for search ads.
Liel: [00:00:54] Welcome to our.
Liel: [00:00:55] Podcast, Legal Marketing Conversations. Grace, how are you today?
Grace: [00:00:59] Good, How are you? Liel?
Liel: [00:01:00] I’m doing great. Grace Very, very happy. Recording this episode from our office in Mexico, which is exciting, right? We are basically parking here for a little while, working with our team that is based in here, and it’s great because we’re working on a lot of very exciting things. That is great. It is.
Grace: [00:01:19] It is. I love seeing you in Mexico. I was going to ask you where you were because I can see you. I get to see you since, you know, we’re on a podcast, but I get to see you. So I was about to ask you where you were. That’s really cool. What part of Mexico are you located?
Liel: [00:01:32] Mexico City.
Grace: [00:01:33] Oh, nice. Yeah, I love.
Liel: [00:01:35] Mexico in the Polanco neighborhood, which is very nice, very lively, kind of like very much in the center of everything. So it’s. It’s great. And it keeps us a little bit tighter. You can see here I have my co-founder, Natalie on the background. I do. I see like she’s inadvertently our guest for the podcast. So. So let’s see. Let’s see. Because this is actually what we’re going to be talking about today. Touches a lot in what Natalie deals with day in and day out. And so we’ll see if something that we say here kind of like strikes her as very inaccurate and she’ll probably won’t tolerate it and she’ll jump right at it. But I think for the most of it, it’s something that we’re going to be pretty much in agreement with the numbers this time, because I think none of this should come as a surprise and because most of the people probably don’t understand what we are even talking about. We’re talking about Google ads, search network metrics for the legal industry and just overall some trends in general, because Google ads as a platform has evolved over the past year, over the past couple of years. And so we’re going to be looking at now, what are those trends? What are they meaning to the legal industry and how are they reflecting in the legal industry?
Grace: [00:02:53] Yeah, definitely. As we were talking about on our last podcast, that we were going to unveil something and you know, it’s a report that’s been created, you know, and it’s really interesting because like you said, we all had this feeling and knowing that all these things have changed, you know, increased in some, not really decreased in others, but maybe click through rates and certain things that we’ll be talking about. But yeah, I mean, when it comes to benchmarks, Google has always been, especially for us, right? In this world that we live in the benchmark to use, right? So it’ll be super interesting to see what we dive into now.
Liel: [00:03:27] 100%. Grace 100%. So first of all, the source and the methodology, right? So you know where all of this info is coming from. So this has been an exercise that Wordstream, which is a software platform that helps with pay per click management has been putting together for years now. This is not the first time that they actually released it, but they’ve been actually putting in sharing these benchmarks now for several years. And this is basically what how they compile the information. So they say we analyze 17,253 US based search advertising companies running between April 1st of 2022 and March 31st of 2023 to create in-depth search advertising benchmarks for 23 industries. And one of those industries is attorneys and legal services, which is the one that we’re going to be focusing for the most of this conversation. So that’s kind of like how all of this is being compiled. So obviously, they have a lot of access to a lot of data, to a lot of advertisers across many different legal practices. Right. They’re not just working with personal injury or immigration or criminal or family. They’re actually looking at many different businesses within the legal industry. And so what we’re going to be looking here at is averages, right? We’re not going to be looking particularly at one practice area because it’s not available to us that data. Right. Nevertheless, we’re going to be very able to tell is this does this number match certain practice areas? And chances are that for many cases it’s going to be very evident that, you know, much higher or much lower. But still, I think what we care more here is about percentages more than anything else.
Grace: [00:05:17] Exactly right. It’s a percent increase, percent decrease, like overall is what helps us with our analytics. So this is a great tool to use.
Liel: [00:05:26] So Grace, before we get into the nitty gritty of the legal industry, why don’t you give us kind of like the four key trends that have been kind of like established across the board, Like this is what’s happening in Google Search in the year of 2023, based on the data gathered on the between the dates that we’ve mentioned.
Grace: [00:05:49] Yeah. So to just kind of cover the four elements that we really need. To look at and key trends. It starts with click through rate and for year over year. You know, for 21 out of 23 industries, it has increased year over year. So, you know, business services and industrial and commercial industries both saw decreases. They weren’t as significant as the increases that all the other industries faced. So again, click through rates increased year over year for 21 out of 23 whole industries that were researched on here. Okay.
Liel: [00:06:25] Grace, before we move any further and I’m sorry that I’m stopping you in there, I’m assuming that 1 or 2 listeners may not know or may not know what clickthrough rate means. So do you mind explaining in very simple terms what is what’s what percentage click through rate represents?
Grace: [00:06:42] Yes. So to explain, click through rate, the understanding of click clicking actually clicking on something and then going to the action and taking the action to go through the email a an ad or something like that. Going from there to wherever it is that you’re trying to get them to. So that’s actually clicking through something. That’s what a click through rate is. It’s a percentage, yeah.
Liel: [00:07:06] And when we’re looking at the search network in particular is you get an X number of impressions, right? Let’s suppose that your ad shows 100 times. That’s your number of impressions. 100 times your ad showed up in the search network. Now the click through rate is going to be the percentage of times that it actually got clicked on against the number of times that it got shown. So if you shown up, showed up your ad 100 times and it got clicked on, clicked ten times, your your click through rate is going to be 10%. Okay. Because it’s 10% out of 110 clicks. That’s what click through rate means here and what this metric is telling us or what this first insight that the click through rate has increased for 21 out of the 23 industries that you’re measuring is basically telling us that users are clicking more in ads. This is super important that you get this into your mind because user behavior has been changing a lot. We’re starting to see more users that have traditionally been don’t click on ads, don’t click on ads, don’t click on ads. Now all from the sudden they’re clicking on ads. And why is that? Well, it all trails back to the fact that Google is becoming better at showing relevant ads to users. We know that we are now in the area in the era of automation.
Liel: [00:08:21] Right. Or basically coming out of the era of automation and entering into the artificial intelligence one, Right. And so search engines, algorithms are just getting are getting smarter and Google is getting very, very good at putting the right ad in front of the right person to really tempt them, to want to click on it. And it’s working because the CTR, the click through rate is growing. People are now paying more attention to ads and are clicking more and adds. A lot of that has to do great with the fact that ads have also improved. Right now you have all different types of new assets that are being integrated and incorporated into the ads, and that makes the ads more attractive to users, right? Whether those are picture pictures, whether those are call outs, whether those are site links, whatever the type of asset that’s showing up now is certainly making and drawing the attention of users more. So this is a win for Google because Google is now able to generate more clicks, which means more revenues for them. And this is where their business model is lying on. So that’s our first insight. Very good one. Grace. Should we move to the second one or do you have anything else to add on that one?
Grace: [00:09:29] No, I think, you know, as you said very clearly, that last point you made, which is this is how they make their money. This is how our industries as well make their money. Right. If you don’t click through, then, yeah, there’s no action being taken. There’s no, you know, goal in the end being made. So yes, click through rate is extremely important and the fact that it’s increased means that things should be, in theory getting better in terms of the ads and getting people to click through.
Liel: [00:09:53] Yeah, 100%. You’re not going to get a conversion if your ads are not getting are not getting clicked on on the first place. So that’s where it all starts. But then obviously conversion rates comes to play because that’s kind of like where you make the money. But before we get into that, what else do we have here in terms of highlight?
Grace: [00:10:12] So the next highlighted item is the cost per click. It has increased year over year for 14 industries. So what they’re saying is meanwhile it decreased and went down cost per click. How much you pay for every time somebody clicks on your ad, it decreased for eight specific industries. And stayed the same for just one apparel, fashion and jewelry. The fact that 61% of these industries saw an increase and only 35 saw a decrease is not super surprising. Right. And they stayed exactly like that. And it really isn’t super surprising to us that deals with this on a regular basis. You know, their data showed that the cost per click increased. So, you know, when the cost per click increases, it’s not that surprising that, you know, this number is not that surprising. I mean, it’s really just the numbers kind of show you what they’re saying.
Liel: [00:11:03] Yeah, Yeah. And I think this this data is fantastic from the standpoint that it basically just depicts what we’re seeing in reality, right? With still looming recession over the state’s retail, particularly retail, they’re not increasing their budgets. They’re holding tight because they don’t know when it’s going to hit. And particularly in the retail industry that we know very well that it really makes their money on the third quarter of the year, They’re kind of like, you know, we need to play it very, very safe and very close to the chest for the first three quarters of the year and then really try it and hope for the best. That recession doesn’t kick in on that third quarter so that they can then really be a little bit more aggressive in their strategies. But on this industry, apparel, fashion and jewelry, I mean, it’s not surprising, not surprising at all that the marketing budgets have not been increased. In fact, they’re just kind of like holding steady Now, spoiler alert, that’s not what’s happening in the legal industry. We’re going to get into that in just a moment. The legal industry has increased and it has increased some. Right. And this just comes to show the fact that competition for the most of it are doubling down.
Liel: [00:12:12] Right. And we’ve seen that at this point. It’s no surprising anymore that in the legal industry, when times get rough, there is always going to be advertisers that rather than kind of like clearing the field, shutting down strategies and such, they’re actually coming in and doubling down. And that’s kind of like what’s driving an increase here. That and also is just the. Influx of new firms coming up. Expansion in the markets. You know, there is a whole set of trends happening inside the legal industry that make an increase in cost per click. Not surprising at all year over year rate. So they’ve increased compared to the previous year and we expect next year that it will continue to be higher. And that’s one thing race. And one of the reasons why you and I in this podcast, we talk about diversification a lot, especially when it comes down to the search network and especially when it comes down to pay per click, you are going to reach a wall. Up until at that point your cost per click campaign may no longer be sustainable for your practice area. It could be right now, if you’re very big, if you’re very big and you’re not necessarily measuring a return on investment per source, right? Or even if you do, you are okay with taking a higher cost per acquisition.
Liel: [00:13:42] Coming from the search network is going to be fine because it’s going to be offset either from bigger case that’s coming from that source or from a bigger case that’s coming from a different source. You’re just kind of like playing a strategy where you just need to be everywhere and trying to have as much market share as possible. Usually a type of approach taken by bigger firms. But when you are a smaller and when you are a little bit more constrained with your budget and your spend, pay per click search network can very quickly become cost ineffective. So it depends. Different practice areas have different, you know, that timing, that range in which that can happen may take much longer and you may still be able to leverage pay per click for a very long time. Certain markets, certain practice areas such as personal injury, it can become very hard to compete in, maybe even from the get go at this point. So yeah, something to keep in mind.
Grace: [00:14:39] I’m really glad you made that point because it’s something that you and I always talk about, right. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. And that includes Google. Right? And we do know that Google is one of the most important. But you need to build your brand and do all these other things that we always talk about in all of our previous podcasts. So not to beat a dead horse. We can definitely I think we can move on to the next important point. So the next important point is conversion rate. It conversion rate, is it literally going from one to the next? Did they take the action and was the goal met at the very end of this click? Did they fill out that form or make the buy or whatever it is your actual conversion is trying to measure? They’re saying that conversion rate decreased year over year for most industries. They said in some cases they feel that not that it failed. They the numbers show that it went down significantly. And all but two industries saw a downturn, downturn or reduction in their conversion rate. And that’s beauty and personal care, as well as education and instruction. So that means 91% of industries saw an increase in cost per lead as well as a decrease in conversion. That’s a terrible metric to feel see, and I think all of us felt it. I know I did.
Liel: [00:15:54] So that’s kind of like, you know, what offsets a little bit the news, you know, the good feel of oh so and so people are paying more attention. They’re clicking more on ads and so and so and so. Yeah, that’s great for Google, but unfortunately, it’s not being great for the businesses, right? It’s not being it’s not being great for your law firm because people are not converting as fast as they used to before. And this can be attributed to lots of things. Obviously, we’re going to be focusing here on the ones that as a business owner, as a marketing strategist, you have control over. But you need to understand that there are others that are a little bit more attached to consumer behavior. Just the way that people go about making decisions are playing out. And so let’s focus on that right now. And one thing that we know is that users are just researching a little bit more, right? They’re not just going into an ad looking at what there is there and just kind of like calling right off the bat. Sometimes it takes a few touchpoints, a few visits and they want to see what other options are out there. So this is important to understand. And now looking at what are things that you can do to try to increase the number of conversions that you’re getting from your pay per click campaigns? Well, I think a lot of it has to do with using the right extensions, right making or assets, making sure that you are making it easier for leads to actually convert from the ad itself.
Liel: [00:17:24] And I think the call asset is a great way of trying to secure that conversion. You know, as long as your ads, your copy, your messaging is compelling and it certainly stands out from the competition, then you can. Have a better path that goes from. An increase to an increase on conversions as well. Right. But across the board, yes, conversions conversion rate has dropped and it’s obviously in a way or another impacting the cost per acquisition. And that’s what you were mentioning here. The cost per lead has gone up. And so just to run very quickly here, the logic and the math behind that is, okay, so now there are more clicks coming through, okay, which okay, clicks. It’s not bad because they’re getting into your website, they’re getting into your landing page. And once they are there. Right, hopefully they will take an action that will initiate that first conversation. Ideally, a phone call for most legal practice areas is going to be a phone call. In some cases, a form submission is also going to be a very valuable type of conversion. But phone calls is predominantly the most valuable type of conversion.
Liel: [00:18:40] Now what happens when the click comes and they’re coming in, but they’re not actually converting? Well, now they’re leaving and it’s taking you more clicks to actually generate one action that translates into a phone call or into a form submission or into a live chat, for that matter. And that as a whole is putting or raising the cost per lead. Now, here’s another very important metric that Wordstream is not telling us about, but law firms should know about is like, okay, we all know that not every single lead, not every single phone call, not every form submission, not every single live chat is actually a good case. Some of them are going to be inquiries from people who, even though they had the best disposition to start working with your law firm, you’re not going to be able to serve them right, because their case just doesn’t pan out, doesn’t meet the qualifiers. Or if your campaign is messed up, it’s a shitty campaign. You’re just attracting the wrong type of leads. Right? And so now you need to understand how many leads it takes me to actually sign up a case, and that is your cost per retention. And that’s obviously the number that is most important for you to understand and to know. And that’s the one that is going to dictate how feasible your pay per click campaign is or not.
Liel: [00:19:58] But here is what you know, and we’re not going to get into this part of the of the of the marketing strategy and and the business of law side of things. But here is where really amazing law firms stand out. You see all of those. Cases that you are not able to take. Most of firms, they’ll just discard them, right? They’ll say, Sorry, we cannot help you. And in the best case scenario, give them a number for the local state bar or something along those lines. Now, the better law firms, the ones that have vision and the ones that are actually looking after the game, the long run, they’ll have a plan for those. Right. And that plan could be referring them out to other firms that could potentially be able to help. Right. Offering them resources even if they cannot be served, if what they have is not a legal case or what they have can be fixed without necessarily hiring an attorney, give them resources so that they can complete that. And also, most importantly, following up with them. Right. Doesn’t mean that they’re it doesn’t mean that they’re you’re you know, you’re trying to make them your clients Exactly. At that point. But you want to give them a tremendous experience. So when they do have something, when they do have something that can potentially be signed up by your firm, they’re coming back to you automatically.
Liel: [00:21:22] And they don’t remember you as the firm that wasn’t able to do anything for them. Because if you’re not, if you’re not able to say much to them other than just to know we cannot help you, it probably won’t reach back to you ever again. Okay. And so that’s super, super important. Your cost per lead is important because you are putting these people who are reaching out for at you into a pipeline. Okay. And that pipeline and they may be sitting on that pipeline for years, but the fact that you actually had an opportunity to connect with them, put them in your contact list, let them know about your community outreach initiatives. You can send them emails telling them about, you know, summer season is starting and, you know, pool drownings is a thing that can be prevented and take these five steps to ensure that that doesn’t happen to you and your family is tremendous. Right. And who knows these type of things. Morgan and Morgan and other bigger law firms that are actually not just thinking about how can I sign up as many cases as I can today? They’re actually thinking about how can I own this market and be perceived as the one and only law firm for consumers across the area?
Grace: [00:22:30] Totally agree. I mean, you know how I feel about most of this because it’s yes, it’s not just important. It’s imperative to know all of these benchmarks. But as a law firm, your cost, your true cost per case, cost per acquisition is the number that you need to know more than any other number because you can go through all of this, get someone to convert, get all of that done, like you said, and then they end up not panning out. Once you get medical records or you find out the liability limits, if it’s a car accident or or or either way, these are all super important benchmarks to know, but you have to know the end result and is are my marketing efforts and my ads in particular driving true conversion to a case that is going to get money for the firm and for the client. That’s the end result. What is my true cost per case? What is my true cost per acquisition? So while we talk about all these numbers, they’re all very important. There are things that you have to know because they all lead to that. But that number at the very end is the number that you absolutely have to know, no matter how many years it takes for it to settle or not. Right. You’re going to have certain benchmarks and information. And if you don’t know, then reach out to other law firms. I mean, people are always willing to help you reach out to someone like Leo or myself. We’re more than willing to help you say, hey, look, these are the benchmarks. These are the cost per case that they tend to end up being for whatever case type it is, you know, with these parameters type of thing. But find out because you have to know that otherwise you will your business will fold. So yeah.
Liel: [00:24:03] 100%. And you see sometimes also kind of like trying to follow numbers across the board is very, very it can be it can end up being a little bit misleading because the reality is that both clickthrough rate and conversion rates are going to be very different for law firms in the same market, in the same practice area. But why? Why is it going to be different? Well, because one law firm who is advertising in social media, in TV and in radio and has billboards is going to be way more recognized. It’s going to be more top of mind to users and potentially is going to benefit from a higher click through rate and maybe even from a higher conversion rate than a law firm that doesn’t do any other marketing outside of pay per click. So you need to account for those types of considerations when you are trying to estimate what could potentially be my cost per acquisition when I’m running pay per click campaigns, these are factors that matter, right? And that’s why it’s so important and we talk so much about multichannel omnichannel strategies, because the more you are having touchpoints across your market, the higher your conversions and your click through rates is going to be in. The search network, but the same through all of the other channels where you are at. So Grace, let’s jump right in now into the juicy stuff of this conversation, which is the numbers, right? So, you know, things gone up, gone down.
Liel: [00:25:29] But now what exactly is in terms of a percentage? So the click through rate, the first number that you’ve mentioned, grace by how much it has increased, it’s gone up by almost 5%, 4.76%. Right. So now there is a 5% increase in the number of clicks that your ads are getting. So again, as we’ve said, this is more traffic to your website. And if you’re running your campaign in a smart way, that means that you’re also retargeting these users that are coming into your landing page, whether they convert or not in other channels, whether it’s Display, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you name it. So that’s super, super important and it’s very, very valuable to take that into consideration. Oh, click through rate high, but conversion rates low. Well, don’t be completely disappointed because once they enter, once they click, they’re already entering a funnel. So, you know, it may take several touchpoints, but eventually they may end up converting through a different channel or directly on your website. But they all start it all started with that first click on the search network. So how does that compare to what we had before? So, Grace, if we were to compare what the click through rate was the previous year, in 2022 versus 2023, this increase represents a 12% increase between one year and the other year.
Liel: [00:26:50] So it’s quite significant, right? We’re not talking about just kind of like a low single digit sort of thing. This is double digit increase and this is a good argument to Google that they are indeed figuring out a way to make sure that advertisers show ads that are more compelling to the users. So I think it’s a win for Google. I think it’s a win for automated campaigns. And so, you know, certainly something that we can start feeling more confident about its effectiveness. But with that being said, we also understand what Google agenda here, because Google doesn’t care whether your leads are converting or not from a from an economic standpoint. They already made their money. They’re converting or not, of course, you know, as their global view of whatever is their motto, which is organizing the Internet or whatever, it’s all about giving the right answer, the right solutions to users at the right time. And so obviously, they want users to find a good solution to what they’re looking for and hopefully take an additional action because Google also looks into these things and these things are taken into consideration for quality score purposes. But at the end of the day, you know, they are happy to figure it out, ways to increase number of clicks and then kind of like sell you into the idea that, well, you know, it’s not just one click.
Liel: [00:28:15] You’re going to want to be in multiple areas, kind of like what the performance Max campaign does for you, which is kind of like pre everywhere at all times and cheaper cost per clicks, but more clicks before the conversions. And so, you know, it’s not a different conversation, but we’re not really dissecting performance Max now so we’ve covered click through rate 12%. Now let’s move on to the next one, which is the average cost per click. What is the average cost per click? Now in the legal industry? Grace is 9.21. And I you know, our listeners cannot see this graph right now. Obviously, we’ll have a link to the report, but it’s really like. It’s funny, right? Just to see all of the bars, kind of like where they are and then the legal industry, one kind of like going and going and going and not stopping. And you’re probably going to think, Oh, what’s that? What’s the average cost per click must be in the hundreds of dollars. No, it isn’t. It’s actually 9.21. Okay. But this is very deceiving because, number one, these are also accounts for clicks that are coming from practice, areas that are not necessarily as expensive as, for instance, a personal injury can be in Los Angeles or in New York or in Miami.
Liel: [00:29:37] And so when you roll averages up, it looks like 9.21. But what’s really interesting here to see is that legal industry carries the highest cost per click from any other industry that can come to your mind. Right. And for instance, let me give you a few, a few example. Health and fitness is half of what the legal industry is, right? Home and home improvement, two thirds of what the legal industry is, real estate. It’s a fifth of what the legal industry is. So legal industry by far is the highest click in Google search. And that is why it’s so important that you understand how much past the times where Google ads was kind of like the secret weapon to get more cases and fast and cheap. That’s that’s gone. That’s gone. Right. It continues to be a platform where you can pay to play with a limited budget, but limited budgeted, limited budget, probably limited results as well, if any. Okay. So Grace, let’s move on and look at what this increase means in terms of a percentage. And it’s also an increase of 5% compared to the previous year. Right? So, you know, if you’re looking at inflation, this is right there higher. It’s certainly keeping up nicely.
Grace: [00:31:08] It really is. I mean, the average inflation year over year used to be 2%, I think because of Covid and all the, you know, situations going on, it actually has increased by quite a bit. But, yes, this is definitely keeping up with inflation. Plus.
Liel: [00:31:25] Now let’s talk about the conversion rates, right? Because we’ve said, okay. Cost per clicks gone up, more clicks are coming through. What’s happening with the conversion rate? Okay. Right now in the legal industry. Super important number to know. Super important number, 7%. I honestly think this is actually sounds very reasonable to me. Very, very, very reasonable to me. What I expect for a lot of law firms to be running very effective campaigns that are converting at rates of 15, 20 or even higher than that. I certainly think that a conversion rate of 7% across the board, because you need to take into consideration that this is taking into account a lot of campaigns that are very, very poorly optimized and therefore kind of like really bringing this average number down. But I certainly think that, you know, a few points under 10% is very reasonable. Okay. So here is a great thing that you can do right now is actually asking the question or going inside your Google ads account and see what’s my conversion rate. You’re under 7%. Then it means that you are kind of like in the red zone. Something’s not good with your campaign. And you certainly need to be looking at how you can optimize conversions. And a couple of things very quickly on that.
Liel: [00:32:44] Conversions are not always something that you’re going to optimize from your campaigns, right? If your is good and your search terms are actually good, then the conversion rate may be an issue of your website or landing page. Okay. And you know, I kind of like mentioned website and landing page as if they are interchangeable. There aren’t there really aren’t. You should actually be considering using landing pages over a website page in most of cases. There are some cases that you would argue that a website may be more beneficial. But I think, you know, landing pages are still holding very strong as being a great way of optimizing your campaigns for conversions. So how does this compare against the previous year? What’s the drop in percentage as to where conversion rates were the year before and where they are now? Grace This is massive. The drop is of 24%. 24%. The bottom line is that you’re getting a quarter less conversions than you’re getting before. And so this is something that certainly needs to be looked into. And if you’re running pay-per-click campaigns, you should always all the time be looking at, okay, how can I increase my conversion rates? How can I improve my cost per conversion? This has to be a mission. What are your thoughts?
Grace: [00:34:07] So it’s funny that you were talking about this very specifically today because I just recently looked at certain things and including the conversion rate, right? And it is seen across the board that certain, you know, conversion rates have decreased despite the increase in the cost per click and the increase on, you know, certain things. So the fact that this has specifically decreased that I saw those numbers and I see those numbers and I try to adjust for them by making sure my other marketing efforts are on point, if not even better than they were previous to the previous year because of this. Right. So you’re to have a decrease like this and this significant 25% that is that what that said? 25%?
Liel: [00:34:52] Yeah. That’s just under that’s.
Grace: [00:34:53] A that’s a quarter.
Liel: [00:34:55] That’s a lot. It is.
Grace: [00:34:56] It is. And with that increase to $9.21, which is 5% and I just looked and the inflation rate is actually this year 4.9%. So it’s almost exact 5%.
Liel: [00:35:10] So. Grace That’s actually absolutely right. What you’re saying in there, it’s significant. It’s impactful. And so now when we do all of the math, we know the average cost per click, we know the conversion rates. Where does that leave us in terms of cost per lead? Well, it’s 111.0 $0.05, and that is right now if you are running a campaign in Google ads. Right. What you can use as your starting point to gauge how much it’s going to cost you to get the phone to ring if you’re doing Google ads, like, honestly, there isn’t a better indicator than that. Now, I will tell you, I will tell you certain industries, certain practice areas I’m going to use as a way of differentiating these numbers from some niche scenarios, immigration within the Hispanic market, your cost per conversion is going to be much lower than this. Your your click through rate is going to be much higher than what these numbers were telling you. And your conversion rates are going to be much higher than what you’re saying here, providing your campaign is run properly. So I do want to put that caveat there, because I don’t want to scare immigration. Lawyers for instance, that are listening to this and say, wow, $111 for a lead is is a lot.
Liel: [00:36:31] Right. Because in their particular practice area, cost per clicks are lower. Now you’re looking at personal injury and you say 111 cost per lead and it’s almost kind of like impossible, right? Like like this. This is not happening in most of the markets. So it’s very important that we compartmentalize that. And we understand that the segmentation between practice areas will give you complete different scenarios in pictures. So it’s more important to look at the percentages and to look at the actual number projections that are being given here. So Grace, I think this has been a very, very, very good and insightful conversation for those who either are running pay per click or are thinking of running pay per click to set and manage expectations, understand what’s been happening, and most importantly, what’s the trend like in the legal industry? We don’t see cost per clicks going down. It just doesn’t happen. Right? So understand that. And now that we have that, we know that there is an increase in in clicks, but a lower conversion, it means that just users are more used to taking longer journeys to find and consider and convert. So this is important for you to take into account when you are just building your entire marketing strategy.
Liel: [00:37:44] Grace.
Liel: [00:37:45] Please. We need takeaways here. And nobody can come up with takeaways better than you can. So takeaway number one.
Grace: [00:37:54] Takeaway number one is understand your numbers, right? If you don’t already. I mean, number one is constantly and continuously review your Google ads and your metrics. Make sure that you have benchmarks and that you’re following those benchmarks or at least using it as a baseline, not necessarily as your Bible. But these are baselines to work off of, Like Lee said just two seconds ago. Right. You’re an immigration lawyer. Your cost per click is not going to be 100 and, you know, $30 necessarily. But if you’re a lawyer, it very well could be especially for car accidents. Right. If you want a trucking accident case as an example, we all know those are expensive. It’s going to be more than that. So just be aware of what the benchmarks are. Be aware of what your numbers are, and understand that these are just that benchmarks as a whole for very general industry information. But yours will be and should be different slightly, right? It’ll all fall in within these industries, technically speaking. But there are variations and just be aware of what those variations are for your own marketing knowledge. So that’s takeaway number one for me.
Liel: [00:39:03] Love it. I’m going to go with take away number two and say with an understanding that there is a higher click through rate and a lower conversion rate. Now you need to really think about, okay, how can I leverage the click right? Because most of people say, well, I’m wasting right clicking, but no conversions. That shouldn’t be your mindset. Your mindset is like you’ve clicked, you’ve captured now retarget and that is super important. So don’t just focus on one platform. Think about how can you be present in other platforms and the three most important platforms where I think you should be considering to retarget is going to be YouTube, it’s going to be Facebook and it’s going to be Instagram. Okay. These are the three places where I think you’re most likely to have impact in bringing those users back to you and potentially get them to convert over time. So go multichannel.
Grace: [00:39:53] Amazing. I want to add to that because Liel I can’t believe I even forgot that component of it, right? Retargeting is your best effort not wasted, right? I mean, you spent all this money on the ad and making sure the campaign was perfect and you got all these conversions use that. That is amazing. You have to use that. Like if you if you are not retargeting the audience that you spent money on, you are wasting so much money and time and effort that you put into the campaign. So retarget, retarget, retarget. I can’t say that enough. I agree with you.
Liel: [00:40:28] Excellent. Well, you get you get one more takeaway. Grace. What do you want?
Grace: [00:40:34] I say takeaway number three is almost end with this all the time. But it’s really reach out and reach out. I mean, I can’t tell you enough. The reason you listen to podcasts like this, the reason you go to trade shows the reason you pay attention to benchmarks and things like that is to speak with other people who have either the same or more knowledge than you and reach out like there’s network out here. Like Leo is here to help. I’m here to help, like reach out to people that you feel comfortable and speak to them about these things because you don’t work in a vacuum. None of us do. I mean, if if nothing else, with these benchmarks, it shows us that U.S wide, like everybody’s running different campaigns have different effectiveness, but U.S wide. There’s also benchmarks to be had. And if someone else has done it, you can get you can speak to them and get the information that could potentially help you be even better at what you’re doing. So I say reach out. I don’t know if you want to add something else to that, but I think that that’s super important to always mention that because I think people forget that they especially after the pandemic, I think people forgot that there was other people out there that they can reach out to for help.
Liel: [00:41:48] Grace That’s always a great takeaway and I’ll take it. But a lot of takeaway number four just because today I’m a little bit feisty and that’s going to be respect your leads. You have to respect your leads. You cannot be dismissive of them. You cannot be running your law firm with a mindset as this is not a good lead. This is not a good lead. This is not a good lead. And kind of like just discarding them as if you were kind of like playing bingo. This is not how it works, right? A lead is an opportunity whether you can sign it right there and then or five years down the road, have a plan. Have a plan. You’re dealing with someone that’s already felt a connection to your brand and you’re throwing it away. So your leads should be an investment and not something that you’re looking at kind of like as a way to get to the conversion. Once they’re a lead, they can become a client. It’s all up to you.
Grace: [00:42:45] Very important. And thank you for mentioning that because that takeaways is right back to the engaging with your clients and making sure your leads respect your leads that is beyond important. Re-engaging with them, retargeting them. You can only do that if you take care of them from the outset and don’t bump them off. Send them off to someone else, you know? And if you do, send them off to someone else with a hand off holding their hand so they will come back to you. Because I know, especially for me being Hispanic, my mother, if I tell her not to go back to somebody because I had a bad experience or they told me, no, they can’t help me and they gave me absolutely no other way of getting help than go to the local bar or go wherever the hell I could have already gone. I’m not going back to that person again. So you better believe that You need to respect your leads. We can end on that. Agreed.
Liel: [00:43:36] That’s where we’re going to end. Grace. Grace, thanks so much for another great conversation. We’ll be back in two weeks. Have a great.
Liel: [00:43:41] Rest of your day. You too, Liel.
Liel: [00:43:49] If you like our show.
Liel: [00:43:50] Make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at: ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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