Google Ads & Local Services Ads Management
Two platforms, managed as one programme
Google Ads and Local Services Ads behave completely differently, charge differently, and are ranked differently. Running them as separate projects is how firms end up paying twice for the same client.
Google Ads management
The search campaigns that put your firm in front of people actively looking for the practice areas you handle, in the counties you serve.
- Account structure built by practice area and jurisdiction
- Bidding managed against case value, not click volume
- Weekly elimination of the searches that will never become a client
- Landing page performance treated as part of the media buy
- Advertising policy compliance set per practice area
Local Services Ads management
The verified listings that sit above everything else on legal searches, where you pay per lead rather than per click.
- Setup, screening and verification handled end to end
- Every lead reviewed and rated daily from the call evidence
- Bad-lead disputes filed weekly, with evidence attached
- Lead cost and volume tuned to the capacity you actually have
- Reviews requested systematically and answered promptly
Four things decide whether legal advertising works
Everything we do falls under one of these. Most firms are missing at least two of them, and almost nobody has all four running at once.
1. Google has to be able to see the results
A meaningful share of the enquiries your firm already generates never gets recorded at all. Google’s bidding system then makes spending decisions on an incomplete picture, and budget drifts away from the campaigns quietly producing your best work. We fix the measurement foundation first, before touching a single bid, because everything downstream inherits it.
2. Google has to be told what a good client looks like
Left alone, an advertising account optimises for whatever is cheapest and most frequent, which in a law firm is almost never a signed matter. We feed real outcomes back so the system is chasing clients rather than form fills, and we rate every Local Services lead so Google’s own matching learns what your firm can actually serve.
3. Someone has to answer
A lead you paid for and did not answer is not a service failure, it is the most expensive line on the invoice. Worse, on Local Services Ads, responsiveness is part of how Google decides whether to show your firm at all, and Google states plainly that missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness. We staff the phones as well as buy the leads, which means one team owns the number instead of two vendors pointing at each other.
4. The reporting has to end at signed cases
Impressions, clicks and cost per lead are inputs. The report we give you runs all the way to signed matters, fee value and cost per signed case, using your own practice management data. It is a less flattering report than most firms are used to receiving. It is also the only one you can make decisions on.
What is actually included
Not a list of platforms we log into. A list of work that happens on your account, on a schedule, whether or not you ask.
Measurement foundation
Tracking built so that the enquiries your firm generates are actually recorded, attributed to their true source, and correctly separated from noise. Configured for privacy compliance from the start, not retrofitted after a complaint.
Case outcome feedback
Your practice management system knows which enquiries became clients. We make sure Google knows too, so your budget is spent chasing the work that funds the firm rather than the enquiries that are easiest to generate.
Daily lead review and rating
Every lead reviewed against the recording or the message thread, scored against a rubric your firm approves, and rated within a day or two. Consistently, every day, not in a batch at quarter end.
Bad-lead credit recovery
Some poor-quality leads are refunded automatically. The two most common ones for law firms are not. Those are disputed by hand, every week, with the evidence attached, and reconciled against your invoice.
Case-value optimisation
A simple will and a contested probate are not the same lead. We build a value model from your own matter data so the advertising concentrates on the work you actually want more of, then revisit it quarterly.
Verification management
Bar licences, insurance certificates, background checks and profile ownership tracked as a standing obligation with renewal dates, including every associate, so your Google Verified badge never lapses quietly.
Wasted spend elimination
Weekly review of what people actually typed before they reached your ad, and systematic exclusion of the searches that will never produce a client for your firm.
Review growth and response
Reviews requested as part of matter close-out rather than in occasional blasts, and every review answered promptly, because rating, volume, recency and your responses all feed how your listing performs.
Landing page performance
The page a prospective client lands on is part of the media buy. A faster, more relevant page does not just convert better, it changes what you pay for the same position.
Call quality scoring
A call that lasted a minute is not a qualified lead. We score calls on what was actually said, which produces a signal worth optimising against and an honest view of how intake is performing.
Policy compliance by practice area
Some practice areas can use audience tools that others legally cannot. We set that per practice area rather than per account, which is a distinction most agencies never make.
Platform change readiness
Google is making two dated, structural changes to how legal advertising is measured and how Local Services Ads are managed: a tracking migration in June 2026 and the move of Local Services Ads into Performance Max, reaching legal categories in 2027. We track both and move your account ahead of the deadline rather than after it.
Two things we automated because they never get done
Both of these are included in a managed engagement, and both are available on their own.
Product
Google Business Profile auto review responder
Every review on every one of your locations answered promptly, in your firm’s own tone, with no two responses reading the same. Anything sensitive is held for a person to read before it posts, because a careless reply to an unhappy former client can disclose something your firm is obliged to protect.
Priced on how many Google Business Profile locations need the service.
Product
Local Services Ads auto grader
Every lead pulled, transcribed, graded against your firm’s own qualification standard, qualified, and rated with the correct reason code, every day. Rating leads is not housekeeping. Google’s own documentation says it will try to send you more of the leads you rate well, which makes this one of the few genuinely free levers in the whole platform.
Priced on your firm’s size and Local Services lead volume.
Certified, not self-taught
Your account is run by people Google has certified.
Google publishes formal certifications for its advertising products through Skillshop, and they expire every year. Our account team holds current certifications and maintains them, because the platform changes faster than any agency’s internal knowledge does.
That matters for a practical reason rather than a decorative one. Two structural changes are landing on legal advertisers between now and 2027, and neither of them is optional. Knowing they are coming, and what they break, is the difference between a planned migration and a month of confusion.
It also means we can tell you which claims about Google are documented and which are folklore. A surprising amount of what law firms are told about how Google works is neither true nor checkable. Everything we tell you comes with the Google page it came from, and the references below are a good place to start.
What certification actually buys you
- Current knowledge of the products your money runs through, renewed annually
- Direct familiarity with the tools and diagnostics inside the platforms, not a reseller dashboard
- Advance notice of platform changes, and a plan before the fourteen-day warning email arrives
- An honest line between what Google documents and what the industry repeats
- Compliance judgement, so your account does not get restricted for something avoidable
What makes us different from a marketing agency
We answer the phones we make ring
Most agencies hand you leads and hope. We staff legal intake as our core business, so the team buying the lead and the team answering it are accountable to the same number. Nobody gets to blame the other side of the handoff, because there is no handoff.
We build the systems, not just the campaigns
Connecting your practice management system to your advertising is development work. We have an in-house team that does it, rather than a marketing manager filing a request with a platform vendor and waiting.
We do the daily work nobody wants
Rating every lead, filing every dispute, chasing every expiring credential. It is unglamorous, it is the part that compounds, and it is the first thing to disappear from a retainer when an agency gets busy.
We tell you when the numbers improved for a boring reason
Better tracking makes reported conversions jump without a single extra client walking in. When that happens, we say so, and show you the real number underneath it. Reporting you cannot trust is worse than no reporting.
Start with a free account audit
We look at your live accounts and tell you, in writing, what they can and cannot currently see. The findings are yours either way.
What we review
- Whether your conversions are being recorded accurately, and how many are being lost
- What your account is currently optimising toward, versus what it should be
- Your unrated Local Services lead backlog and undisputed bad leads
- Verification status and any credential due to expire in the next twelve months
- Advertising policy exposure across each of your practice areas
- Answer rate and response time against the leads you are already paying for
- Readiness for the two platform changes arriving before 2027
What you get
- A written findings document, in plain language, with a prioritised fix list
- An honest view of which problems are worth money and which are cosmetic
- A straight answer on whether your current provider is doing the work
- No obligation, no lock-in, and the document is yours to act on with anyone
Common questions
Do you replace our current marketing agency?
Not necessarily. Plenty of firms keep their agency for the website, branding and organic search, and bring us in for paid advertising, Local Services Ads and intake. We are glad to coordinate directly with your marketing partner so everyone is pointing at the same numbers. Where an agency is charging for advertising management that is not actually being performed, the audit will make that visible, and what you do about it is your call.
Do we have to use your intake team as well?
No. We manage advertising for firms that answer their own phones. We will tell you honestly if your answer rate is where the money is going, because pretending otherwise wastes both our time, but the decision about who answers is yours.
How quickly does this show results?
Some of it is immediate: disputes filed in week one recover money in that month, and a lead that gets answered today is a lead that might sign this week. The structural work is slower. Bidding systems need a few weeks to retrain once they are receiving better information, so the honest window for a meaningful shift in cost per signed case is roughly four to eight weeks, not four to eight days.
What practice areas do you work with?
Any of them. We manage advertising and intake across the full range of practice areas, and the approach adapts to each one rather than being applied identically. Some areas carry advertising restrictions that others do not, which is exactly why the configuration is set per practice area rather than once for the account.
Is there a minimum ad budget?
There is a practical floor rather than a policy one. Below a certain spend, some of the platform’s own optimisation features do not have enough data to function, and we will tell you plainly if your budget sits under that line and what to do instead. We would rather have that conversation before you sign than in month three.
Who owns the accounts and the data?
Your firm does, in every case. Accounts are held in your firm’s name, we work inside them with our own access, and if the relationship ends you keep everything, including the history and the documentation. We do not hold client accounts hostage inside an agency container, and you should be wary of anyone who does.
Read it from Google, not from us
Everything on this page rests on Google’s own published documentation. These are the pages it comes from, so you can check any of it yourself, and share it with whoever else needs convincing.
Local Services Ads
- How Local Services ads are ranked, including responsiveness and profile quality
- How leads work, including what Google does with your lead ratings
- Automated lead credits, and the lead types that are excluded from them
- Improving Local Services Ads performance
- How bidding works
- Screening and verification requirements for United States businesses
- The move to Performance Max pay-per-lead campaigns
Google Ads and measurement
- Google tag gateway for advertisers, where the 11% signal uplift figure is published
- Enhanced conversions for leads, including the June 2026 migration date
- Offline conversion imports
- Consent mode modelling
- How Ad Rank is calculated
- Value-based bidding
- Personalized advertising policy, the audience restrictions that apply to several practice areas
If a marketing company tells your firm something about Google that is not on one of these pages, it is worth asking where it came from.
Find out what your accounts are actually doing.
A free audit, a written answer, and no obligation. If your setup is in good shape, we will tell you that too.