Lawyers are some of our most loyal clients. With close to 40 law firms using AdLuge for their lead management and marketing intelligence, we have gathered a wealth of industry data that brings clarity to expectation. Analysing industry trends is excellent for benchmarking and comparing your practice to your competitors and industry standards. How do you compare?
After reviewing the data for the majority of our law firm clients, here are the average volume of leads received by online sources between January and March 2013.
| Organic | Google Ads | Referral | Direct | Total New Leads |
| 32 | 12 | 38 | 17 | 93 |
Summary of Leads
Organic Optimization / SEO – 32 leads per month
Organic leads come to your site naturally through search engines. Better Search Engine Optimization can result in an increase in organic traffic and leads. SEO Optimization is generally the most cost-effective method for generating leads. We offer our clients SEO services for an extra monthly cost, and our law firm clients that do it generally end up paying between $15 – $30 per lead.
Paid Search – Google Ads – 12 leads per month
Google Ads is by far the most used paid search medium. While other Paid Search mediums can offer lower cost per lead metrics, there is no where else that you want to be if you are starting out in Paid Search.
Our law firm clients typically spend about $1505.00 monthly on Google Ads. Comparitvely, the average monthly budget for Cosmetic Surgeons was $1416.00 (January to March 2013).
Our law firm clients are typically paying about $120.00 per lead using this medium. This includes all areas of law. This is fairly common; however, if we look at certain areas of specialization it can vary tremendously. Personal injury law for example, a very competitive industry, has costs upwards of $15 – $20 per click. These keywords are quite competitive, but the returns on each client can be quite lucrative and make it worth the spend.
In comparison to organic, it’s more expensive for this industry. The benefit is that you can start seeing returns immediately. Organic SEO can sometimes take 6 – 12 months to start producing results.
Referral Sites – 38 leads per month
Referral sites can range from guest posts to review websites, or partner sites which have posted a link to one of our law firm clients. The average for all clients came to 38 leads per month, the highest out of all other sources. However, some of our largest law firms reported averages higher than 175 per month. This can be a good cost-per-lead source, but it depends on whether these referral sites were paid for.
Direct – 17 leads per month
Many factors can affect leads from a direct source. This is when someone physically types your address into the browser. Our law firm clients have averaged 17 direct leads per month in 2013. Much of this can be attributed to offline campaigns, or traditional forms of advertising like radio, billboard, magazine or newspaper ads. One of our clients runs a lot of television commercials and sees hundreds of direct leads monthly. We tend to credit leads received from the ‘Direct’ source to public relations, brand and word of mouth success.
Our own research suggests that offline costs to get these leads is significantly higher, compared to online methods like SEO and Paid Search advertising.
Total Monthly Law Firm Leads – 93 leads per month
AdLuge has shown us that based on our Law Firm clients, the volume of leads received by all sources is 93 a month. In our experience, once a Law Firm employs search engine marketing as part of the marketing mix, the biggest improvement area is often employing proper follow up procedures. 93 leads a month could convert into a highly profitable flow of new business if the right steps are taken, especially given the higher value of a closed sale.
In addition to measurement and tracking, AdLuge offers a complete CRM with sales rep and folder assignment. Whether you choose to use AdLuge or not, we recommend employing something that helps you keep track of your patient inquiries through an automated lead management system. The better you can manage your leads, the better chance you have of securing them as clients!
How Do I Generate More Leads Online?
Stay tuned to some of my upcoming newsletters as I focus on the following areas:
- Paid Search Metrics for lawyers
- Tips and Tricks for lawyers to Improve Paid Search Campaigns
- Search Engine Optimization and your Law Firm
- Things Every lawyer can do to improve their SEO
Wow, I’ve never seen such a breakdown of numbers like this. I was surprised to see 38 leads from referral sites – I guess I’ve been told that SEO Optimization is more important. It’s great to compare the cost versus the amount of leads, though. I keep forgetting that we need more than just a single number to analyze stats like this – thanks for the reminder.
I was really surprised to see that the number of organic leads were more than double the number ppc (Google Ads) leads. But what shocked me most was that ppc (Google Ads) brought in the least number of leads overall. What an eye opener!