What It Takes to Properly Manage an Attorney’s Pay Per Click (AdWords) Account

So just what does it take to properly manage your law firm Pay Per Click (PPC) Account or your Google AdWords Account. You’d be surprised at how many different talents or character traits one must have to manage a Google AdWords campaign properly for an attorney or law firm.

The 1st skill one must have to manage your account properly is psychology. You have to have some ability to understand what your consumer or your potential client is looking for, what keywords they may be searching and what is in their mind. This is important so you can write ads correctly, your landing page correctly and pick the proper keywords to connect with them.

The 2nd trait is knowledge of direct response marketing principles. When I say direct response a lot people think that means direct mail. While it encompasses direct mail, as well as online advertising, television advertising, and basically any media, direct response means the goal is not brand building in of itself, but to get somebody to take action from your ad. You have to have some knowledge of those principles and how to get somebody to take action. There are books and books and volumes of material written about direct response advertising that is quite extensive. To be successful, you must have some knowledge of those principles.

In order to do PPC effectively, you need some right brain creativity. Obviously we all know the difference between right brain and left brain. The right brain being the creative side of our brain and the left brain is the analytical and logical side. Writing ads and doing advertising, as most people know, involves some right brain creativity. I think anybody in that industry probably has some of that ability or they wouldn’t be there begin with. But, if you’re an Attorney and your assistant is managing your campaign and they have no right brain creativity, they are probably hampering your efforts to some degree.

The other side of equation is you have to have some left brain ability, because some of PPC marketing is following the numbers and tracking them, thinking logically about where you’re at, where you want to be, and comparing to the current results to the past results and drawing some conclusions. So you have to have left brained analyzation skills to manage your Pay Per Click account properly.

Part of that is also mathematics. Again it’s on the left brain side, but a lot of lawyers went into the practice of law because they don’t want to do math. In fact, it’s not only important to managing your firm properly, but also to managing your Pay Per Click Account properly. You have to know your Math. Math is crucial. You have got to know what you can afford to pay per lead and you need to know math to understand you’re impressions, your clicks, your click through rates, your cost per click, overall cost, your cost per lead, etc. Running a successful direct response marketing campaign, especially Pay Per Click marketing, simply involves a lot of math.

You also have to have good attention to detail. The bottom line is there’s a lot of detail. Every little keyword, every quotation or bracket you use, the URL, the landing page each ad goes to, your ad copy, the settings in your campaign, the geography setting, when your ad will show, how often it will show, what time of the day it will show, what you’re going to bid, etc are all details that have to be considered. Any one of those details missed can throw your campaign out of whack.

You also have some knowledge of the Rules of Ethics. If you’re doing this yourself, you have that knowledge. If you have someone else doing it that is not a lawyer, they probably don’t have that knowledge. Being able to write ads effectively and test them, you have to know you can and can’t say.

You have to be incisive. Again you have to able figure things out, figure out what’s going on in the head of the researcher, your potential client. That’s where you need incisiveness.

You have to have some copywriting ability. You have to be able to write ads that make people take action that stands out from the crowd. You have to be able to write landing pages that do the same thing. Again, landing pages are the pages that people arrive at once they click on your Ad. You have to be able to write those in a way that causes people to take action – to call you or email you, fill out your form, open up your chat window, etc. And that’s not the same as being able to write a lawyer brief or a legal letter to another party. The way you write to potential consumers is very different.

You have some ability to implement. When you have an idea, you have to be able to get it done, put it in place and do it quickly.

You have to be able to learn new things and be able to learn new things rapidly. Google is constantly adding features and changes to the accounts. And if you’re not keeping up with them, your competition can leave you behind.

You have to be organized. If the campaign is not organized, Google will penalize you in terms of Quality Score and many other different ways. If the campaign is a mess, you can’t manage it and it will take up all your time. So, you have to be organized.

You have to be diligent. You must continue to test ads and landing pages and put in new keywords, take out keywords, etc. This takes a lot of diligence to manage the campaigns correctly.

In order to do any advertising correctly, especially Pay Per Click, you have to have relevant experience.

And last but not least on this list is having plain old good gut feelings. Sometimes you just have to have a good gut instinct about what to do or what are not to do, especially with ad and landing page copy. Without this you’re not going to be successful.

So there you have it. My list of key attributes of an outstanding PPC account management team. There are probably more qualities needed than I have listed, but this is surely a good start. So, if you’re not strong or that person managing your account is not strong in one or more of these areas, you might consider making a change. Ask these questions of your current PPC management and decide whether you have the best team in place to ensure outstanding results. After all, the success of your firm is at stake.