A law firm on Google Ads: from 10 leads a year to 654
A regional law firm was getting less than one real lead a month from Google Ads. We rebuilt the account around phone calls and form fills, and counted only those.
Illustrative imageThe published figures
The last 12 months, against the year before the rebuild
- Real leads in the last 12 months
- 654
- Cost per lead, down from $1,142
- $41
- Leads a year, against the year before
- 65×
- Calls of 60 seconds or more, up from 8
- 511
- Clicks that became a lead, up from 0.1%
- 11.9%
Year two, Nov 2024 to Oct 2025
- Real leads, on 45% more budget than the year before
- 455
- Cost per lead
- $36
From the firm’s own Google Ads account, read in November 2026. The client’s name is withheld. A past result is not a forecast: yours will depend on your market, your budget and your offer.
The brief
The firm was spending about $950 a month on Google Ads and getting less than one real lead a month: 10 in a whole year, at $1,142 each.
Three display campaigns had spent about $21,000 since 2021 and brought in 3 real leads, and the old search campaigns also ran on Google’s search partner sites.
What ran
In November 2023 we rebuilt the personal injury and criminal defense campaigns from scratch, moved every dollar into search, and counted only calls of 60 seconds or more and submitted forms.
- Rebuilt personal injury and criminal defense as new, tightly themed search campaigns, and retired the old ones.
- Shut off the three display campaigns and put the money into search.
- Showed the ads only to people physically in the firm’s market, the city plus a 30 to 60 mile radius, with search partners and the display network off.
- Blocked the wrong searches: about 90 negative keywords per campaign plus a shared list of 96, covering job seekers, law students, “free”, pro bono, other states and cases the firm does not take.
- Counted a call only after 60 seconds and a form only when it was submitted, and put a call button, sitelinks and callouts on every ad.
- Once leads held at about $35 each, raised the budget in May 2026 and added brand and family law campaigns.
How it was counted
A lead is a call from an ad that lasted 60 seconds or more, or a contact form that was submitted. Page views and button clicks are not counted, even where Google Ads counts them.
Twelve months at a time: the year before the rebuild brought 10 leads at $1,142 each, on about $950 a month. Year two brought 455 at $36 each, on about $1,380 a month. The last 12 months brought 654 at $41 each, on about $2,250 a month after the budget went up in May 2026.
Form tracking began in mid-2023, so the year before undercounts forms. Calls were tracked the whole time, and they alone rose from 8 a year to 511.
- The account is still ours. Every week we read the search terms, the bids and the ads, and every change is checked by a person before it goes live.
- Budgets move only when the client says so. That is how this one went from about $1,400 a month to about $3,100, once the leads held steady.
- The monthly report counts the same two things every time: calls and forms, and what each one cost.
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