In this episode of SEO Insider, Seth sits down with Kye Duncan. Kye is the Executive Vice President of Activation at LeadingResponse. LeadingResponse partners up with professionals in the financial, legal, elective medical, senior living, estate planning, and home services industries to scale their businesses. The two discuss the aspect of leads in digital marketing, specifically for law firms. Seth and Kye explain how these leads can change substantially based on the different practice areas and areas of law. Kye explains how these leads are generated, as well as examining the sources of the leads. The duo also dives into retargeting changes, lead costs, as well as the process of purchasing leads from different lead generation companies.
For more helpful tips on legal SEO, check out BluShark’s other channels:
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/blusharkdigital/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/blusharkdigital
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blushark-digital/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/blusharkdigital/
For more on LeadingResponse:
https://leadingresponse.com/
In this episode of SEO Insider, Seth sits down with Kye Duncan. Kye is the Executive Vice President of Activation at LeadingResponse. LeadingResponse partners up with professionals in the financial, legal, elective medical, senior living, estate planning, and home services industries to scale their businesses. The two discuss the aspect of leads in digital marketing, specifically for law firms. Seth and Kye explain how these leads can change substantially based on the different practice areas and areas of law. Kye explains how these leads are generated, as well as examining the sources of the leads. The duo also dives into retargeting changes, lead costs, as well as the process of purchasing leads from different lead generation companies.
For more helpful tips on legal SEO, check out BluShark’s other channels:
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/blusharkdigital/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/blusharkdigital
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blushark-digital/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/blusharkdigital/
For more on LeadingResponse:
https://leadingresponse.com/
BluShark Digital
Welcome to the SEO Insider with your host, Seth Price, founder of BluShark taking you inside the world of legal marketing and all things digital.
Seth Price
We're thrilled to have Kai Duncan here, um EVP at leading response. Welcome, Kai.
Kye Duncan
Thank you Seth, glad to be here.
Seth Price
You know, we spent a lot of time geeking out on, um you know, agency side PPC, SEO, you know, your your group leading response is uh sort of one of the juggernauts in the lead gen space. Um You know, talk to us a little bit just about about that space and sort of how you guys fit in?
Kye Duncan
Sure. You know, I think I always think of it as we're an unbranded agency. So we have our own properties that we promote, and then sell leads to, um you know, attorneys nationwide from those properties. So um it's similar to what how an agency works, we're just promoting our own products and our own websites. So I think it's a nice supplement to any law firm. If they have their own agency managing their own branded, branded campaigns, they can work with a an unbranded agency, like leading response to get more leads from from people who just are searching for different things. So,
Seth Price
You know, it's interesting, I've seen over the years, I'm curious to see if you see from your side, that there are certain areas where lead gen is magical, meaning, I will almost discourage somebody from an SEO play for SSDI. If they're just getting into it, where I think that the lead gen and what you guys can do, can significantly Trump what you can do on your own for, for a variety of reasons.
Kye Duncan
For sure. Yeah, you know, we tried for years to make an SEO play with Social Security Disability. And it's, it's almost impossible, because you have so many government resources that clog up those those top search results. So you really got to find you know paid paid results, and really get outside of Google as well, you know, socials really um effective on um SSD. So finding, you know, a partner who knows how to target people effectively get people um into your funnel or SSD, it works really well for with lead gen in particular,
Seth Price
Yeah same. So let's look at like a mass tort world where there are plenty of people who can optimize for it if it's an early tort, but again, the volume that's needed that you guys produce um the flip side, and I'm just curious, your thoughts would be, for instance, like criminal defense, is one of those ones that I've always seen lead gen have a harder time with, in the sense that, you know, you're the, it's when the fee for service space, somebody is actually putting down money, I've seen it more challenging because a certain higher percentage of people who are savvy enough to have made the money to spend may not fall into one of those funnels, but might be looking for the direct end user that's going to help them.
Kye Duncan
Yeah, you're exactly right. I think, you know, contingency fee based legal practice areas do really well with Legion and also just, you know, search paid search in general, because consumers, they're looking for help, they may or may not have money to hire an attorney, but if they can get help, and then have the contingency fee based arrangements to pay the fees, that works great. Criminal, defense, DUI, divorce, those are a lot more difficult, you know, they're usually a lot more geo specific, you know, you're not able to, you know, criminal defense lawyer is usually just in one market, they're not going to cover an entire state or multi state um situation. So um I think there, I would agree with you, you really need to steer those firms more towards SEO, branded search things that can really build their profile. And Legion is more difficult there.
Seth Price
And not that people shouldn't always I'm a big advocate of always test right, always. Right, always test see what's there. I've also just seen, like the evolution that that has gone through as you guys have acquired groups, etc. That what worked and we talked about some SEO and PPC all the time. It's so different. And we're the unbranded agency. Um when SEO worked much better in certain areas before Google took away SEO real estate, there were things you could do. Um what you know, generally, what is your guy's mix as an unbranded agency? If you were to like globally, um social PPC versus organic search, what what how do you guys break down would you say?
Kye Duncan
So globally, across we're looking at all practice areas, it's probably 50%, search 40% Facebook, and then the 10% is going to be organic or maybe a few other smaller um channels. But
Seth Price
when you said search, did you mean page did you mean did you mean paid search PPC, essentially, if
Kye Duncan
you see PPC, Google and Bing, you know, and of the PPC search It's 90% Google. Um so..
Seth Price
So that's one of those things that you go to a lot of seminars and people Oh, make sure you're Bing because like, it's so cheap and the cost per clicks are, are you able to on the global space? One of the things I always curious where we are today? Is it like, in theory that is true, right? But when you when you when you set out quality, because at the end of the day, you guys are selling leads? Does it come out in the wash? Are you able to get anything from a Bing, or has Bing continuously even though it may be 9010? And it's cheaper? Can you get 10% of your leads from Bing? Or is that a misnomer where it's really rather small at the end of the day, even beyond? 10%? Even less than 10%?
Kye Duncan
I yeah, it's, it's a small portion of what we do just because there's there's just not as many searchers, it does. In the past, we've seen in certain categories that tend a little um older um SSD, for instance, we're targeting an older consumer, they're a little more likely to be on Bing. So we might not just because they haven't changed their browser, so to Exactly. So they get their, their browser, their laptop, and they you know, Microsoft's just, you know, throughout the whole thing, they can't figure out how to change their search um engine. And so they're searching Bing. Um you know, I think that's, we've seen it from a quality perspective, it's about the same, I've actually seen it to be a little bit lower, in some instances. Um the Bing um search partner network in particular is not good. We've we've seen a lot of fraud, a lot of,
Seth Price
you know, I was gonna get to this in a minute. But that was sort of one of my issues with lead gen in general, it's finding your partner, you guys have been around, you're sort of you've aggregated some brands where you have your own assets. Um one of the store horror stories I had from way back was if you go back to what now is internet brands, but some of the earlier iterations. Um I was new at when it was maxing out and they bought Nolo and all these different like iterations. Right, we'll tell you exactly the culture has merged into that. But when when the when the multi shared when the shared the concept came out, which they pioneered, so to speak. I mean, total attorneys was doing this as well, that you would see people and I remember Martindale Hubbell before they got purchased. But the the the LexisNexis reps would sell me leads. And then all of a sudden, they were exclusive leads, you'd say, Oh, I just paid you 90 bucks for a lead. And three other people got it? And it turns out they were buying it from a Nolo not what you know, Miss either misunderstanding or being lied to who knows. And so there was so much of that I called sausage making you like Hamburger Helper is there how much hamburger is left at the end of the day um that it became became troubling, what are some of the things you think that Pete consumers and consumers meaning law firms? Who are who are looking at this when they're talking to a lead gen service? How, what are the best ways to sort of protect what questions should somebody be asked? Figure out whether or not you have the goods? I feel like I'm talking to a drug dealer? How do I know if it's a really good stuff?
Kye Duncan
You're right, I think you've gotta understand the source, you know, ask for what website are these needs coming from? You know, how are you promoting it? Is it paid search is it a Facebook is it an affiliate sources, whatever, but really, you know, zero in on how these leads are being generated? Um because you're right there is there are a lot of middlemen out there. Some of them are they add value, they'll buy a lead, they'll maybe do some further vetting and then sell it again at a higher price. That's that's a that's a good model. But you don't know, you know, who else is bought that lead? And um as I think even if the lead is purely exclusive, from leading response, people fill out more than one form. So there's, there's always that possibility that you know, other attorneys are going to be going after that consumer because of because how the consumer has been interacting and searching for the attorney. So um you know, know, the source. Know, the websites, you know, educate yourself at, you know, the other thing is understand the disclaimers, the are they following TCPA? Will they CCPA all these other things that have popped up in the last few years, they can really, really um bite you if you're not careful. So,
Seth Price
no, that's a great point. So I was been moderating the mass torts made perfect seminars. And I'm one of the big things that come up there every talking this is the hot topic. And I think it's most highlighted in the mass tort space where the defense firms have the most resources, it's game on there. Not millions, but billions at stake. sure people are battling over and that if they can find a a flaw in the system that can stymie it or at least slow it down they're gonna go all in you know, what are some of those things so somebody comes to you and like at the end you know, most lawyers are like okay, how many leads How much does it cost? What's your you know, what, what is the lead that Those types of questions. How can you protect yourself as an end user? Because generally, it's always been Don't Ask, Don't Tell, just get me the leads, you know, the odds of me being connected back to that original source. And frankly, often as a lawyer, you didn't want to know it. That's sort of becoming burying your head in the sand. I mean, there are some serious repercussions now. Um has that in a way made the, the, you know, there are now with lesser less players in the space, particularly outside of of the, um of the mass tort space, but there are a lesser number of large players, in one sense, at least there's something that protects you because, you know, if you go to a fly by night shop, and they do something wrong, right or left, they're naked, not that you wouldn't be normally. But you guys have a lot to lose you guys. You guys have um aggregated a lot of different groups. You're not sitting there, you're not judgment proof. And so, to me, that's always like, I always talked to somebody when I when I need work done on anything, whether it be an employee at the office, oh, I have a friend who here's a favor, like, I don't want a favor. I want somebody I can quote unquote, yell at or in the case have, you know, have a bucket of money if I get if I get turned on? Where's it coming from? Um talk to me a little bit about that piece. Because again, most lawyers are simply thinking about how much does it cost? Will it convert, etc. But there's a whole second ugly side of this, that you guys have an entire team is my guest working on compliance, etc. And most people are just completely unaware of all of what you're doing behind the scenes.
Kye Duncan
Absolutely. I think that you know, one thing that we are in the process of implementing across all of our web properties is the trusted form cert ID, um it's an active prospect, I think they've done a great job kind of building out that product. There's some other players that do something similar, but that this is really for the end buyer. This is your proof that the lead came through, they saw my disclaimer, they agreed to it um,
Seth Price
It's basically giving them proof that the form came through your site with a disc with the proper disclaimer. So God forbid, something happens, you're not gonna get that gotcha moment.
Kye Duncan
If that consumer, you know, you call them and they say I am on the Do Not Call list or why are you texting me? Now you've got the proof this, someone from your IP address, enter your information, your phone number, they agreed to this, this TCPA disclaimer, any of the other disclaimers, that's why I'm contacting you. So you know, people will sue for anything. And so they're it's not 100% guarantee, but this is, in my mind, this is the for an end buyer and an attorney, you want to make sure that this is available. Um and that if anything ever did pop up, you've got the proof that you know, I did everything right. Leading response to everything right or the the lead generator did everything right. We were were protected. So
Seth Price
Talk to me about which sectors you guys are in currently, I mean I guess there are a lot, but what are the main sectors you guys cover?
Kye Duncan
So leading response um really has called it three main, like um top level categories. We're in legal, which is really where my background is financial, we do a lot of work with wealth managers, retirement planners, tax planners. Um and then the final one is what we're calling health. So it's um really elected medical, and also things like assisted living, um Senior Living um categories for people as they're aging to continue to live vibrant life um. So we do that across the entire company. Legal is where we're the strongest in
Seth Price
So let's talk, talking about legal talk breakdown legal for me how it sort of general buckets, percentage wise, where's the emphasis? Again, some of the stuff you acquired were like juggernauts in the SSDI space. That's sort of how I was most familiar with you guys. Is that still a lion shirt because you're doing
Kye Duncan
Uh it's a big portion. But you know, the SSDI category itself has really started it's really been shrinking for for eight years, you know, fewer and fewer people are applying and being approved. So that markets really constricted, it's, you know, it's still a a good portion of what we do, but not, you know, you're well aware that that one time it was probably 75% of the business, it's now really, you know, now we're really strong and Injury Law, um auto accidents, for sure. Workers Comp, um nursing abuse, personal injury, anything related to kind of single event injuries um. And then the other other big categories mass tort um, any of those um products um, drugs, anything related to a mass tort we are. We're very successful and very aggressive. going after those.
Seth Price
I was curious because you guys spend a heck of a lot probably between Facebook and and Google, per year. Any stuff that you guys get to see or access to as one of those your stuff is aggregated, it's not like you're an agency representing people, you guys come with significant funds, what are some of the cool sort of insights that you guys get to see over the years? Um as far as that, you know, because I've always as an end user been underwhelmed by the level of support that you theoretically get with higher spend. And I just feel like you guys must be in a Mac an order of magnitude beyond most law firms, you know, even marketing companies curious to see what you guys are what you guys or uh see, for sure.
Kye Duncan
So it's interesting, you know, before leading response, I was the CEO of lead rival. And we were acquired at the end of 2019. Lead rival was really big with search, we were a premier uh Google partner, you know, they we got access to betas, we got some really cool stuff, we did some, they they gave us access to a a lead form test at one point that they were running, which was pretty interesting um. The um leading response there, they were really strong with Facebook. So they were a Facebook premier partner, whatever Facebook calls it. Um honestly, Facebook, you don't get a lot you get, maybe you get a rep that you know, a dedicated person that will talk to you. But you know, it's um honestly, Google really does a lot better. A lot more
Seth Price
And they build their built that team because I know when I first got a rep, I was so excited. I was like, Oh, my God, I got a rep. And they were terrible. It was like it was almost malpractice, it was out of there, Austin's group and right people were like complete jokers. Obviously, they've gotten it together, I know if you have you ever been out to their Torrey Pines events. Now some of our team have just, you know, they clearly know how and it's the people they have surrounded themselves with are so bright. And so you know, people that anywhere else would be, you know, running a company, they'd be, they'd be in one of our positions instead of like a rep there. And so they it's, it is amazing, but it is sort of great to sort of feel important. But the other question is, can they help you get those additional mark? Because it's all big becomes a margin game over time? Right? Um and it's really a question of how can you get that extra couple percent out of spend?
Kye Duncan
You're right, and I think it's while Google is really good about helping agencies, you know, they consider us an agency, even though we're, you know, we're not technically a traditional agency, they view as an agency, you know, we have three different account reps that we meet with on a monthly basis, and then someone who's there to really kind of keep us in the loop with new things, even though they're, they're good about that. I the endgame is kind of go direct to the advertisement, you know, that's, you see things like local service ads, you know, the, the changes they've made to keywords, you know, making it much easier for, you know, an advertiser to target the right keywords, I think they're moving in directions, where you really don't even need keywords, it's more topic based and an intent based just because they know so much about the their users. Um so I my, my thinking is in, you know, five to 10 years, maybe agencies really don't have a place at the table anymore, because they've more and more have been pushed out.
Seth Price
Well, I think it's maybe as I said, the um may be the news of the demise may be a little bit premature. Um but but but who knows, but along those lines, there are a bunch of changes coming that are affecting things um has have LSAS affected you guys see any meaningful way?
Kye Duncan
Um yes, and no, I think we've certainly it it's hard to know how much impact LSAS have had versus COVID. Um you know, in our injury categories, you know, people stopped driving people. People stopped working. So we saw a contraction from this the search volume around that, but at the same time LSAS are being rolled out and so I think they
Seth Price
obviously they won't affect Facebook, but you know what, what we did a study that got picked up by Search Engine Land and presented PubCon last session. And what we what we saw again, this is now several months old, but our case study showed that the LSAS were cannibalizing the PPC, which would affect the lead gens, you know, make sense, you know, versus No, I was expecting it to devastate organic which it really doesn't seem to have been as much they've been screwing around with these two packs and other things that so far, but I also am well aware that as the the cost of those LSAS goes up, they seem to be playing around with it and it doesn't seem that they're that they're finished with that piece. But you know, just curious you know, keep keep it you know, circle back with us. I'm curious to know what happens there. The thing that I think most will most affect you guys, both Facebook and Google is the retargeting questions and um that. That's how are you guys dealing with that? Because that was a topic on the Mt. MP, where a lot of people have already changed their policies for Facebook knowing that that's about to happen. But it sounds like Facebook is almost handing you workarounds.
Kye Duncan
They are. Certainly they've um updated their um conversion tracking pixels to give you different options around that. We don't really rely on a lot of retargeting. So I think that's, that's a good thing for us um with Google, um because we're in kind of health related categories. We're, we're not approved to run remarketing there
Seth Price
You're already a persona right outta there
Kye Duncan
Exactly, exactly so Facebook, it's a little different than I am, I am a little concerned about our our targeting options and I know it many of those will be going away. But this is a less efficient, but
Seth Price
yeah, this was the this was sort of my back and forth with some of the senior Facebook people during the MTP talks, which were okay, they're taking away retargeting. But in certain areas, retargeting is essential, I I would say like in a trust in the states pressure family law, you may not decide you want to get divorced today, maybe thinking about it. Same with getting a will, nobody wants to write a will, it may take you 17 touches before you do that. Whereas in the mass tort space, when you put an ad out, people don't the reason why it's social, so powerful is they don't know there's even potential anxiety. And they're going to immediately take action, in which case you have their information and they're in your system, as opposed to, hey, let me think about it and come back. That's so that the fact that you alluded to this, that if you're able to give back to Facebook, what a win is for you, this is a this is this is our avatar, rather than spending money, retargeting people that are just clicking on things, that your ability may, in fact, in that case, not really lose much steam. I'm more concerned on the Google side with this chrome, the chrome changes coming up about what's going to happen there. From mice, for myself, in my own world, it's its something it's not gonna be devastating, but it's definitely we spend so much time effort and money to get people to a landing page, you really want to be able to make sure you squeeze all the juice out of it. However, I I'm hopeful that if we're able to feed back what a win is, that these guys are so good, as you mentioned a minute ago, they are so sophisticated on who their users are, in data, that hopefully they should be able to bring you more of what you want.
Kye Duncan
That's my hope, as well, you know, with Google, in particular, you know, targeting people on the row ads basis. I mean, that's been really powerful for us, really, as long as you can track that, click through your funnel, return the revenue to Google, their algorithm does the heavy lifting. And so you may lose some of the the nuanced targeting, maybe you've used in the past, we won't, because we really weren't able to even access it um already. But um I think that's um the direction they're moving. It's, I think it's harder for us, because you, you give up control. And you're um you really, it's really important that you maintain that that funnel tracking, and you're feeding good data in. And so you get the data out,
Seth Price
You know, I'm gonna bring you back to sort of the end user, which you know, as, as a lawyer or law firm, as well as representing a lot of people. And, by the way, a number of our our clients viewed you guys very successfully in the injury space, they've had great, great success. My first question for you in that space is what do you what's your advice to somebody when they come looking at a lead gen group, about what a lead should be defined as? How how do you sort of that's always sort of the back and forth, which is and again, like anything else, you can change the pricing based on what that, you know, if something is a signed contract versus um somebody with intent versus somebody who's raised their hand, how do you suggest that the, that the lawyer in this case, um go about that sort of um discussion with a lead gen agency?
Kye Duncan
Great question. I think that there's really two components there is the the contact data, making sure that it's, it's accurate. So is the phone number, going through a validator is the email being checked, you know, things things that give the lawyer the best chance of success when they're reaching out? Um to to talk to the lead, then the other side of that would be the qualifying questions. You know, do they line up with how this particular practice area functions and your state, you know, statute of limitations, are they they vary or, you know, other questions as well. So I think, you know, we approach it with trying to have a one size fits all approach um with also the understanding that, you know, if it, let's say there's a state that has a three year statute, if someone's waited two and a half years to reach out to find an attorney, it's probably not the best case, so trying to limit those to two years or sooner or even one year, in some cases, you're going to have a better qualified consumer with, with more chance for success. And really, at the end of the day, it's how many leads do I have to buy to get a case? And if it's five leads for one case, that's a great ratio. And I think most attorneys can can make that work. If it's, if you buy 20 leads, and you only get one case, well, I don't know if that's the best um arrangement. So let's revisit what we're how we're targeting the leads, how successful you are at contacting them? And and what are the qualifying questions? So make sense?
Seth Price
No, no, absolutely. And when doing that one oneof things you don't control? This was a frustration as an agency owner, myself, and you guys have this is the response from the the firm itself, right? You know, stuff dies on the train, or it's so is that something, you know, it's something that I it's, it's a pull and tug, you know, that you you have to do you spend any time in one sense, it's easy to say, Hey, I'm selling you a widget, it's yours, do whatever you want, but you're not going to get a repeat player. If they're not monetizing them? Um did did you work with clients at all on the larger scale? And you can't do it for small by making sure that those leads are being responded to me? Do you track that because at some point, if it's not working, they're gonna come back to say, hey, I want out you want to keep them as a client? Are there things that you guys have seen as best practices other than just freaking pick up the phone and call, but what what separates the firms that convert better from those that don't.
Kye Duncan
So we definitely do um work with clients intimately to try to get best practices in place. So on the we have our own CRM, it's called LMS, that we we've rolled out we have I think, 40 or 50 clients using it. Um so that's great. Not only is that a great tool for the attorney buying leads, it's also a way for us to make sure that they are having success with contact rates, um with um intakes, etc.
Seth Price
Do they use it for leads outside of yours? Or is it
Kye Duncan
Yeah they an use it for all leads
Seth Price
But but but regardless, even if they're using another piece of software, your leads are used through the system, there's no integration issues, you're like, see it right here? Just solidify, you know, within the exactly when they open it up, and you can then see in real time, who's getting it love and who's not?
Kye Duncan
Exactly, so it's a it's a great tool for the for the client, the it's it's free of charge, we we give it give it out just as a way a benefit of being our client.
Seth Price
Well, it's just that though, because it basically ensures that the stuff is being used, because if somebody says, Hey, I'm not converting, and you see that there are no notes for a follow up, and they're not making eye contact, you're like, Dude, you got a hole in your intake, which is,
Kye Duncan
Yeah and it's a it's a powerful piece of software, it's got, you know, click to call functionality, it has some, some some algorithms in place that help the call, help the client know who to call next, you know, based on time of day based on recency, all those things. So it's, it's a, it's a great way for attorneys to improve their contact rate, and eventually their case wanted rate,
Seth Price
Will, that then integrate back to your closed loop, for instance, with Google to let you know what a win is, so that you can get more of it.
Kye Duncan
Yes, and no, um we, we, don't feed the results back into Google. But we were able to look at certain campaigns so we can aggregate the data and see, okay, this particular campaign converted at 10%, this one 20%, let's make smart decisions about where we're spending our Google dollars, or Bing or Facebook or whatever. So um that's a, that's a really interesting piece. Now, not every attorney uses it, you know, if they're already solidify user or a, you know, whatever else, then we certainly work with those systems, and we'll feed our data in and then it's really just about the best relationships are are two way streets, we're having regular calls, seeing how the leads are performing, they're giving us feedback. We try though, to eliminate, um you know, eliminate as much fraud as possible, you've got to have those checks in place to make sure the phone numbers are good. Make sure that um the intent is there so that when they reach out, they're successful. And we find that some firms just it's just not a good fit. And that's that's fine. And you know, for those firms, we actually offer a direct phone call direct connect service so that if if they um don't want to buy leads in a traditional form filled leads, we can send you phone calls, um and we'll track them and you know, if they last a duration you pay us for as a billable lead. So that's another another way to work with firms if they're not really equipped for leads.
Seth Price
It's funny you say that because I would think they would think the lead is more certain than the call. It's like it's it's almost like if you I would think that it's more the other way around that if you have such a good intake team, that you're able to monetize better than a third party one, because it's not going to a generic one, if there's a really great case, we talked about stuff like criminal where people are more discerning if you happen not to get like a bottom and contingency client, but somebody who's savvy, the fact that it's going to lead gen, they don't want to hear they want to know who that end user is. So I would think your conversion in theory, right? If done, right. If if if you had best practices, and it's an end user law firm, in theory, that's a better story, then I'm going to connect you to somebody, or I'm going to take your information, but the odds of the firm do having the bandwidth to do that, right? Do any people take them live during the day? And then after hours, they go to they they use your your normal protocol of uh forms.
Kye Duncan
But yeah, so many of them do boats, they'll take form leads, and they'll take phone calls during business hours. Um I think it's it's maybe not a it's not that form fills are a better story. It's just a different story. You Know, I think that
Seth Price
Of the form fields, do you have your own operators that are taking the calls on the form fields? Or are these just coming off the websites?
Kye Duncan
These just come off the websites. Yeah. Or maybe it's a call extension? Google.
Seth Price
Right. Right. But but I mean, like, you're good. Are you then on the on the other ones? Are you calling people back to sort of check in with them once the form is there before it next to the law firm? No, no, you're just taking the form. But you're making sure because I've heard these horror stories in the mass tort space, that it's not some guy in India making stuff up and then selling you a bill of goods, absolute numbers are being checked, etc.
Kye Duncan
Right? We're using validation. Yeah, we use EHawk as one we have Telesign this software that that validates, you know, all the all the phone
Seth Price
Emails and emails. And you know, it's amazing. Um what you can tell now pretty quick,
Kye Duncan
For sure, your browser fingerprints are really powerful. If you have have software that can check those for validity. We restrict our traffic to us only because, you know, it's someone's in the Senate in India, why are they filling out our form? They shouldn't
Seth Price
And like, physically, could you possibly you missed that one pace, because somebody in India has got Yes, possible. But statistically, it's just ripe with peril. And it's absolutely frustrating. I get it like pay paid paid search, making sure that you're restricting out, you know, you may lose stuff, but we've always been laid back and forth, ourselves and the paid search game between, you want the out of state person who's calling for somebody in state that's very valuable. But I over the years back and forth, I haven't looked at this in a while should probably look at it again, we often looked at where are the lead gen companies that are trying to or the people the scorpions, the people trying to sell you services, I very often block California, Arizona, Florida, I may lose some cases. But I know that so much of the sales reps that are trying to sell into me are coming from there. I just don't want to deal with it. Very, I should have software that blocks that anyway. But we both know that it's you know, people working from home right now, it's not the same. So if I know that those ripe areas are hotbeds of people clicking on my stuff, and not monetizing, but I'll conclude with something that I sort of curious about what have you learned about geography and monetization? You know, I, my three jurisdictions locally, DC, Maryland, Virginia, all of contrib and I I have noticed that it takes me more leads to get a case than somebody in Florida, where the the laws may be better. And you have PIP and you have things like that where you can monetize less, have you? Do you guys have an idea of now that you've done it for a while, it's not one law firm? Are there areas and states that are, you know, that are that you can convert at a higher ratio than others? um and or they're at work? Like, for instance, I just spent the winter in Florida, people drive a lot faster. In Florida, we have reckless driving Virginia at 81 miles an hour. At 90. In Florida, you can get past regularly, you know, so that the average speed in our area might be 70. Whereas the average speed in Florida might be 85. Do you see any statistical difference, which means the accidents are gonna be more significant to see any statistical significance state by state. Can you sort of like if you were to be able to put publish a report? Do you know like, if you were to sort of say, Hey, this is where you should go practice PI law, what you know, what states do you see great returns, and are there any states that you see stuff, not converting nearly as well?
Kye Duncan
Great question and I I think that I'll start with SSDI and bankruptcy. These are two that I probably got the longest history with. We've always seen that California is the lowest converting state really both and I think it really comes down to um competition um. You know, there's there's a lot of population there, but there's a lot of attorneys and so um, for whatever
Seth Price
Well, there may be there may be a billboard for it. are a GI in California, there's not in in Wyoming. Nobody cares.
Kye Duncan
Exactly. And I think too, it may be that um the what what um attorneys would accept as a case there maybe is much more stringent than they would say in like Oklahoma
Seth Price
So they're calling their cost of employees is higher. They don't want to do that as a volunteer.
Kye Duncan
Exactly so I think there's some of that, I think in the, the injury space, it's, it's less, so I haven't noticed as much. Um it's typically more geared towards what are the state laws, you know, Ohio, for instance, doesn't have great um limits, it's harder, harder state for an attorney to make money um as an injury attorney. So as a as a result, there are fewer good cases that they want to take on. So that I think those state state law,
Seth Price
But that could be a really cool study, and then frankly, you know, the idea that you could, this is what I've always wanted was an adjustment on the cost, assuming that your cost allowed it. But that if if it allowed it that, like there may be places that you're leaving money on the table, and there may be places where you're squeezing people beyond the point where they would be viably profitable. That makes sense. I've always thought that lead companies that come out with one cost nationwide, usually is based on supply and demand, which makes sense, right? If you're sold out, you don't need to lower your price, you know, you become Google. But that there's there's something to that monetization, that may just be off and maybe like, here's my floor, and there's more money to be made. And, you know, hopefully we get a percentage kickback for this genius idea. But that it it really seems to me that there are areas that are more that that just convert and also the geography. As you mentioned before, I always had a theory that you sign up the best within 10 miles of your office, some of that's changed with COVID cause, people aren't as sensitive to driving in, but that as every 10 miles you go out, there's a slightly lesser signup rate, for a variety of reasons, some of the very intuitive, and that as you get to rural areas, um that it's harder in that you just may not it may not be as you look at the minimum value of a case, knowing that statistically, you're gonna have to go to trial on a certain number, you may push your minimum value up when it's further away. And that's especially in the the sort of desire that people have to own a state with you guys versus just their little um Metro.
Kye Duncan
Yeah, and I. So it makes me think of two states in particular, for auto accident Colorado, and Arizona, you know, you've got relatively big states with one major population center. And what in both of those states, we've had a lot of success going to our local attorney, you know running the numbers, how have the leads converted? What's your cost per case? What's your target cost per case? Okay, great. It looks like you're $500 under your target. Let's do an experiment. If we we take your lead price from A to B, how many more leads can we get? And can you outrun that increase in your cost per case, just with more cases, and it's been very successful, we've we've been able to go in raise prices, you know, in both instances, double lead volume.
Seth Price
And because you do but but you you need to raise the price, you have to raise the price to get the volume up
Kye Duncan
Exactly. You know, when you go to advertise on some of these keywords, you know, Auto Accident Attorney, that's a spend $100 A click on that it's a very high value, you know, to play in that you got to be able to have that, that conversion, and that end buyer who's willing to to play the game, and if it, if it backs out for him, now we've been able to move up, you know, it's gravy, we're second or third for that keyword in Google, we're getting a lot more traffic, a lot more qualified traffic. Um it's a good deal. So those are those nuances that I think it kind of speaks to what you were talking about earlier, if we had some sort of premium or discount based on the viability of the state. That's how we've approached it. It's really with relationships, and and um, you know, maximizing the value for the attorney um so that they can really dominate that market with our ads.
Seth Price
Well, Kai, thank you so much, very informative, and a whole other side of the world that that it's always good to see how the other how the other half lives.
Kye Duncan
Absolutely. I've really enjoyed it. It's been a pleasure. I've always admired and respected you said and really like what you've done with the sharks. So it's really, really happy to contribute here.
Seth Price
Thank you so much. We'll catch up again soon. All right.
BluShark Digital
Thank you for tuning in to the SEO insider with Seth Price. Be sure to check back next week for fresh insights into building your brand's online presence. episodes are available to stream directly on BluShark Digital's website.