Injury firm: tighter targeting and answered calls in a single market

Results as reported by our founder, from the firm’s own records; rounded. Anonymized. This is work our founder led before founding Probative; the firm’s own teams also contributed.

The starting problem

Scaling a stalled paid-search program. A small, single-market plaintiff practice was spending about $60K a month on advertising. Its traffic was broad and expensive, and too many of the calls it paid for went unanswered.

What we changed

1. Tightened geographic and search-intent targeting. Spend was pulled back to the area the firm actually served and to searches from people looking for a lawyer, not general information.

2. Rebuilt landing pages around qualified consultations. Pages were rebuilt to bring in consultations the firm could take, rather than any form fill.

3. Introduced missed-call recovery and intake follow-up. Missed calls were caught and returned, and every inquiry got follow-up. Google weighs responsiveness in Local Services rankings and can bill some missed calls (Google, Google).

The program ran on Google Search, Local Services Ads and remarketing. Remarketing ran only within each platform’s policies, and no Customer Match or look-alike audiences were built from client lists.

The results

• Cost per signed case: $6,000 → $3,000 (−50%).
• Signed cases: 10 → 20 a month at comparable spend (+100%).
• Projected fee-value return on ad spend: 2.5× → 5×.
• Annual firm revenue: $2M → $3.5M (+75%). This is the firm’s total revenue. Many factors contributed to it, and it is not revenue we claim to have caused.
• Other wins: calls answered 60% → 90%; median first response under 5 minutes; more consistent weekly intake.
• Engagement: 18 months.

The figures are as reported by our founder from the firm’s own records, rounded. We don’t publish the firm’s name, location or dates.

How it was measured

Signed cases were counted from the firm’s own case records, not from platform reports, and compared on the same basis before and after. Spend came from the ad accounts the firm owned. Projected fee-value return on ad spend is the projected attorney-fee value of signed cases divided by ad spend. Percentages are computed from the figures above and rounded. Today the same measurement runs every week in our Monday report, under The Probative Standard and our method for reporting results.

What this means for your firm

In one market, the fastest gains are often on your phones and in where your ads show, not in bigger budgets. Start by comparing your listed hours with your answered calls. The practice detail is on our personal injury page.