Law firm marketing, judged on signed cases

Law firm marketing at Probative is one plan for SEO, AI search and ads, run in your firm’s own accounts and judged on one number: signed cases, counted in your records. It is built for firms that want one accountable owner for how people find them, call them and sign with them.

What “AI-first” means here

People now find lawyers in more places than ten blue links. Google shows its AI answers on 23.6% of legal searches, and those answers cut clicks on the top result by about 58% (Ahrefs; Ahrefs). In one 2026 consumer survey, 41.9% said they would use ChatGPT to research a lawyer, up from 28.1% (vendor survey). And since August 31, 2026, licensed US law firms can buy ads inside ChatGPT itself (LawLytics).

AI-first means we build for that world. We work on the things AI answers read, such as your Google Business Profile, directory listings, reviews and answer-first pages in English and Spanish, so your firm can be named when someone asks. We measure how often it is named, every month. And we run your ads so they win the click wherever people search, including the new ads in ChatGPT.

It doesn’t mean AI runs your ads. People run your accounts, and a person approves every ad and every change. Nobody can promise a mention in an AI answer, and we don’t. We promise the work and an honest count.

The plan, in the order we run it

Every engagement follows the same sequence, so you know what happens when.

After day 90, the rhythm is steady: alerts and search-term checks every hour, uploads every day, the report every Monday, a monthly report and call, and a quarterly review.

How the channels fit together

Each channel does a different job. We plan them together, because a firm’s cases rarely come from one place.

The firm’s intake sits under all of them. In Clio’s 2024 secret-shopper study of 500 firms, only 40% answered the phone (Clio, via 2Civility). Since October 1, 2026, Google can also bill a firm for a missed call to its Local Services Ads during listed hours when the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds (Google). So every plan includes intake monitoring, because ads can’t sign a case that nobody answers.

How the mix changes by practice

Practices differ in urgency, in what Google allows, and in who calls. The plan follows the practice.

“Standard uploads” carry a click ID, a neutral stage name, a value band and a time, and nothing else. For no practice do we upload names, injuries, charges or immigration status.

How we judge the work: one number, checked every week

Every Monday you get a report of what each signed case cost, by channel and by language, from your own records. It prints the platform’s count, our count and your CRM’s count side by side, and any gap between them. Only 37% of law firms have a system to track what their marketing returns (Best Law Firms), and in one review of 50 public agency case studies, only 6% showed a cost per signed case (review). The report is how we close that gap.

Two rules keep the number honest:

• Attributed is not caused. When an ad gets credit for a case, we call the case “attributed.” We say an ad “caused” cases only after a fair test: ads turned down in some areas and compared with similar areas. Until then, every channel’s cost carries the words “no test yet.”
• Small numbers stay small. We show no cost per signed case for any line with fewer than 5 signed cases. That line shows its spend and counts instead, so nobody makes a budget decision on noise.

The full rules are public in The Probative Standard. An ILLUSTRATIVE sample report shows the format.

How budget decisions get made

Budget is where most marketing advice goes wrong, so we write the rules down:

• Money follows the next case, not the average one. A channel’s average cost per signed case says how it did. Whether to add budget depends on what the next dollar buys. We raise a budget only while that next dollar still signs cases below your target and your intake team has room.
• Big moves need evidence. Before we suggest raising any channel’s budget by more than 30%, we show the test or the trend that supports it. If we have neither, we say so and propose a fair test.
• Targets move slowly. We change a bidding target at most every 14 days, in steps your marketing lead approves in writing.
• Intake comes first. When your intake team is answering at more than 90% of its capacity, we suggest holding or cutting spend before adding more. Paying for calls nobody can take is the most expensive mistake in this business.
• You decide. We propose every material change in the monthly report. Your marketing lead approves it, and it goes into the decision log with its date.

What the monthly report contains

The Monday report is the weekly count. The monthly report, sent by business day 5 with a 45-minute call, is the thinking behind it.

1. What isn’t working. Up to three problems, each with its cause, the fix, who owns it and by when. This section always comes first.
2. Results against plan. Signed cases and cost per signed case by channel and language, for the month and the last 12 weeks.
3. Corrections and restatements. Anything we reported earlier that changed, and why.
4. Data health. Whether the tracking was complete enough to trust this month’s numbers.
5. Intake. Answer rate, speed to answer, graded-call trends, and missed calls that Local Services Ads billed.
6. Tests. Tests running, tests read out, and the next one planned.
7. Spend and changes. Pacing against plan, and every budget and bidding change, with its log entry.
8. Compliance. Ads awaiting your attorney’s approval, filings due, and any ad withdrawn.
9. Decisions needed from you, each with a date.
10. Service levels. Each one met or missed, and any credit applied to your next invoice.

Clicks, impressions and rankings appear only in an appendix labeled “diagnostic.” They help us steer. They are never the result.

What we need from your firm

• Access you control. Admin or manager access to your ad accounts, Local Services Ads, Business Profile, analytics, call tracking and website, granted by you and removable by you at any time.
• About an hour of your CRM administrator’s time in the first two weeks, to add four fields if they don’t exist: source, language, case type and stage dates.
• Your intake criteria in writing. Which cases you take, from where, and which you decline. Changing them changes the counts, so we date every change.
• Your fee history by case type, or the managing partner’s written estimate, so values sent to Google come from your own cases and never another firm’s.
• A responsible attorney who approves ads and pages, and signs off on what data may go to the platforms.
• Intake staff who record the four fields on every call. Without them, no agency can tell you which ads sign cases.

Five places money leaks before a signed case

These are the leaks we look for first, because they are common and quick to fix.

1. Calls that aren’t conversations. One Florida injury firm’s marketing director found that about 570 of an agency’s 600 reported monthly calls lasted under two seconds (podcast). We count a lead only after 30 seconds of real talk, a form with working contact details, or a Local Services lead Google records as a call or message.
2. Missed calls you now pay for. Local Services Ads can bill some missed calls during your listed hours. We match your listed hours to the hours your phones are really answered, and we alert your team within minutes when a call is missed.
3. Search terms that never sign. Legal has the highest average cost per click of any industry, $9.87 in one benchmark (LocaliQ). Two people review your search terms, and we never block a term that produced a qualified lead or signed case in the last 180 days.
4. Spanish searchers sent to English pages. Since September 2026, Google matches search ads to the language of the search (Google). Spanish searches go to firms with Spanish ads and pages. We build both, and report Spanish signed cases on their own line.
5. Bidding that learns from the wrong thing. If Google is told a form fill counts, it finds more form fills. We send it signed cases instead, through Google’s Data Manager, which every new offline-conversion setup has had to use since June 15, 2026 (Google).

When this is the right plan, and when it isn’t

It fits a firm that:

• wants one plan for search ads and SEO, instead of two vendors judged on two different scorecards;
• tracks, or is willing to track, four fields on every new call: source, language, case type and stage;
• has a responsible attorney who will approve ads and pages on a schedule;
• will answer its phones, or fix the hours when it can’t.

It may not fit yet when:

• the firm can’t record those four fields, because no agency can tell it which ads sign cases without them;
• intake is already turning callers away; the next dollar should go to answering, not to more calls;
• the firm wants guaranteed leads or rankings. We don’t sell either, and we’d rather say so now.

If we think a smaller step makes more sense, such as the measurement study or independent measurement, we’ll say so.

After the first 90 days

The first term is 90 days. After that, the plan runs month to month, and it keeps changing with the evidence:

• Budgets move each week toward the lines with the lowest cost per signed case, within your intake capacity.
• Tests run on a schedule, on the packages that include them, so the credit each channel takes is checked against areas without it.
• Pages keep shipping on the SEO plan, and old pages are reviewed and refreshed.
• The quarterly review resets the plan for the next quarter, with the partners in the room.
• You can leave any month, on 30 days’ notice, with every account already in your name.

The deal

• Flat, published fees. Never a percentage of your ad spend, and never a price per lead or per case. Fees step by published bands of the ad spend we manage on Google, Microsoft, Local Services Ads, Meta and YouTube, as a three-month average, and you never pay more than the matching package. Search and Google + SEO cover up to 2 practice areas, Full Ads and Full Service up to 4. The packages and the full menu are on the pricing page.
• A head of growth from $100k. From $100k a month of managed ad spend, our founder acts as your head of growth across every channel and vendor, TV included, at no extra fee.
• You own everything. Every account is in your name and on your payment method from day one. Every ad runs under your firm’s own verified Google advertiser account.
• A 90-day first term, then month to month on 30 days’ notice. No buyout and no exit fee. Your exports arrive within 2 business days of your exit date.
• Your attorney approves every ad. We draft to your state’s rules and prepare the filings; your attorney approves and files.
• Service levels in writing. If we miss one, you get a credit on your next invoice. Credits cover our work, never case results.

Plain-English terms are on terms in plain English, and the sequence of work is on how we work.

A test you can put to any agency, including us

1. What was our cost per signed case for the last 12 weeks, checked against our CRM?
2. Which channels have a fair test behind them, and which only have credit?
3. What does a Spanish signed case cost us?
4. Who owns each account, and whose name is under “Ads funded by”?
5. Where is your price list?
6. If we leave, how many days until we have every export?

If an agency can’t answer these, the gap is worth knowing. If we can’t, hold us to it.

Ethics notes

• We are a marketing firm, not a law firm. We give no legal advice, and nothing on this site is legal advice.
• We never refer, recommend or route people to lawyers, and we never sell or share leads.
• We never contact your prospects ourselves. Your intake team calls people who asked.
• Ads carry your responsible lawyer’s name and office city, and statements your state requires appear in every language an ad uses. We never call an ad “compliant”: your bar and the courts decide that.
• The state-by-state basics are in the lawyer advertising rules by state; your own counsel and bar have the final word.