Law firm marketing agency · Google Ads, Meta, SEO · $1M to $20M practices
A law firm marketing agency scored on matters opened, not clicks.
Most law firm marketing reports form fills and page sessions. The number that pays the partners is the matter opened. We are a law firm marketing agency that connects LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep or your practice management system back to Google Ads and Meta, so the platforms optimise against consultations that become matters. Then our senior operators run your ads and search week to week against that measurement, with every decision and the reasoning behind it written down.
30 min · No pitch · Senior operator on the call
Engagement intake, currently open
$1M to $20M
Practice revenue range. Built for partner-led firms with measurable matter economics, not solo practitioners or top-tier firms.
Weekly
Spend decisions by practice area, each one written down with the reasoning so the partners can read it.
Fixed fee
For the agreed scope, quoted in writing after the free audit call. Never a percentage of your ad spend.
How we run marketing for law firms
Four principles. They constrain the work as much as they direct it.
Principle 01
Matter opened, not form filled
Most law firm marketing reports leads. The number that pays the partners is the matter opened. We connect the practice-management system to the ad platforms so Google Ads optimises for the consultation that becomes a matter, not the form submission that fades.
Principle 02
Practice-area economics differ
Family law, conveyancing, commercial litigation, personal injury, and estate planning all have different matter sizes and acquisition costs. We score each practice area separately and only scale spend on the ones where the matter value clears the cost-of-acquisition by a sensible multiple.
Principle 03
Calls are the conversion
Most law-firm enquiries arrive by phone. We track the call (call tracking, dynamic number insertion), capture the practice area on the call, and pass the conversion back to Google and Meta as an offline upload so the optimiser learns who actually converts.
Principle 04
The conduct rules come first
Every Australian state and territory now applies a version of the Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules, and personal injury advertising carries extra statutory limits in some states. We write and run the ads, but your firm signs off the copy before it goes live, campaigns are split by state where the rules differ, and the reporting layer keeps a dated record of what ran, where and when.
Deliverables
What we run for the firm, and what it is measured against.
01
Matter-opened conversion tracking: phone call, form, live chat, and consultation-booking events all unified through the measurement layer.
02
Practice-management system connection (LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep, Filevine, PracticeEvolve, or HubSpot) feeding offline conversions back into Google Ads and Meta.
03
Practice-area-level reporting: cost per consultation, cost per matter opened, average matter value, broken out by family / conveyancing / commercial / personal injury / estate planning.
04
Call-tracking setup with practice-area capture so receptionists tag the call type at intake. The data flows back to the ad platforms and the dashboard.
05
Google Business Profile diagnostic and category, service and review fixes. For many firms the profile is one of the main sources of enquiries, and it is often half configured.
06
Reporting layer in Looker Studio that ties marketing spend to matters opened (not just enquiries) and reconciles to the practice's revenue records monthly.
07
Ongoing Google Ads and Meta management by the senior operators who rebuilt the measurement: campaigns split by practice area and state, search terms and negatives worked weekly, budgets moved on cost per matter, and ad copy your firm signs off before it runs.
08
Search engine and answer engine optimisation: a page for every practice area and location you serve, structured data, and source content that Google, ChatGPT and AI Overviews can cite when someone asks which firm to call. Scored on consultations and matters, not rankings.
09
A written playbook and decision log, yours to keep whether we keep running the account or your practice manager takes it in-house.
Who this is for
- Australian law firm, $1M to $20M annual revenue, partner-led
- Spending at least $5,000 a month on Google Ads, Meta, or legal directories (LawTap, LawAdvisor)
- Practice-management system in place (LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep, Filevine, PracticeEvolve, HubSpot)
- Receptionist or intake person who can capture practice area on enquiry
- Partners who want senior operators in the account and the reasoning behind each spend decision written down
Who it isn't
- Solo practitioner or new firm pre-$1M (our fee would outweigh the lift)
- Top-tier firm with internal BD and marketing function (different shape of help required)
- Want ads run without fixing the measurement underneath them first
- Looking for someone to write newsletters and organic social posts (that stays with your team or a specialist we recommend)
- Need it done in three weeks for a campaign launch (this isn't that kind of work)
- Unwilling to update intake-desk processes to capture practice area at the point of call
How we work with law firms
A fixed fee for the agreed scope. Never a share of your ad spend.
Most firms start with the rebuild, because nobody should be managing legal media against tracking that cannot see a matter open. If your measurement already holds up, ongoing management starts straight away. Both are quoted in one written proposal after the free audit call, once we have seen your numbers. There is no published rate card.
Optional · Two weeks
The two-week diagnostic
Read-only diagnostic across Google Ads, Meta, GBP, the practice-management system, and the intake call flow. Written report with a prioritised fix list and a 60-minute walk-through. The right starting point if you want an outside read before committing to anything.
Step 01 · Twelve weeks
The measurement rebuild
Practice-management system connection, offline conversion uploads, call tracking with practice-area capture, GBP fixes, and a Looker Studio reporting layer that reports matters opened by practice area. Fixed scope, paid in instalments.
Step 02 · Ongoing
Ongoing management
The same senior operators run Google Ads, Meta and search week to week against the rebuilt measurement: budgets by practice area, search terms, ad copy your firm signs off, and a monthly reconciliation of cost per matter. A fixed fee for the agreed scope.
Multi-office firms or those with $20M+ revenue typically warrant the full PROFIT framework engagement as well. We will flag this on the audit call, and if your spend is too small for our fee to pay for itself, we will say that too.
Where to go next
Related services and neighbouring industries.
Related services
Google Ads for law firms →
Most law-firm enquiries come from high-intent Google search, so campaigns run by practice area.
SEO for law firms →
Practice-area and location pages that Google and AI search can find and cite.
Law firm websites →
A site built around practice areas and intake, quoted after the call.
Tracking audit →
Diagnose what your current measurement misses.
Lead generation →
Build the inbound machine across calls, forms, and chat.
Conversion rate optimisation →
Lift the consultation-to-matter rate without paying for more leads.
Related industries
- Marketing for accountants →
- Marketing for tradies →
- Dental marketing →
- NDIS provider marketing →
- Childcare marketing →
- Mortgage broker marketing →
- Real estate marketing →
- Property developer marketing →
Cities we work with law firms in
SydneyMelbourneBrisbanePerthAdelaideNational (remote)
Run your numbers
Proof, with the working shown
We'd rather show you the maths than the buzzwords.
“Profit Geeks rebuilt our whole sales engine, and not just the ad accounts. They went after the systems sitting behind them too. Sales are up 140% and we've pushed past $25M. Honestly the bit I didn't see coming was the operation running leaner than it did back when we were half the size.”
“We were quietly bleeding about a thousand dollars a week and had no idea why. They found the leaks, sorted out the measurement and the offer, and now we'll do more than $10K in a single day. Same product. Completely different business.”
“We went from scraping together two installs a week to running four crews and fifteen-plus jobs a week, north of $10M turnover. The clever bit was they tied the scaling to what we could actually deliver, so growth never broke the operation. Booked jobs, not vanity leads.”
“After iOS, our Meta numbers stopped matching the bank, and we'd basically been writing the gap off as “just tracking.” Profit Geeks rebuilt our measurement server-side and reconciled it straight back to the P&L. Turned out about $1.42M of ad spend in year one had been working all along. They're the first team that showed me the maths instead of a dashboard.”
“We didn’t spend a dollar more on ads. What they did was fix how we counted a booked job versus a platform “conversion,” cut the wasted spend, and by week twelve our blended ROAS had more than tripled. Revenue went from $4.8M to $9.1M. Same senior bloke on every call too. No juniors, no relay race.”
Reasonable questions
What you're probably thinking.
01
We've been burned by an agency before.
Most of our intake has. The difference is structural. A senior operator runs your account, not a junior hidden behind a dashboard, and you leave the first call with written findings you own even if we never work together. No relay race, no account manager translating between you and the people doing the work.
02
How do I know it'll actually work for my business?
You don't yet, and neither do we until we've seen your numbers. That's why the first step is a diagnostic, not a contract. We've documented this in DTC and home services (the case studies show the full working) and run the same playbook in professional services. If the maths isn't there for you, we'll tell you on the call.
03
What if there's nothing worth fixing?
Then you've spent thirty minutes and walked away with a second opinion that cost you nothing. We'd rather say no than take on an engagement we can't earn, so we turn away intake that isn't a fit. There's no pitch and no follow-up sales sequence.
04
What does it cost, and what am I signing up for?
A fixed fee for the measurement rebuild, then a fixed fee for ongoing management, both quoted in writing after the call. No per-channel markup and no percentage of your ad spend. The same senior operators handle measurement, media and margin, and scaling is tied to your contribution margin, so spend only climbs when the numbers say it's working.
Frequently asked
Questions firms ask before hiring a law firm marketing agency.
What does a law firm marketing agency actually do?
Three jobs, in order. Measure: connect the ads to your practice-management system so you can see which spend produces matters, not just enquiries. Acquire: run the channels where people look for a lawyer, which for most practice areas means Google search and the Google Business Profile, with Meta for brand-led and estate-planning work. Convert: work the intake and the landing pages so more enquiries become consultations. We do all three with the same senior operators and keep running the account week to week. Newsletters and organic social posts stay with your team or a specialist we recommend.
Are you a law firm marketing agency or a legal marketing consultant?
Both, in the way that matters to a partner. We are an agency in that our senior operators run your Google Ads, Meta and search accounts every week. We work like legal marketing consultants on the parts most agencies skip: the connection to your practice-management system, what each practice area can afford to pay for a matter, and the intake numbers that decide whether the spend pays. We will not take on management without the measurement work, because without it nobody can tell you what a matter actually cost.
How do I choose a law firm marketing agency?
Ask five questions. What do you optimise to: enquiries, or consultations and matters that our practice-management system confirms? Who works in the account each week, and how senior are they? How are you paid, and does your fee rise when we spend more? How do you handle rule 36 and any personal injury restrictions in our states? And who owns the ad accounts, the tracking and the data if we part ways? Good answers are matters, a named senior operator, a fee that does not grow with spend, a written sign-off process, and you.
How much does a law firm marketing agency cost?
There are two costs: the media you pay Google and Meta, and the agency's fee. Australian agencies usually charge 10 to 20 percent of ad spend, falling as spend rises, or a flat monthly retainer, commonly $1,500 to $3,000 for small accounts and $3,000 to $8,000 for mid-sized ones. A percentage model pays the agency more as legal clicks get dearer, whether or not more matters open. Ours is a fixed fee for the agreed scope, never a percentage of spend, quoted in a written proposal after the free audit call. There is no rate card, and if your spend is too small for the fee to pay for itself, we will tell you on the call.
What agency fees look like in AustraliaAre lawyers allowed to advertise in Australia?
Yes, within limits. Solicitors' advertising is governed by rule 36 of the Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules, which every state and territory has adopted in some form, including as rules under the Legal Profession Uniform Law in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Rule 36 requires advertising that is not false, misleading or deceptive, offensive, or prohibited by law, and bars the words 'accredited specialist' unless you hold that accreditation from the relevant professional association. Personal injury work is where the states differ most. Queensland's Personal Injuries Proceedings Act limits personal injury advertising to the firm's name, contact details and areas of practice, rules out radio, television and cinema, and keeps statements such as no win no fee terms to the firm's own website, and the tribunal has disciplined practitioners for breaching it. New South Wales did not carry its old blanket ban on personal injury advertising into the Uniform Law. The Australian Consumer Law applies on top of all of it. This is a general summary, not legal advice: confirm anything you plan to run with your law society or legal regulator.
Law firm advertising rules, state by stateWho writes the ads, and who signs them off?
We write the ad copy and landing pages and run the campaigns. Your firm signs off anything before it goes live, because rule 36 puts the obligation on the solicitor and the principal of the practice, not on the agency, and we are not legal advertising compliance specialists. What we build is a process that makes sign-off quick: copy drafted against the conduct rules and any state restrictions you flag, a register of what was approved, by whom and for which states, and a dated record of what actually ran.
What are some effective marketing ideas for a law firm?
The ones that hold up in Australia are less glamorous than most lists suggest. Match each practice area to how its clients search, run tight location-qualified Google Ads for urgent matters, build a page for every practice area and location, get the Google Business Profile right, answer every enquiry fast including after hours, stay inside the conduct rules, judge channels on cost per matter, and scale only what is profitable. Our guide walks through all eight.
Marketing for law firms: 8 strategies that workHow is law firm marketing different from regular B2C marketing?
Conversion happens on the phone, not the form. The matter opens days or weeks after the consultation. Practice-area economics differ wildly (a $400 conveyancing matter and a $40K commercial dispute can't be optimised on the same campaign). And the regulatory environment for legal advertising is real, the measurement architecture has to capture compliance events alongside conversions.
What's the best paid channel for law firms?
High-intent Google search dominates for most practice areas, particularly family law, conveyancing, and personal injury. Meta works for brand-led practices and estate-planning education. Legal directories (LawTap, LawAdvisor, FindLaw) produce volume but require careful cost-per-matter scrutiny. The mix depends on practice areas; we model it together on the call.
Do you run SEO for law firms?
Yes. Search engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation run alongside the paid work: a page for each practice area and each location you serve, technical foundations, structured data, and content that answers what people ask before they call a lawyer. It is scored on consultations and matters opened, not keyword rankings, and the same reporting layer shows organic and paid side by side. Newsletters and organic social posts stay with your team or a specialist we recommend.
SEO for law firmsWill the engagement work with our practice-management system?
We work with LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep, Filevine, PracticeEvolve, and HubSpot routinely. If your firm is on something less common (Aderant, Clio, MyCase) we'll confirm on the audit call whether the connection is straightforward or whether we need a Zapier middle layer.
How much should our firm be spending on digital marketing?
Rough heuristic: established firms spend 4 to 8 percent of revenue on total marketing, with 50 to 70 percent going to digital. A $3M firm is spending $120K to $240K a year, with $60K to $170K on digital. New practice areas or post-merger growth campaigns typically run higher for the first 12 months.
We take personal injury work in more than one state. What does that mean for the campaigns?
Treat each state as its own advertising jurisdiction, because the restrictions are not the same in each. In practice that means separate campaigns per state so approved copy and landing pages never cross a border, and location targeting set to presence rather than Google's default of presence or interest, which otherwise shows your ads to someone in another state researching yours. Meta has the same trap: choose people living in the location, not recently in it. Add explicit location exclusions instead of relying on bid adjustments, watch the geographic report for border postcodes, and keep a register of which creative was approved, by whom, for which states, and the dates it ran.
Our conversion is a phone call and the matter does not open for six weeks. How does attribution survive that gap?
Two moving parts. First, carry the click identifier forward: capture gclid, plus gbraid and wbraid on iOS traffic, into a first-party cookie and write it onto the record your intake desk creates. Dynamic number insertion swaps the displayed number per session so a phone call inherits the same identifiers as the browsing session that produced it. Second, respect the platform windows. Google's offline conversion import will not accept a click more than 90 days old, and your click-through conversion window has to be set long enough to cover the lag. Meta is stricter on the web event stream: an event sent to the Conversions API has to carry an event_time inside the last seven days, so a matter that opens six weeks later cannot go back as a fresh web event. Late-landing events go to Meta through the Conversions API as offline events, which accept an older event time. Confirm the current limit on that path before you design the pipeline around it.
So which event do you actually send back to Google and Meta?
The earliest intake stage that is both predictive of a matter and inside the platform's window. For most firms that is the consultation, booked and attended, which lands days after the click rather than weeks, and it goes back carrying an expected value rather than a real fee. Matter opened is still recorded, and for Google it can usually be uploaded against the GCLID if it lands inside 90 days, but you do not make the bidding algorithms wait for it. Conflict checks alone add days before a matter can open. Expected value is then reconciled against actual billings monthly in the reporting layer, which is where drift shows up before it costs you a quarter.
What does connecting LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep or Clio actually get us?
Four things. Matters and their values flowing back to the ad platforms, so bidding optimises on matters instead of form fills. Practice-area splits, so conveyancing and commercial litigation stop being averaged into one meaningless cost per lead. A source field on every matter, so paid cannot quietly claim the referral who also clicked an ad. And, where your firm is satisfied it can do so, suppression of existing clients from prospecting audiences, which means uploading hashed contact details and is the firm's call on confidentiality and privacy, not ours. On access there are two patterns. Some systems publish a documented REST API a developer can work against directly, which is where Clio and Actionstep sit. Others run integration access through a vendor partner program, which is closer to how LEAP and Smokeball work, and the first pass there is usually a middleware connector or a scheduled export. We confirm which path your system needs on the audit call before promising anything.
What is the difference between cost per lead, cost per consultation and cost per case?
Two conversion rates sit between them. Suppose a month of spend is $10,000 and it produces 100 enquiries: cost per lead is $100. If 30 of those attend a consultation, cost per consultation attended is $333. If 12 sign and a matter opens, cost per case is $833. The same $100 cost per lead is comfortable or ruinous depending entirely on the two rates in the middle, and those rates are set by intake, not by media. Then judge cost per case against contribution per matter, being fees billed less the fee-earner cost of doing the work and any disbursements you do not recover, not the headline matter value. Those figures are arithmetic to show the shape, not benchmarks. Only your own numbers are worth acting on.
How do you value a matter for offline conversion uploads when matter values vary wildly?
Not by uploading the final billed fee, which arrives too late and lets outliers poison the model. Build a value table by practice area, use the median or a trimmed mean rather than the average, and cap the top end near the ninetieth percentile so the bidder does not learn to chase one exceptional file. Multiply by the historical rate at which that event becomes a matter, so what you upload is expected value at the moment the event fires. The ratios between practice areas matter more than the absolute dollars, because value-based bidding works on relative signal. Refresh the table quarterly, date the version, and count only one action as a primary conversion so the same matter is not counted twice.
How do you value no win no fee matters, where the fee might be years away?
Same principle, applied more conservatively, and the arithmetic is not the American contingency one. No win no fee in Australia is normally a conditional costs agreement: you bill your professional fees only if the matter succeeds. So the number you send is the fee your firm would actually bill on that matter type, times the historical proportion of those matters that succeed, discounted for how long resolution takes. Most firms are better served by flat bands, perhaps three tiers by matter type, because a banded value that is roughly right and stable teaches the bidding algorithm more than a precise value that swings every month. What you should not do is leave value blank and let volume-based bidding treat a minor claim and a catastrophic injury claim as identical events worth chasing at the same price.
Why are Google Ads clicks for legal terms so expensive?
Because the auction prices in what a matter is worth. What you pay is a function of the Ad Rank of the advertiser below you and your own quality signals, so the ceiling is set by whichever competitor is most willing to pay, and a firm with high matter values can justify a lot. Ad Rank thresholds also mean a weak landing page raises the bid you need even where competition is thin. The parts you control are expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience, which lower what you actually pay at the same position, and the conversion definition you hand the bidding algorithm. Broad match plus a conversion that fires on every form submit teaches Google to buy you the cheapest possible form fill.
Google Ads for law firmsWhat can we do about the cost of legal clicks besides bidding less?
Four levers, largest first. Fix what the conversion means, because bidding to matters instead of enquiries changes what Google buys more than any bid adjustment will. Split practice areas into separate campaigns with separate targets, since one blended target prices a conveyance and a commercial dispute identically and both bids come out wrong. Work the search terms report weekly and negative out the intent that will never instruct you: legal aid, free advice, salaries and jobs, document templates, self-representation, and people searching from the other side of a dispute. Then schedule spend to the hours your intake desk actually answers, because a click that rings out is paid for either way.
Can we run Local Services Ads or Google lead form ads?
Check Local Services Ads before you budget for them. They charge per lead rather than per click, which is why firms ask, and the Google Screened tier carries legal categories in North America. At the time of writing, Google's own Local Services help pages do not list Australia among the countries where the product runs, and availability is specific to category and location, so the only answer worth trusting is what the sign-up flow returns for your ABN, your category and your postcodes. We check it during the diagnostic. Where it is not available, the nearest equivalent is the Google Business Profile, meaning category, service list and review velocity, and in most firms that is half configured. Lead form ads on search are a separate question: they have a place, but the conversion data is messier than a tracked call, so we use them sparingly.
How much difference does intake make, and how would we measure it?
It is normally the largest uncosted leak in the account. Put six numbers in place: answer rate during staffed hours, median ring time, abandoned calls broken out by hour and by campaign, median time to first response on web enquiries, consultation booked rate by intake person, and attendance rate. Missed calls in business hours are the line nobody reports and the likeliest place your paid clicks are going, because someone with an urgent legal problem has two other firms open in other tabs. After hours, an answering service with a script that captures practice area, jurisdiction, the other party's name for the conflict check and the date the problem arose, so a lawyer can assess any limitation issue in the morning, is worth more than another campaign. Check the state and federal rules on consent before you record calls.
Further reading
Law firm advertising rules in Australia, state by state
Rule 36 of the Solicitors' Conduct Rules and the personal injury advertising limits, by jurisdiction.
Law firm marketing strategies: 8 that work
The do-it-yourself version: search intent, Google Ads, SEO, intake and the conduct rules.
How Much Does a Google Ads Agency Cost in Australia?
What firms should expect to pay, and what the money should buy.
What you actually buy
We fix the measurement, then we run the account. It starts with a free call.
Which of these sounds like your week?
- Meta says one number, Google says another, the CRM says a third, and the bank says something else again.
- The leads come in and most of them are rubbish.
- Traffic is fine. Not enough of them buy.
- You cannot spend more without losing margin.
- Something is wrong and you cannot say what.
All five are the same job. We fix the measurement first, then the same senior operators run the spend against it. The free call is where we work out which part you need first.
00 · Free
Run your own numbers
Six calculators and an attribution reference. Work out your break-even ROAS, your CAC payback, and whether the spend is structurally profitable, before you talk to anyone. The calculators need no signup.
01 · Free · 30 minutes
The profit audit call
A senior operator looks at your real spend, revenue and attribution gap on a call. You leave with a written fix list you keep, whether or not we ever work together. No deck, no follow-up sales sequence. We reply within one business day with three times to choose from.
02 · Optional · Two weeks
The two-week diagnostic
Read-only. We change nothing in your accounts. Every tag, event and consent rule mapped and written up: 20 to 35 pages, every issue rated P0 to P3 with an engineering-day estimate, and a 90-minute walk-through on day twelve. Yours to hand to us, your own team, or your existing agency. About a third of clients run this first, then decide.
03 · The engagement · Ongoing
The rebuild, then we run it
The first twelve weeks rebuild the measurement server-side so the reports reconcile to the bank, and work the funnel where the leak actually is. From there the same senior operators keep running Google Ads, Meta and search, with budget, bids and creative decided weekly against contribution margin and the reasoning written down. If your measurement is already sound, management starts straight away.
What it costs
Four things set the number
- The size of your stack
- How many ad platforms are live
- The state of your CRM integration
- How many service lines and locations you run
Two things do not
- Your industry
- How much you spend on ads
Revenue only matters because a bigger business is usually a bigger scope. We do not price off a percentage of it. We charge for the work, not for what you look like you can afford.
How it is billedThe rebuild is fixed scope, paid in instalments. Ongoing management is a fixed fee for the agreed scope. Both are quoted in one written proposal after the call. No hourly billing and no percentage of ad spend.
Included at no extra costThe written playbook and decision log, yours to keep whether we run the account or your team takes it in-house.
What happens after you book
Three steps. No mystery.
Step 01 · Within 1 business day
30-minute audit call
A senior operator on the call. We look at your real numbers, spend, revenue, attribution gap, and tell you on the call whether the rebuild is worth doing for you and where it would start. No pitch deck.
Step 02 · Within 1 week
Written proposal
Fixed scope, fixed number, written up. The proposal names deliverables, timeline, the people involved, and the price. No hourly billing, no retainer drift.
Step 03 · Within 2 weeks
Engagement starts
Senior operators from day one. The measurement rebuild starts, we take over day-to-day buying on the channels we can measure, and the first working session lands. Inside two weeks of the call.
Next step
Built for partner-led firms. Measured on matters, then run week to week.
If your firm is paying for clicks but not seeing matters open at the rate the dashboards suggest, the next step is a free 30-minute profit audit. Bring a month of paid-marketing spend, your practice areas with their average matter values, and the practice-management system you use for intake. We will tell you on the call whether the measurement needs rebuilding first, what ongoing management would cover, and whether your spend is large enough for our fee to pay for itself.