When Law Firms Should Outsource PPC Management

Running Google Ads for a law firm is not a part-time job. It requires daily monitoring, weekly optimization, and deep knowledge of legal advertising restrictions, competitive bidding landscapes, and conversion tracking architecture. Yet at most firms, PPC management falls on a paralegal, an office manager, or the managing partner themselves — someone with ten other priorities and no formal paid media training.

The result is predictable: wasted spend, thin lead volume, and the growing suspicion that "Google Ads just doesn't work for us."

It does work. But there's a point where managing it in-house stops making sense. This article breaks down exactly when law firms should outsource PPC management, what to expect from an agency, how much it costs, and how to avoid hiring the wrong one.

Signs It's Time to Outsource

Not every firm needs an agency. If you're spending $500/month on a handful of exact match keywords and picking up a few leads, that's manageable internally. But certain signals indicate you've outgrown the DIY approach.

You're Spending $3,000+ Per Month on Ads

At this spend level, the margin for error is significant. A poorly structured campaign burning $3,000-$10,000/month can waste 30-50% of budget on irrelevant clicks, bad match types, and missing negative keywords. That's $900-$5,000/month in pure waste — often more than the cost of hiring an agency to manage it properly.

The math is simple: if an agency charges $1,500/month and saves you $2,500/month in wasted spend while increasing lead volume, you come out ahead by $1,000/month plus the additional cases.

Nobody Has Time to Manage It Properly

Effective PPC management for a legal account requires 8-15 hours per week of active work: reviewing search terms, adding negatives, adjusting bids, testing ad copy, monitoring Quality Scores, analyzing call recordings, and updating landing pages. If the person managing your ads is doing it for two hours on Friday afternoons, the account is drifting. Campaigns don't maintain themselves. They degrade.

Results Are Declining Month Over Month

If your cost per lead has climbed 20%+ over the past quarter, or lead volume has dropped while spend stayed the same, something structural is broken. Common causes include competitor strategy shifts, Quality Score erosion, ad fatigue, or Google's algorithm changes — all things that require specialized knowledge to diagnose and fix. When a non-specialist tries to troubleshoot, they often make changes that compound the problem.

You Have No Conversion Tracking (or Don't Trust It)

If you can't answer "what's our cost per signed case from Google Ads?" with a specific number, your tracking is either missing or broken. This is the single most damaging gap in a legal PPC account. Without accurate conversion data, you can't optimize. You can't use Smart Bidding effectively. You're guessing. Proper tracking setup — call tracking with duration thresholds, form submission events, offline conversion imports — requires technical knowledge that most firm staff don't have.

Your Practice Is in a Competitive Market

Law firms in major metros routinely pay $80-$250 per click for high-intent keywords. At those rates, every optimization detail matters. A 1% improvement in conversion rate on a $15,000/month account can mean 3-4 additional signed cases per month. Agencies that specialize in legal PPC know the competitive dynamics of these markets and can extract performance that generalists miss.

What a Good PPC Agency Does vs. In-House

Understanding the difference helps you evaluate whether outsourcing makes sense for your firm's situation.

In-House Management (Typical)

• Ads managed part-time by a non-specialist
• One or two campaigns running with minimal structure
• Search terms reviewed monthly at best
• Landing pages are the firm's homepage or practice area pages
• Call tracking may or may not exist
• Reporting is basic: clicks, impressions, maybe form fills
• No A/B testing of ads or landing pages
• Bid strategy set once and left unchanged

Agency Management (What You Should Get)

• Dedicated account manager with legal PPC experience
• Campaign structure segmented by practice area and intent level
• Weekly search term reviews and negative keyword updates
• Custom landing pages built for each campaign with conversion optimization
• Full call tracking with recording, scoring, and duration thresholds
• Conversion data fed back to Google for Smart Bidding optimization
• Monthly reporting tied to business outcomes: cost per lead, cost per signed case, case volume
• Ongoing A/B testing of headlines, descriptions, landing page elements
• Competitive monitoring and bid strategy adjustments

The gap between these two approaches typically translates to a 40-60% difference in cost per qualified lead. That's not a marginal improvement — it's the difference between a profitable channel and a money pit.

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In-House vs. Agency: Cost Comparison

Here's what each approach actually costs when you factor in all expenses, not just the obvious ones.

The "in-house is cheaper" assumption falls apart when you account for the loaded cost of staff time and the significantly higher waste rate. A paralegal spending 10 hours per week on Google Ads is not free — that's $25,000-$50,000 per year in salary allocation that could be spent on billable work or case management.

What PPC Management Costs

Agency pricing for legal PPC falls into three models. Know what you're comparing before you sign anything.

Percentage of Ad Spend

The agency charges a percentage of your monthly ad budget, typically 15-25%. On $10,000/month in spend, that's $1,500-$2,500 in management fees.

Pros: Fees scale with your budget. If you reduce spend, fees drop too. Cons: The agency has a financial incentive to increase your spend regardless of whether it improves results. Watch for this.

Flat Monthly Fee

A fixed fee regardless of spend level, usually $1,500-$5,000/month for legal accounts depending on complexity.

Pros: Predictable costs. The agency's incentive is aligned with performance, not spend volume. Cons: If your spend level changes significantly, the fee may not match the workload.

Hybrid (Flat Fee + Percentage)

A base fee plus a smaller percentage of spend, or a base fee plus performance bonuses tied to lead volume or cost per case.

Pros: Aligns incentives with outcomes. The agency earns more when you get more cases. Cons: Contracts can be complex. Make sure the performance metrics are tied to outcomes you can verify (signed cases, not just clicks or form fills).

For most law firms spending $5,000-$25,000/month on ads, expect total management fees of $1,500-$4,000/month. If an agency quotes significantly less, question the level of attention your account will receive. If they quote significantly more, they should be justifying it with custom landing page development, creative production, or multi-channel management.

Red Flags When Hiring a PPC Agency

Not all agencies are equal. Legal PPC is a niche with specific pitfalls, and generalist agencies often make expensive mistakes. Watch for these warning signs.

They Lock You Out of Your Google Ads Account

You should own your Google Ads account. Always. The agency should operate under their MCC (manager account) with access to your account — not the other way around. If they create the account under their MCC and won't give you admin access, walk away. When the relationship ends, you'll lose all your campaign data, conversion history, and Quality Score.

They Won't Share Search Terms Reports

If an agency resists showing you the actual search queries triggering your ads, they're hiding waste. Transparency on search terms is non-negotiable. You should receive this data in every monthly report.

They Guarantee Specific Results

No legitimate agency guarantees "#1 rankings" or "50 leads in your first month." Google Ads is an auction. Results depend on competition, budget, market conditions, and a hundred variables no one fully controls. Agencies that guarantee outcomes are either lying or planning to deliver garbage leads to hit their numbers.

No Legal PPC Experience

A firm that manages ads for e-commerce stores and SaaS companies doesn't understand legal advertising. They don't know that Google restricts certain legal ad claims. They don't know that broad match on "lawyer" keywords will drain a budget in hours. They don't know that 70% of legal leads come through phone calls, not forms. Industry experience isn't optional — it's the foundation.

Long-Term Contracts with No Performance Clauses

Be cautious of agencies requiring 12-month commitments with no exit provisions. A 3-month initial commitment is reasonable — it takes 60-90 days to build and optimize a legal PPC campaign. After that, the relationship should continue on a month-to-month basis or with 30-day cancellation terms. Performance should earn retention, not a contract clause.

Questions to Ask Before Hiring

Before signing with any agency, get clear answers to these questions.

1. How many law firm accounts do you currently manage? You want an agency with at least 5-10 active legal clients. Fewer than that and they may lack the benchmarking data and industry knowledge to optimize effectively.

2. What's your average cost per qualified lead for firms in my practice area and market? They should be able to give you a specific range based on real data, not vague promises.

3. Who owns the Google Ads account? The answer must be "you do." No exceptions.

4. What does your reporting include? At minimum: spend, impressions, clicks, conversions (calls and forms separately), cost per lead, cost per qualified lead, search terms summary, and recommendations. Monthly reporting is standard. Biweekly is better during the first 90 days.

5. Do you build custom landing pages? The answer should be yes. Any agency sending your paid traffic to your homepage is wasting your money.

6. How do you handle call tracking? They should use dynamic number insertion, track call duration, record calls for quality review, and feed call conversion data back to Google Ads.

7. What's your cancellation policy? Reasonable terms: 30 days notice after an initial 90-day commitment. Anything longer should come with a performance guarantee or exit clause.

8. Can I speak with two or three current law firm clients? References from firms in similar practice areas and market sizes tell you more than any sales pitch.

Realistic Timeline for Results

Set expectations correctly. PPC is fast compared to SEO, but it's not instant — especially when rebuilding a poorly managed account.

Weeks 1-2: Account audit, campaign restructuring, keyword research, negative keyword buildout, conversion tracking setup. No significant lead changes yet.

Weeks 3-4: New campaigns launch. Landing pages go live. Initial data starts flowing. Lead volume may dip temporarily as the new structure replaces the old one.

Month 2: Optimization begins in earnest. Search term refinements, bid adjustments, ad copy testing. Lead quality typically improves noticeably. Volume starts climbing.

Month 3: Smart Bidding strategies have enough conversion data to optimize effectively. Landing page A/B tests produce winners. This is where you should see clear improvement over the baseline — 30-50% reduction in cost per lead is common for accounts that were poorly managed before.

Months 4-6: Compounding gains. The algorithm is trained on clean data. Negative keyword lists are mature. Landing pages are refined. This is where scaling happens — increasing budget while maintaining or improving efficiency.

Any agency promising transformational results in 30 days is selling you a fantasy. Two to three months for meaningful improvement, four to six months for full optimization — that's the realistic timeline for legal PPC.

When In-House Still Makes Sense

Outsourcing isn't always the answer. Keep PPC management in-house if:

• You're spending under $2,000/month and the account is simple (one practice area, one market)
• You have a full-time marketing hire with verified Google Ads experience (not "I took an online course")
• Your campaigns are already performing well and just need maintenance
• You're in a low-competition market where keyword costs are under $20/click

For everyone else — firms spending $3,000+ per month, operating in competitive markets, managing multiple practice areas, or lacking a dedicated PPC specialist on staff — outsourcing to a specialized agency is almost always the better investment. The cost savings from reduced waste and the revenue gains from higher lead volume typically exceed the management fees within the first 60-90 days.

The Bottom Line

The question isn't whether PPC works for law firms. It does — when it's managed properly. The real question is whether your firm has the time, expertise, and tools to manage it at the level required to compete. For most firms above $3,000/month in ad spend, the answer is no. And the cost of doing it poorly — in wasted budget, missed cases, and opportunity cost — is far higher than the cost of hiring someone who does it every day.

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