The 5-Segment System That Boosted Our Paid Search Campaigns

Most law firms waste paid search campaigns budget on broken segmentation that kills ROI and drains marketing spend.

This systematic approach to keyword segmentation strategy prevents the P-Max trap that bleeds budgets. Cost per lead tracking across buy terms, local terms, research terms, service-based terms, and core attorney terms allocation creates predictable growth. Multi-touch attribution modeling reveals why cutting research terms actually hurts your bottom-funnel conversions.

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📄 CHAPTERS  

0:00 - Paid Search Campaign Structure For Family Law Growth 

2:18 - The P-Max Problem: Why Agencies Waste Your Budget

4:02 - Buy Terms: 30% Budget Allocation For Ready Clients 

8:35 - Local Terms: 42% Of Your Leads Come Here 

10:44 - Research Terms: Attribution Modeling That Works 

16:12 - Service-Based Terms: Segmentation Strategy Mistakes 

19:09 - Core Attorney Terms: Multi-Touch Attribution Secrets 

21:41 - The $100 Budget Breakdown: Campaign Performance Metrics

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Chapters

• 0:00 Paid Search Campaign Structure For Family Law Growth
• 2:18 The P-Max Problem: Why Agencies Waste Your Budget
• 4:02 Buy Terms: 30% Budget Allocation For Ready Clients
• 8:35 Local Terms: 42% Of Your Leads Come Here
• 10:44 Research Terms: Attribution Modeling That Works
• 16:12 Service-Based Terms: Segmentation Strategy Mistakes
• 19:09 Core Attorney Terms: Multi-Touch Attribution Secrets
• 21:41 The $100 Budget Breakdown: Campaign Performance Metrics

Transcript

0:00

what happens to the house. how to get a divorce what's the process? All of those, those are up funnel. And then they keep getting more and more specific. And typically the buy terms are going to get more stretched out and longer. There's gonna be less traffic, but you're going to see more quality. I'm your host, Tyler Dolf, and I am bringing back two of our best, when it comes to growing family law firms online. Tony Carls, who is the co-founder of our own firm, Sterling Law, and James Patterson, who actually runs all of the advertising and is the head of our advertising for our law firm clients here at Rocket Clicks. Gents, so great to have you back. Today we are going to continue our deep dive into the paid advertising realm. We're going to talk about paid search terms for family law firms. And, you know, if you're a family law firm and you are leveraging digital advertising to drive leads into your firm. One metric that I hope you are tracking or that I would encourage you to track, is your cost per lead. All right. How much are you spending and how many leads are are coming through to your firm, as it relates to to those dollars and cents. And then, of course, you want to make sure the quality of those leads is good. And so, James is our paid advertising expert across all of our law firm clients here at Rocket Clicks. We're going to talk through the different types of search terms, that we believe are necessary for the ideal campaigns. But, James, I figured we'd start with a little bit of fun and, talking about some of the accounts that you've seen over the years where we, we'll take over an account, an existing account, either the, the law firm was running it themselves or they had another agency. And we've seen some we've seen some interesting set ups. Give us a little background on some of the, some of the cobwebs and, and things you found in these accounts. Yeah, definitely. You know, it's been. It's always a lot of fun kicking off with new clients because, I will say you kind of never. Know what you're. Going to see. When you're when you are taking over a new account. That was, you know, obviously managed by their previous agency or maybe somebody internal, that that wasn't aware of kind of how we look. At that strategy in terms of being really. Segmented and intentional on, on the types. Of keywords we're targeting. So. Some of the worst things. I've seen is a whole lot of spend in a max campaign that's basically just. A branded search. Campaign. You know, we'll skip the. Conversion. Actions. I think that's a. Whole separate conversation. But in terms of, targeting. Yeah. P max, a lot of broad, with not a. Lot of really great negative keyword. Lists in there. So, you know, as you kind of kick this off, Tyler, when it comes. To cost per lead. You know, just letting in so much. Cost for, for searches. That you've no. Business targeting. That you're looking in. And if you're only looking at the keyword level, you know, you. Might be reporting something that, hey, we're getting good results. Here, but really, you you generally. Are, Not bringing in the types of leads that you would be hoping that you could do. If you are using a strategy where you're being. A little bit more. Refined there on what exactly you're targeting. 100%. If you're listening to this and you're a law firm owner and you have an agency that is only talking to you about p max, please call us. We have a very strong opinion on that campaign type, but, you shifting gears into the different segments as it relates. And when we're building out a campaign for a new client, you know, we really believe that there are five basic segments. We're going to start with the first one, which is our bi term segment. Give us a little deep dive into to why we need these, bi terms in the account. Yeah. We, In terms of our agency. We look at BI terms as being the most. Important keywords to be targeting. A lot of times, even when clients have, you know, a little hesitation or maybe. Poor experiences in. The past, with PPC, we generally recommend at least. Starting with these keywords. Specifically, buy terms that sound. Exactly. You know, what the what the name is. Right. So it's people that are actively looking to buy. Your product or service. So for law. Firms, you know, thinking like, you. Know, divorce lawyer near me, best divorce lawyer, things of that nature, whether it's. These really good intent of somebody looking to to make an action now. So a lot of times those. People have already gone through the research. Phase. So how do I get a. Divorce in. Wisconsin. Or. Whatever the case may be? How much does a divorce cost? They they've gotten through. All of that. Process. Now they're looking for, hey, I want to talk to somebody who wants to work with me. And this. Is our opportunity as. You. Know, a good advertiser. Good business to put our hands up and say we are the top. Universal lawyer in your area or whatever the search. Is, and really capitalize there to obviously always have your brand. Shown up there, not only for the traffic. But then also from, you know, a visibility standpoint as they. Continue through their, their, their final journey and everything. Yes. We would say this is the the lowest part of the funnel. The their wallet is out. They are ready to buy. They know what they want to buy. And, we just need to be there to accept and do a great job and service. Correct. Tony, on the Sterling law, website and campaign, you know, we have many offices. We have a very large campaign. We spend a lot of money on advertising. What would you say? What percentage of our campaign. And, James, you may know this because you run the account is, is these bi terms? It probably depends a lot on if we have too many leads or not. So that would. Be the right answer. Because we the way we think about these. Different categories is it's full coverage of research. So from the research point. Which we know based on client. Interviews. We've done with several, Groups of clients that they're in market typically before the contact from. 18 months. To three years. So, you know, James, you mentioned a bunch of. Different terms before that are more, you know, what happens to the house. how to get a divorce what's the process? All of those, those are up funnel. And then they keep getting more and more specific. And typically the buy terms are going to get more stretched out and longer. There's gonna be less traffic, but you're going to see more quality. So I know we have, some ideal percentage scenarios. You know, those are off top. Of your head. James. Yeah. Again, you know, obviously your the the advertisers budget is is going to play. A part here. Right. Like obviously in an ideal state like Tony was talking about. You do. Have coverage across. All these different buckets. I think when we look at, you know, basically. A perfect scenario, I. Would say at least. 30% of your budget is really. Focused here. It is generally going to be a. Higher cost per click. Generally when you're thinking about. Keywords that you're targeting, you know, turns out other advertisers. And businesses also know these folks are really. High value, right? They're ready to go. We're not going to screw around. With intake. Team working with. Them. Yeah, I'm not quite ready. You know obviously wasted money potentially if they if they end up not. Wanting to work with you. So that is reflected in. The search results. So you're going to want to. Have, a. High percentage of your. Budget, in this. Category. Specifically. From there, obviously depending on your market. And. Demand. Right. Like obviously larger. Law firms that are in. You know, multi. Areas. And things like that, you know, especially larger. Metros are going to have opportunities to spend even more in this category. This is going to be a little bit dependent there. But you know the main takeaway is like. If you're looking at. Prioritization and how you want. To segment your budget. In these. Different. Directions, assume higher CPCs, but then assume you know a better ROI in terms of those leads going through your funnel. On percent. Love it. Going up just a bit in the funnel we have our second segment which is local terms. And I know, from everything you both have told me, 46% of all leads for a law firm come from the maps, come from local type search terms. So 42%. Sorry about that. Give, give us, some detail on the importance of local terms. Yeah. So the, what we're talking about intent, right? Or keyword variations. Here, like locals is a huge one. A lot of people. Do prefer based. Off of. You know, research and. Data that's. Out there to, to work. With a local company when they can. So, that's something that you can use to your benefit by targeting these local, keywords. So it's really. Simply from like a. Structure standpoint. It's going to be, you. Know, your core terms. And then some type of, City or geo variation to. That. So. Divorce lawyer or. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Divorce lawyer, you know. Miami, Florida child custody. Support. And then obviously. Whatever Metro you're targeting. Or where. They're searching for you. So, it's an easy way, again, to kind. Of work a little bit more in terms of. Focusing on. Customers that are probably a little bit further along in their journey. Like now they're actively looking for. Local businesses for you. So you have. The opportunity. To, again, kind of put your hand up. And say, hey, we're a local business. We do this. And really, when there you can be. Creative. With your, with your ad copy as well there as well, like doing, location insertion so that when the user. Sees your. Ads, it literally says, you. Know, divorce lawyer markets. Perfect. So what I'm looking for and. This is another good way to again to to really, you know. Ensure good. Quality of leads and then you know, really plain to the fact that, you know, like you just said, Tyler, a lot of people are. Looking for local. Businesses. So if you are one, there's a lot of searches. Out there that you can be capitalizing on. Yeah. I think an interesting part of what you said is the connecting back to where the user is and improving that relevance. So if I'm searching for divorce Attorney Milwaukee, and then the ad is talking about the fact that we're, oh, that's us. We're a divorce attorney law firm in Milwaukee. You know, as a user, I'm thinking, great, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I'm going to click on that and be able to get get what I need. Yeah, exactly. Love it. All right. Let's continue moving up. Our next segment is, research terms. Now, I'm a novice here, and I'm assuming that is I'm not potentially ready to buy, but I'm I'm maybe in market. I'm trying to understand this scenario. Is that correct? Yeah, I. Would say for sure. I don't want to spoil any future topics. I know we'll we'll probably talk about offers at some point. But there's. A lot of search volume here. These. People are. Likely not. Going to be you're I'm ready to. Buy tomorrow type leads if. They're looking for the first time. How to get. A divorce in their area or whatever the. Case may be. So it can be. Valuable to target these searches. If you have good offers on your website to try and. Keep them engaged. Obviously. Divorce in part to, you know. For in most cases can take some time for the user to kind of understand. What they're going through or whatever and come to terms with. Kind of. Their options moving forward. So, having a. Good offer to keep them. Engaged when they. Are going through the research can be really your go ahead in terms of targeting. Those types of searches. The biggest thing. Here is, is. Because these. Users are. Generally not as BI ready. Generally CPCs are. Lower because other advertisers are understanding. This. You know. The conversion rate can vary. A lot of times when you look at the business KPIs for these types of campaigns. That's where you're. Going to see the biggest. Mismatch, where. Maybe you. Got some conversions upfront. From these campaigns, but then ultimately they didn't end up getting funded. Or. You know, they got. Far further along. In the in the. Sales journey. Maybe talk to an attorney, you know, to mix. In a well. I'm not quite ready for. This. So it can be a really good tactic to capitalize on. Obviously there's a lot of search volume here. Get your name. In the, and the list of. Future considerations. That, that they're thinking about. But in terms of. Strategy. This is going to fall a little. Bit further. Down. And again, you know, budget limitations. Are going to. Really give you, you know, kind. Of your, your options. If this is something that we should be focusing on or not. Love it. And so just because there's maybe not as much search volume or are there not as competitive terms, it doesn't mean you shouldn't have them. Right? Why why would. a good amount of search volume on a lot of these, so not not that there's less. There's they're just less likely. To buy at that point when. They're searching for these. So like how how it's a lot of how and cost and you know, like if you think of all the, you know. Who, what, where, when. How, why questions. Like there are a lot of. Those types of questions, long tail. Queries. What happens to the marital house. What what is the cost of child custody? How do you file for divorce? What's the process for, Child custody in. Wisconsin? Like? It's a lot. Of that type of stuff. So they're not quite. The researching, like. They. They're like, all right. This is the path. But I don't know enough to buy it. I don't know enough to move forward. So I need to research. It's and it sounds like that's an opportunity to position your firm as being the expert. So when they are ready to buy you, may they come back direct. Right. And then you're saying it on the cost per click. They're. Yeah, we did, we did. James mentioned set it perfectly. We we, we talked we have another podcast about. Offers. And. These work really well. If you have. Offers to. Give them and. Offers aren't get a consultation offers are here's here's a webinar that. You can you can Do here's here's some calculators. Here's some forms. Here's some. It's like things before they buy because they're not quite ready yet. But like they'll make a micro commitment. Yeah. The way usually. Our teams are looking at research keywords. Is like, these are questions potential. Customers are asking before they're ready to. Talk to. An attorney. Or an intake team person. So that's how it should be. Broken out in terms of your strategies. There's a lot. Of opportunities there. If you can. Build the right, Offers and. Processes in place. But if you're. Looking for a bang for your. Buck, that by term and local terms are going to be your better value upfront. If you're kind. Of looking at your business today. And your primary offers. Just, you know, hey, give. Us a call if you're interested. I think this is an interesting point. Is as a business owner, sometimes I'm going to look at things in more of a black and white perspective. And I put a dollar in, why didn't I get $4 or $8 or $10 back? And without the awareness or the context of what you're saying in regards of this category, I may be looking at a report that my agency sent me and been like, what? Why are we spending all this money on these keywords that aren't converting? Should we cut them all? And I think adding that context to help business owners and law firm owners understand that these are, you know, these are lines we're putting in the water for future fish. And you'll we're we'll see. The conversions are in the by in local terms they aren't going to. Often come. In the research. So if and I've I've done this when we. First started law firm. Oh we're not getting conversions. Let's shut them all off. Oh we get. Way less conversions now. Overall. Like we need to look at a mixed, mix attribution model so that we can maximize the total value. So if we're like, what keywords are the only keywords that do conversions? You're probably actually you're probably going to hurt your account. Great reminder. There. Okay. We're going to continue moving through this, funnel. And we're going to go to now service based terms. So I'm going to family law firm. My family law firm does all kinds of things, right. Divorce and custody and paternity in action and all the things, you're saying, there should be different keywords and categories for these different services. Yeah, definitely. I think in terms of. Campaign structure, a lot of times where we going? Back to your previous. Question, Tyler, and we kicked off, this. Is an area. Where we, we see a lot of, ill advised. Strategy, where a lot of times previous. Agencies are sitting with accounts where all of these. Keywords, which are very, you. Know, right. They have the relevance of a family law service, but are. Very different. Cases. Different. Types of folks. That are going through this are looking for different information and ready to convert. And combining it all into one ad group. So then spend. Across the board is going to go into different areas. You know, we'll hear it sometimes from. Clients. And they're like, man, I just, you know, we tried PPC and we just all we got was child custody or whatever the case may be. And a lot of times we'll look at the account and these are the types of things we'll see is like, oh, well they did. Have divorce keywords active, but they had everything. Blended together. Or maybe they had loose negative keywords. And now all of this stuff is bleeding in and ultimately gave them, you know, results that they didn't like. So, I think what. The service terms in particular, just the biggest thing there is just. Being. Very. Mindful in terms of segmentation, both from, you know, a. Negative keyword list. Perspective to the actual. Keywords that you're targeting to hard. Copy landing page that, you you should be obviously focusing in on the services. That are important to your. Business. But if you're not doing this well, what could happen is you could be potentially allowing. More budget to. Flow to things. That really aren't that important to your. Business. You know, I would say these are, these are again a little higher up the funnel because they're even more generic. So there's good traffic here. So it's it's. Kind of a misleading. Indicator. You're like, oh, I think I should be here. You know, divorce in Wisconsin. Is an example that has a lot. Of keyword traffic. It's not something I don't like based on lead volume. It's very rarely been on. In the account because it's not something that actually works well. Just to broad. it's too high up the funnel. And you need. You need these in earlier offers. And like that's just not something we've been able to develop at this point. Love it. So maybe awareness, but, definitely not buying signals and maybe even less. So would be our finals. account. They're great for organics. Like these are where you can find some really good ergonomic opportunities. And you know, if you're paid. An organic team are working together. You're going to find some really cool wins there. For some of these, you should. Really. You should focus on it both. But like there's different application. Moving on to our final category. And then, James, I'll prep you for, for this question. If I have $100, where am I? How am I splitting my $100 up across these five categories? So think about that as, you're telling us about our fifth category, fifth and final hour, which is core attorney terms. Yeah. Core attorney terms. Is, is, you know, exactly what it sounds like. Just really targeting. Keyword specific, to, obviously having the the. Iteration of lawyer. On the keyword. So we're segment four and segment. Five. Differ here is that in segment four for service terms, you're looking at just divorce. And. Some variations here in segment five with core attorney terms. You're looking at. You know, divorce lawyers. And then, you know. Other. Variations. Added on to that and different instances. So this can be really important as well. Obviously it's you know, a little bit. Further down, I would say in terms. Of people looking. For, you know. Somebody to come in and service. Their, their problem that they're working through. Right. So it's it's. Definitely an important area. To, to allocate, budget. Again, as we look at the full matrix, I know Tyler sounds like you're coming. Up for the reveal in terms of. My budget, recommendations. I do think that this one, is. Likely more important than. Than segment. Four or even in terms of what you're targeting. That way. Yeah. Probably offer three and four. This is probably. You know you got one that's. A buy terms two. Is local. Three from an order perspective is probably your attorney terms. And then you're going to. Go up in the research. And then you're going to go off to the higher research. So yeah these are these are great targets. This is another example of similar to the research terms where we've. We've done testing. Before where we. Won't see. Tons of conversions through these or we'll see conversions. But it's going to be a really high. CP CPA. By keyword. But shutting them off actually has a negative effect on the bottom of the funnel. So there's like. Multi attribution is really important. And like if you don't understand. That in the in in paid like it. You're right. It doesn't work for you. But it's because it's not done well. And then to me, that's like such a huge call out, you know, law firm owners and us included, you don't have time to look into the every single detail, the minutia all day. Yet if we're hearing from our agency, hey, we're turning off a bunch of these research terms because they're not converting that to me. It's a big red flag. It's a big call out. And so if you're listening to this and you're hearing your agency wanting to cut cost because performance isn't there and they're doing that through just slashing a bunch of keywords, you know, that may not always be the right answer. All right, James, the big reveal here. We've got five segments. We've got $100 to spend, right. We're doing like fancy draft, where, where are we spending our$100 as it relates to these five different categories? Yeah. So, so five categories. And if we have to spend and all of them. Right. Because I am going to advise $100 budget. We're not going to go in all five in the non. Fancy format And this could be a thousand. Could be 10,000, hundred thousand. So I'm just trying to make it easy. Math. Yeah. All right. So I'm going to go I'm going to stick to my guns. On the 30% and the buy terms. I think obviously again demand is going to play a. Role here. Potentially. Maybe even more if there is the search. Volume for it. But what we'll. We'll stick to my guns on the, on. The, on the 30 for bid terms here. For local I'm going to go. Next here and go. If I'm, I'm tempted. To almost go 30 again. But we'll, we'll knock it down just to show. The priority level by terms being the number. One spot. And we'll go 20 on local terms. We are 50% of our budget gone. Yep. So I. We do around. Here. I like a. Then from here I'm. Going to go, let's go another, let's go 15. On core attorney terms. So Okay. We're at 65 for the math. Math wizards in the room. So we've got 25 to work with here. I'm going to. 35 to work with here. I'm going to. Go the remaining. 35. We're going to. Go oh this is tough. I might have to readjust here. Okay, let's get. Right. The red 70. Let's go research terms. There's a lot of search volume here. Like I said I'm going to assume that you have good. Offers on. Your site with this one okay. Is that fine to say That's fair. Sure. okay, we're going to do another. 20 on research terms. But I want to be clear here in this. Recommendation that I'm not saying that. Core attorney terms and research terms are equal per. Se. But if we're going to do the example here to where there's really great offers. On the site, I think you can be successful here, then the remaining ten. Will do service terms or. Not at all. And let's just put it. More into by terms. Is the final recommendation. There it is. you heard nothing. Else local and by. The rest. You know it has value, but not not nearly as much as it does in the biological terms. So depending on the way your business is set up and obviously how you're. Working from an operation. Standpoint and, and. What offers you have on your site, there's there's going to be opportunities to. Potentially play in these different buckets. But ultimately. When we're. Kicking off with new clients. We're, we're pushing. Them right into the buy terms and local. Terms right. Away. And then. From there, you know. Again, kind of depending on the business, we'll we'll make some decisions on and reallocate from that point. I love it, yes. Nothing is set in stone. There's no, you know, silver bullet strategy here. It is custom based on where the law firm is and what they're trying to do. But, really appreciate the insights today. Gentlemen, this is, foundational and very important knowledge that, that we love to share with our law firm community. So appreciate it. Again, thanks for your time. And, listeners, thanks for being here. If you enjoyed this video and you want to learn more about our paid advertising strategy or structure as we deep dive into what we do that helps our law firm clients grow online, check out this video and of course we'll add a link in the comments as well. Thanks everyone and we will see you next time.