Lawyers and Web Ads

Jamie at Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer is decrying the online ad spending of the local criminal defense bar. According to his estimates, in the Austin market alone, criminal defense attorneys are spending about $1 million per year on Google's cost-per-click AdWords program. I'm not sure that the number is quite that high, but if it's an overestimate, it's not by much.

For the lawyers who are getting in and bidding upwards of $50 for the most popular keywords and phrases, I have to think that Jamie's right. This cost is being passed on to the clients. But lots of costs get passed on to clients: rent/mortgage payments, staff salaries, etc. In a market like Austin where the fight for clients is so competitive, you have to have some way to drive potential clients to call, email, or walk in the door. Referrals are great, especially from former clients, but it takes a long while for a practitioner (however great) to develop a critical mass of new clients based solely on reputation.

So we advertise. We run ads on TV, radio, newspapers. We send out direct mail flyers and post ads in restrooms. We print up key chains, lighters, matchbooks, pens, and all manner of things just to get our names out there. We might even buy terribly misleading 1-800 numbers. All these costs are passed on to our clients. I think people understand the need to advertise. But if clients are so upset about having these costs passed on to them by the big ad buyers, then they need to do a better job of researching their attorneys better and speaking to more than one or two lawyers about their cases. (I encourage every one of our potential clients to seek at least a second (and preferably a third) opinion about their case.)

Buying keyword ads on search engines is one of the smarter ways to target your clients. You can go for huge market share and try to get as many customers as possible, but you can also be smart about your placements, carefully track your costs, and (this is the best part about Internet ads) track what ads and keywords do well and generate actual clients. You struggle to do that with TV or Yellow Pages, but I can say confidently that our website redesign and ad campaign has paid for itself 3 times over in the few months since we relaunched. We haven't had to raise our prices to cover that. Ultimately, we want to be high in organic search results, too, but that takes time and knowledge to do it yourself or a huge commitment to an SEO company. More importantly, eye tracking studies have confirmed that the first place that most users tend to look (and click) are the top ad placements and the first three organic results. You should do both, at least where it makes financial sense.

Ultimately, it's up to our clients to say how much is too much. There are several lawyers here in town that charge several times more than we do, largely because they're collecting their trial fee in every case. If 98-99% of all criminal cases in Austin are settled without a trial (that's just a number I hear thrown around a lot), then why are potential clients paying for something they don't get (or don't want or shouldn't have, etc.)? If you're looking for a lawyer, these are the kind of questions you have to ask. Don't be pulled in by a sales pitch. Do your homework.