Personal injury ads: Google, Local Services and social, judged on signed cases

Injury ads are where most firms spend most of their budget, and where waste costs the most. We run search, Local Services, Microsoft, Meta and YouTube ads for injury firms in your firm’s own accounts, teach the bidding with your signed cases, and judge every channel by what it costs to sign a case, in English and in Spanish.

The channels, and what each one is for

A note on ChatGPT for injury firms: OpenAI has said that, during its test, ads aren’t eligible near sensitive topics such as health (OpenAI). Many injury conversations touch health, which may limit how often an injury ad can show. We start small and let the readout decide.

Search terms: the junk injury budgets pay for

Legal clicks are the most expensive of any industry, at $9.87 on average in one benchmark (LocaliQ), and injury terms run far higher. Every hour, new search terms are sorted, and two people review a term before it’s blocked. A term that produced a qualified lead or a signed case in the last 180 days is never blocked. These are the groups that usually go:

Values by case type, from your own cases

Google learns faster from values than from counts. So each upload carries a value band:

• Bands come from your own resolved cases, grouped by type: average net fee, after costs and fee splits, over the last two to three years.
• A type needs at least 20 resolved cases to get its own band. Below that, it joins the nearest type, or your firm’s injury average. With no usable history, the managing partner gives a written estimate, labeled as such until real fees replace it.
• Google sees a band, never a fee. At most four bands, each sent as one round value.
• Qualified leads carry a share of their band, based on how often leads like them sign, so bidding prices each lead by the case it is likely to become.
• Spanish campaigns carry their own values, because Google’s value rules can’t tell languages apart.

Bidding moves to value only once the data is clean, usually between day 31 and day 60, and to a return target only once a goal has 15 or more conversions in 30 days, as Google advises (Google). Smaller injury accounts may stay at the value step, and that is fine.

What we upload, and what never leaves your firm

Google bars remarketing, Customer Match and lookalikes in sensitive categories, including health (Google). We never build Customer Match or lookalike audiences from client lists, and remarketing runs only where Google’s policy allows it. Hashed contact data stays off by default: Google’s customer data policy keeps health-related conversions out of enhanced conversions (Google), and any use for injury waits for your counsel’s review, client consent and your attorney’s written sign-off.

Injury ads your state allows

• Required words in every ad. Your responsible lawyer’s name and office city appear in every ad. California requires a California lawyer or firm name and the city of a real office in every ad (§6157.2).
• Fee claims with cost statements. “No fee unless we win” appears only with the cost statement your state requires, matched to your fee agreement.
• No money, results or injury scenes in California ads. They are presumed misleading in electronic ads there (§6158.1).
• Filings on time. Texas: within 10 days after first use (State Bar of Texas). Florida: at least 20 days before first use, and a changed ad is a new ad (Florida Bar). We prepare the packets; your attorney files.
• Formats that can’t carry required words wait. Some automated formats can’t guarantee your lawyer’s name and office city in every ad. They run only after your counsel is satisfied they meet your state’s rules.

Fair tests for injury budgets

Credit isn’t cause. Before a budget grows more than 30% on credit alone, we propose a test, written down first and read out on signed cases with a 90% range:

• Brand holdout: how many brand-search cases would have signed anyway.
• Local Services on and off by county: what Local Services adds beyond search.
• Meta and YouTube by area: whether social adds cases or only takes credit.
• A Spanish program test: what Spanish campaigns add on their own.
• A step-up in non-brand search: what the next 30% of budget buys.

Areas are chosen with Meta’s open-source GeoLift (GitHub), tests step budgets down rather than going dark where they can, and you approve the areas first.

Lead vendors, measured, not resold

We don’t sell leads, and we never will. Many injury firms do buy them, and 2026 brought two suits by injury firms against lead vendors: one alleging that 204 of 265 leads were rejected at about $5,000 a lead (Rankings.io), and one alleging prepaid “guaranteed” leads that never arrived (Boca Post). Both are allegations, not findings. If you buy leads, independent measurement follows each one to signed, rejected or credited, with the vendor’s fee in the cost.

Intake and ad hours, matched

• Ads run when someone answers. Ad schedules follow your real coverage, in each language. Local Services can bill missed calls during listed hours (Google), so listed hours follow coverage too.
• Missed calls alerted within 5 minutes, so your team can call back while the person is still looking.
• The report shows both sides. If a channel’s cost per signed case rises because calls went unanswered, the report says so before anyone cuts the channel.

How we measure it

The Monday report shows each paid channel by case type and language: spend, leads, qualified leads, consults, signed cases, cost per signed case once a line has at least 5 signed cases, and each line’s test status. One secondary source puts published injury cost per signed case between $2,500 and $12,000 (Foundry CRO); that range is too wide to be your target. Your own number is.

The organic side is on injury SEO and AI search. The overview is on personal injury. The channel detail is on Google search ads and Local Services Ads.