Google Ads Automated Bidding Strategies for Law Firms

A steady stream of clients is the lifeblood of any law firm. Effectively using Google Ads automated billing strategies is one way to keep the leads flowing without blowing your budget.

While automated bidding strategies can save you a lot of headaches, it’s important to select the one that best serves your law firm.

Below, we explore all the different Google Ads automated bidding strategies for lawyers. We’ll explore their advantages and limitations and how to choose the right one for you.

Table of Contents

How Does Google Ads Bidding Work for Law Firms?

When a prospective client conducts a Google search, PPC ads appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). This means a properly designed ad will put your firm at the top of a SERP when a prospective client searches for a lawyer.

A robust Google PPC campaign can greatly enhance your law firm’s visibility and calls from potential clients.

Think of Google Ads as a marketplace where thousands of law firms are vying for the best positions.

The highest bidder with the strongest message will get the top spot. Law firms with lower bids or weaker ads will fall behind.

Google uses a bidding framework to determine which law firm appears first in search results. A law firm can set a maximum amount they are willing to pay per click on their ad so they don’t stretch their budget.

When you run a PPC campaign, your law firm pays a fee each time someone clicks on your ad. The fee you pay depends on your bid for that particular keyword.

Key Terms

Below are some important components of Google Ads bidding for law firms that you should be aware of:

Keyword targeting: Law firms select keywords related to their practice area to ensure their ads appear when users search for those terms.
Location targeting: Since many legal services are local, law firms often focus on geographic targeting to reach clients within their practice area.
Negative keywords: To avoid irrelevant searches, law firms use negative keywords to exclude terms that might trigger their ads but aren’t relevant to their services.
Ad copy optimization: Writing compelling ad copy with clear calls to action is key to attracting clicks from potential clients and helping your ad rank higher.

You’ll also need to know a few key terms as we discuss Google Ads bidding strategies for lawyers.

Cost per click (CPC) – The amount of money it will cost you every time someone clicks on your ad.
Cost per acquisition (CPA) – The total amount of money you spend acquiring each client
Return on ad spend (ROAS) – The ratio of money you gained or lost as a result of your PPC ads compared to the amount you spent on the campaign

If you’d like to learn more about PPC for lawyers, check out our guide!

Smart vs. Automated Bidding

When it comes to Google Ads bidding strategies, there is an important distinction between smart bidding and automated bidding.

Smart bidding refers to strategies that use Google AI to optimize for conversions or conversion value in every auction. You may also hear this tactic referred to as “auction-time bidding”.

Examples of smart bidding strategies include

Target CPA
Target ROAS
Maximize Conversion
Maximize Conversion Value

We will discuss these bidding strategies in more depth below, and we’ve marked smart bidding strategies with a lightbulb icon.

In contrast, automated bidding in Google Ads takes some of the guesswork out of setting bids. With Google Ads automated bidding, there’s no need to manually update bids.

Instead, Google Ads will set bids for your ads based on that ad’s likelihood to result in a click or conversion.

In short, smart bidding adjusts your bid amount in every auction. Automated bidding optimizes bids at the beginning of the process to better align with your campaign goals.

How to Set Your Law Firm’s Bid Strategy

Setting up a bidding strategy for your Google Ads campaign is crucial to maximizing your return on investment (ROI). You can begin by determining how much your law firm is willing to spend daily or monthly.

When calculating your campaign spend, consider your law firm’s practice area (or areas), geographic targeting, and competition.

Your law firm can also use Google’s Keyword Planner to help determine your PPC budget.

Google’s Keyword Planner provides insights on

keyword trends
search volume
estimated costs per click

By researching relevant keywords, your law firm can determine the cost of bidding for those keywords.

Types of Google Automated Bidding Strategies for Law Firms

In addition to manual bidding strategies, Google offers several automated bidding strategy options. Four of these automated strategies are smart bidding options.

Manual CPC

Manual cost-per-click is the oldest bidding option and the only one we discuss that isn’t automated. A manual bidding strategy works just like you’d think: you bid manually on the maximum cost-per-click for each keyword.

You can set a maximum for your entire ad group, or set separate maximum bids for certain keywords.

Advantages of Manual CPC

The main advantage of manual CPC bidding is that it allows you greater control. Well-managed manual CPC allows you to devote more of your budget to the highest-converting ads and keywords.

Limitations of Manual CPC

The main drawback with manual CPC bidding is the amount of time and knowledge required to manage it successfully. The more campaigns you’re running, the more labor-intensive manual bid management becomes.

Manual CPC can also be risky for busy law firms without a dedicated Google Ads manager. If you don’t have time to check in on your ads for a while, you could waste a lot of money on ads or keywords that aren’t converting.

Even the most diligent ad manager can’t adjust bids as quickly and frequently as Google Ads automated bidding. So you may miss opportunities for optimization that an automated strategy could capitalize on.

Maximize Clicks

This automated strategy aims to deliver as much traffic as possible to your website without exceeding your budget.

Advantages of Maximize Clicks

If you’re looking to drive as much traffic to your website as possible, Maximize Clicks is a simple tool to achieve that goal.

You cap your budget and, if you wish, your cost per click. The automation then makes adjustments to help you get the most out of your money.

This strategy is also easy to set up compared with some other automated bidding strategies. You don’t need a lot of information about conversion value and your past ad performance to get going.

That makes Maximize Clicks a good option for some firms that are just dipping their toes into automated bidding strategies.

Limitations of Maximize Clicks

This automated bidding tactic may not be the best option for most law firms because clicks alone don’t generate revenues. Conversions are usually more closely tied to your ultimate goals.

So, a campaign could succeed in delivering a lot of clicks and website visits but generate little or no business.

Maximize Clicks is also an old-school automated system, not a smart bidding approach. That means less sophisticated adjustments and weaker optimization.

Viewable CPM

Viewable CPM (cost-per-thousand) is a more sophisticated version of cost per thousand impressions. Google will charge you based on how often your ad appears, whether or not anyone clicks.

Viewable CPM has replaced two prior impression-based bidding strategies: CPM and Max. CPM.

Advantages of Viewable CPM

Viewable CPM is often a lower-cost way to run Google Ads than CPC methods. It works especially well if you have an ad that generates lots of clicks or if you are looking to increase brand recognition.

This new smart version of CPM ads combines those advantages with the convenience of automated bidding.

However, the biggest advantage this new approach offers over prior strategies is that you don’t pay for “invisible” impressions. These are impressions where a viewer scrolls past your ad, but doesn’t look at it.

You only pay when at least 50 percent of your ad is visible on the screen for at least a full second.

Video impressions count only when the video plays continuously for at least two seconds.

Limitations of Viewable CPM

The clearest limitation of this smart bidding tactic is that you’re billed whether or not anyone ever clicks on your ad.

That may be fine for a brand recognition campaign. But, you should know that it’s possible to spend your whole budget for the day without generating any traffic.

This smart strategy adjusts bids to show your ads at the absolute top of the page. You also set the percentage of the time you want your ad to appear in relevant searches.

Though the focus of this strategy is impressions, you’re still paying for clicks. You set the maximum CPC, and Google adjusts bids within that range.

Target Impression Share can be a simple and effective way to increase your firm’s visibility. It can also help to ensure that you’re the top-of-the-page result for high-conversion-value searches.

This Google Ads bidding strategy can also work well when you’re running ads in a competitive market. Defining your share means you can force your ads to appear regularly.

Target impression share can be expensive, especially if you’re targeting competitive keywords and a high percentage of impressions. Though you still pay on a CPC basis, those clicks can be quite costly.

If you set a maximum CPC, you can better control costs. But you may not be able to reach your target percentages with a cap on your CPC.

Maximize Conversions

Maximize Conversions adjusts your bids to get the most conversions possible out of the budget you set.

This is a fully automated strategy, meaning you don’t have to set individual keyword bids. It considers your previous ads’ performance, evaluates real-time data from your current ads, and adjusts each bid accordingly.

Advantages of Maximize Conversions

Maximize Conversions focuses on getting users to take action. That increases the likelihood of conversion compared with a clicks-driven strategy like Maximize Clicks.

This smart bidding also offers the flexibility to use it alone or integrate other strategies for greater control.

Limitations of Maximize Conversions

Standing alone, Maximize Conversions goes for the largest raw number of conversions. That means it won’t prioritize higher-conversion-value actions unless you opt for more sophisticated decision-making.

Because this strategy aims to get as many conversions as possible, it typically maxes out your daily budget. That’s not necessarily a negative, but it is something your law firm should be aware of.

Target CPA

This smart strategy aims to maximize conversions at your target cost-per-action (CPA). Google treats the target cost as an average, so some conversions will cost more and some less.

Advantages of Target CPA

The advantage of choosing Target CPA as your Google Ads bidding strategy is that you can control your cost per conversion. That ties your expenditures to measurable conversion value in a way CPC does not.

If you see significant shifts in your ad performance, you’ll have detailed explanations to help you understand why. From there, you can make any necessary adjustments to stay within that target CPA.

Limitations of Target CPA

Though Target CPA is a smart bidding strategy, it requires more effort from you than some other strategies. For one thing, you’ll need to set up conversion tracking to use this system.

You’ll also have to determine how much you’re willing to pay, on average, for a conversion. Many firms don’t have a solid idea of what a form completed or other action is worth to them in dollars.

Google aims to keep your cost-per-action close to your target. But with many variables in play, the actual cost may be somewhat unpredictable.

You can set bid limits for the search network, but that may also limit conversions.

Target ROAS

Target ROAS (return on ad spend) aims to maximize the profitability of your ads.

However, Google doesn’t use the actual revenue your firm gets from your ad to calculate ROI for this strategy. Instead, it hinges on the value you have assigned to certain conversions.

This smart bidding strategy uses information about each search to set bids based on the anticipated value of a conversion. The more valuable the conversion is likely to be, the higher the bid Google will place for that ad.

Advantages of Target ROAS

Target ROAS gives your law firm the most control of any strategy over the return on your Google Ads investments. Bidding decisions happen in real time based on information about the particular search underway.

Because bidding depends on your assigned value per action, this strategy works well across a variety of campaigns.

Limitations of Target ROAS

Target ROAS is arguably the most sophisticated automated bidding strategy Google offers. Unfortunately, that sophistication also makes it the most complex for law firms to implement.

A law firm choosing this strategy must track conversion rates, then assign meaningful values to each conversion action. You’ll also need a minimum number of conversions across thirty days to inform the bidding decisions.

Google says Target ROAS is most effective when you’re willing to spend up to double your usual daily ad spend. They won’t exceed your monthly limit, but those daily expenditures can disrupt your financial rhythms.

Maximize Conversion Value

Maximize Conversion Value focuses on generating the greatest aggregate conversion value, rather than the most conversions. The real-time analysis considers not only the likelihood of a conversion, but also the likely type of conversion.

Instead of treating every conversion equally, Google increases your bid when there’s a better chance of a high-value conversion.

This strategy is the more sophisticated sibling of the Maximize Conversions bidding strategy we discussed earlier.

Advantages of Maximize Conversion Value

Maximizing conversion value can offer a higher ROI since more of your budget goes toward more valuable actions. This can be great for firms working on a limited budget.

The real-time adjustments this strategy uses can also work to bring in better results for your law firm.

Limitations of Maximize Conversion Value

You’ll have to do some up-front setup work when you first launch into Maximize Conversion Value bidding. This may include setting up conversion tracking and assigning values to each conversion action.

You also lose a bit of control, given that automated bidding works on real-time data. For example, this strategy disregards manual bid adjustments, except when they entirely rule out a device type.

Some Automated Bidding Strategies Work Together

In certain cases, you can use more than one of the strategies we’ve discussed for the same campaign. For example, you might use Maximize Conversions, but assign an optional Target CPA to control the cost per conversion.

These combinations give you greater control over your campaigns, but you should use them carefully. In some cases, they can work against the primary strategy.

In the example above, for instance, setting Target CPA too low could mean you don’t get many conversions. Setting the Target CPA too high could unnecessarily increase your ad spend.

How to Pick the Right Automated Bidding Strategy for Your Law Firm

With so many Google Ads bidding strategies to consider, you may feel overwhelmed at the prospect of choosing just one. When selecting a Google Ads bidding strategy, the key is to keep your law firm’s overarching objectives in mind.

If your goal is to drive traffic to your website, then the Maximize CPC strategy may be the best option. If you want to increase your law firm’s brand visibility, then a CPM strategy may be worthwhile.

Ultimately, there is no single “right automated bidding strategy.” Rather, the right tactic will depend on your law firm’s specific goals.

As you’re gauging the performance of an automated bidding approach, remember to be patient. PPC ads take time to show results, so don’t give up if you don’t see immediate returns.

Automated bidding strategies utilize the data regarding a bid’s performance to inform future bids. For example, your average CPC might increase initially, but your CPA will likely stabilize over time.

Tips for Using Google Ads Automated Bidding for Your Law Firm

Now that you understand Google’s automated bidding, here are key tips to help you maximize your ad effectiveness:

Prioritize Bid Adjustments. Google Ads gives you significant flexibility and control over your bidding strategy. You can tailor your bids based on types of devices, days of the week, time of day, and geographic locations. You can also run reports based on those metrics and see where it may make sense to increase or decrease bids depending on performance.
Use Automated Bidding Rules. Google Ads allows you to set specific parameters that will trigger a modification to your bids or ad spend. For example, you can set it to increase bids if your average cost per conversion falls below a specific target.
Test Key Metrics. Frequent testing is key to getting the most out of any Google Ads automated bidding strategy. Routine testing and analysis allow you to identify any issues with your campaign. You may also identify key areas where you can maximize the performance of your campaign.

Get More from Your Law Firm Marketing

You work tirelessly on behalf of your clients. Your digital marketing strategy should work just as hard on your behalf to help generate new business.

This is where the LawRank team can help. We are ready and able to work with you to determine the most optimal bidding strategy for your law firm’s Google Ads campaign.

LawRank is not your typical SEO firm. We focus exclusively on legal marketing, allowing our team of professionals to concentrate on effective marketing strategies for lawyers.