Should Law Firms Pause Ads During Coronavirus?

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With the worldwide spread of COVID-19, we are truly in tumultuous times. Businesses are attempting to operate remotely, fine dining restaurants are becoming drive through burger joints, and people are being forced to shelter in place across the country. This is affecting absolutely everyone in one way or another, and nobody knows when things might return to normal.

Law firms are in a confusing position. Attorney fees may be seen as a luxury, as many people are losing their jobs and struggling to pay rent. However, the need for legal assistance is not going away, and people stuck at home are turning towards the internet for entertainment, news, and research. So how should law firms adapt? Should you continue advertising? Should you increase ad spend? Change campaign strategies? Test new platforms?

In the word’s of every great marketer, “It depends.”

Why Firms Should Stop Advertising Right Now

Mockingbird always puts our clients’ best interests first. Good or bad, we tell it like it is. Yes we get paid on a percent of ad spend, but we’ll never keep campaigns running that don’t make sense for your firm.

If your firm has the any of the following symptoms, you should stop advertising immediately:

  • You can’t afford to pay your employees.
  • You can’t afford to pay basic utilities.
  • You can’t accept inbound calls.
  • You can’t handle cases effectively while working remotely.
  • Your campaign’s cost per acquisition (CPA) is way too high.

The purpose of (good) advertising is to deliver leads, but there is a time delay as to when you might see a return. If your firm is struggling to pay for the basics, move your budget from your Marketing department to HR.

Why Firms Should Absolutely Keep Advertising

In a time where leads may be slow, don’t make it worse by turning off campaigns that deliver leads. Volume may be down, but you need to think hard before panicking and cutting budgets. In certain cases, you may want to shift budgets from Search to Remarketing or Display. Under certain circumstances, now may be a great time to actually increase ad spend.

If any of the following applies to your firm, you should probably keep your campaigns running:

  • Your firm is setup to work remotely (handle intake, and case work).
  • You have enough cash on hand to treat advertising like a long(er) term investment.
  • You practice Bankruptcy, Employment, or Divorce, and expect an uptick in business (think about doubling down here).
  • Your campaigns are delivering a strong cost per acquisition (CPA).
  • Your campaigns continue to perform (watch them closely).
  • Other firms are pausing ads, making the auction less competitive and cheaper.
  • People are spending more time on Facebook and Youtube (read: ad delivery platforms).
  • More people are watching TV, so your TV commercials cost the same but have increased visibility.

Things That Don’t Matter, and Why

  • Courts are closed –> Reset clients’ expectations around timelines.
  • People aren’t searching as much –> Be available to those who are looking for help.
  • People think we’re closed –> Add “we’re open” messaging to your site, your GMB description, and post on social.
  • We need clients to sign papers –> Use DocuSign.
  • I can’t talk to my cowkorkers like normal –> Install Slack, or Google Hangouts Meet, or Zoom.

So Really, It Depends…

There is no right answer as to how ALL law firms should adapt to changes brought by COVID-19. Take a very close look at YOUR firm’s current situation, and evaluate. It’s not necessarily about if ads are getting cheaper, or more expensive, or if there’s less volume. The argument for “why advertise” is still the same. The market has changed dramatically, people may take longer to reach out, and you should always make sure campaigns meet CPA goals, but first things first. Are you prepared to continue operating? Can you pay your employees? Can you answer the phone? Figure that out, and then think about how to continue signing clients.

The Difference Between a Lead and a Conversion (and Why You’re Responsible for the Latter)

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A lot of digital marketers talk about the importance of leads and conversions. We’re no exception. We often even use the terms interchangeably. This is incorrect.

Leads and conversions are actually two very different metrics. They are the difference between someone asking a store clerk for help and someone actually purchasing something. By using them interchangeably proper credit for business growth or stagnation cannot be given. 

 

Leads

Leads refer to when a consumer interacts with the website. This can be in the form of a phone call, form fill, message, or usage of a chat feature. Some marketers consider interacting with X number of pages a lead; leads can be surprisingly subjective.

As a marketing firm, we are responsible for increasing leads. We want to get people to your website and to call your firm. We will do this by running ads, improving your website, and making contact forms and chats accessible. 

 

Conversions

Conversions are when a consumer actually turns into a client. This means they got in contact with your firm and scheduled an appointment. It is direct business.

Your firm is responsible for increasing conversions. If we have done our job and increased leads, it’s now up to you to turn the leads into clients. We can’t answer your phones for you and we can’t provide legal advice during your lead’s free consultation. While increased conversions are an indicator of a successful marketing strategy, it’s a team effort. You owe it to your intake department for your growing client base.

 

When This Knowledge Comes in Handy

For the most part, the difference between leads and conversions is pretty semantic. If your account executive says their campaign resulted in increased conversions, chances are the campaign resulted in increased leads which later led to increased conversions. 

Alternatively, if you’re in the market for an agency and a salesperson talks about how much they increased conversions for a firm, ask what they consider a conversion. They might skirt the question. Maybe they’ll surprise you and say that they consider new clients conversions, in which case they would be correct. If they say they consider using a chat feature a conversion, dig a bit deeper. Sure it might be an innocent error, but it’s always good to be sure you can trust your agency. Don’t waste your money on a firm that’s pulling one over on you.

The Role of Privacy in Digital Marketing in 2020

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Privacy is an increasingly relevant issue in the marketing industry as technology gets more advanced and workarounds for data compliance get smarter by the day. So where are we and how did we get here? Are we at the point where corporations know more about us than we do? Is Mockingbird one of those corporations?

 

The short answer to that last question is no, we don’t have data on millions of individuals. While we can see details about the people who visit our site, we can’t actually determine much about them from their location and device type. That is, unless there’s only one person in Billings, Montana with a Samsung Galaxy S8, in which case, hi to that one person. 

 

Of course, privacy is a lot more complicated than that. Mockingbird specifically might not have data on individuals, but a lot of companies do. It’s easier to do targeted advertising when you know exactly who you’re targeting. 

 

How to Know Who You Are Targeting

What Are Cookies

The most common way to figure out who to target is by cookies. Cookies are pieces of software that get downloaded onto the user’s browser or hard drive (depending on the type of cookie) and can provide information on the user’s habits. This means that cookies are used to keep things in your shopping cart when you’re browsing an online store, but it also means that Google knows a lot about you just through the websites you have visited. Google then uses that information to assist advertisers in targeting you specifically. 

 

You might have noticed that more and more websites are giving notice to their users that they use cookies, and to continue on the site you need to accept cookies into your life. This is largely a state by state legislative change, where some states are now requiring sites to inform their users of the use of cookies, so sites often find it easier to notify all users despite their location. 

 

Privacy protection legislation is attempting to crackdown on Cambridge Analytica level data sharing, but legislators are hardly up to the task of keeping up with developers. Sidestepping privacy legislation is almost its own branch of black hat marketing at this point, and should be avoided. Following the rules and respecting privacy is the best way to go for legal and ethical reasons.

 

How Do Cookies Track Users

When a user visits a site, a cookie is placed on their browser or hard drive. After they leave the site, the cookie is still there. If they return to the site, the cookie can tell the website that it’s the same user as before. If you want to see the type of information Google will provide about a single user, here’s a screenshot from Google Analytics:

As you can see the user isn’t identified, only the pages they visited and where they decided to convert. While Google will provide general information about demographics (percentage users male and female, number of users from specific locations, etc), they do not include this in user-specific info. We can see specific user paths, see which paths work best for conversions, but we can’t see how these paths relate to where the user is from or what their interests are. 

 

Will Marketers Jump On Any Opportunity to Invade Privacy?

I mean, probably. Wherever there’s the opportunity to better sell to people, marketers will utilize it. Users are the commodity, and it forces marketers into an ethical pickle to think of their commodity as people. I would like to add a disclaimer here that Mockingbird is not interested in selling user’s data and are committed to privacy for both users and our clients. While there will always be those willing to do whatever it takes to profit, there are also those who will stand their ground for what they believe in.

 

This is where Google can be considered relatively…good? It’s no doubt that Google knows more about who we are as individuals than we probably do; their data runs deep. But they also try to limit the access their advertising customers have to user data. They limit how many times advertisers can market to a single person in a day, and they limit how targeted those ad campaigns can be. They have restrictions for what can be in ads, and prohibit false information. Compared to a site like Facebook, Google is amazing, but that really isn’t a very high bar.

 

So What Do I Tell My Paranoid Relative Who Thinks Their Microwave is Recording Them?

Well, tell them not to have private discussions in front of their microwave if they’re so worried about that. There’s plenty to be worried about when it comes to internet privacy, but the ads for shoes probably shouldn’t be top of mind.

Responsive Ads Might Be Your Best Option

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Google Ads offers a variety of ad options, but none might be better for small businesses than Responsive Ads, both search and display. We might be shooting ourselves in the foot here, but the reason I’m recommending these ads is because of their lack of a need for a marketing agency. Business owners can run them without needing in-depth knowledge of marketing, advertising, graphic design, or copywriting. 

 

How They Work

Responsive Ads work by taking pre-written headlines, body texts, and the URL of the page. For display ads, you will need a few high-quality photos as well. It then mixes and matches them to find which work best across their wide network. This means it only needs as much skill as it takes to come up with ten pieces of short text. 

 

Where Display Ads are Displayed

Google Display Ads are displayed on the Google Display Network (GDN). The GDN is made up of sites that run Google Ads in a variety of forms, and you can control targeting based on audience and website. The ads can show up as banners that show up in the lower third of videos, banners at the tops of pages, and any other way Google sees fit. 

 

Where Search Ads are Shown

Responsive Search Ads appear alongside all other search ads at the top and bottom of search results. Similar to display ads, you can target based on audience interests, location, and certain demographics (age, gender). 

 

How the Bidding Works

Google Ads’ bidding system works by giving the spot to the highest bidder, but for only $0.01 more than the second-highest bidder’s bid. This generally awards risk-takers, or those willing to invest high amounts in ad spend. This also tends to work in favor of larger competitors in the area who have more to spend, so it can sometimes be difficult to get your first choice keywords. In a market as competitive as legal, experience with the Google Ads bidding experience is definitely an asset. This is why marketing agencies are still relevant, even if you can make your own ads.

 

Other Things to Consider When Managing Your Ads

If you really do want to run your own ad campaigns there are a number of things you will have to think about and decide on. These include ad extensions, call tracking numbers, time restrictions, and further targeting. While marketing agencies such as Mockingbird have experience with this, you too will gain experience. If you truly believe you are ready to take your advertising in your own hands, all the power to you. Go, be free.

High Funnel vs Low Funnel Marketing: Knowing Your Jargon

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The language of marketing has always been designed to isolate clients. Marketers use technical jargon to upsell and confuse prospective clients; an unethical power play. Well, here at Mockingbird we’re trying to tear down those walls. By providing definitions, we’re opening doors to the tough questions. We’ll start by talking about the Marketing Funnel.

 

The labels on the left refer to the stages of the funnel; the labels on the right are the page a consumer might be on at that stage in their journey

 

What is the Marketing Funnel?

The marketing funnel is the funnel being referred to when marketers talk about “high funnel” or “low funnel” tactics. The term was coined long before the internet and covers the broad stages of converting a consumer to a client. The stages are:

  • Awareness
  • Opinion 
  • Consideration
  • Preference
  • Purchase

 

In layman’s terms, these might be:

  • Becoming aware of the brand/problem
  • Doing research about the brand/problem, finding the solution (the product)
  • Doing research on other solutions, or products
  • Deciding which product they prefer
  • Buying (converting)

 

What is High Funnel Marketing?

High funnel marketing is in reference to strategies that target brand awareness over direct conversions. This might mean promoting blog posts, coordinating scholarships, or sponsoring events. It’s about getting your name out there, meeting your clients where they live.

 

What is Mid Funnel Marketing?

Mid funnel marketing is catching consumers who you know are aware of your business but might not have become clients yet. This is often in the form of remarketing, or advertising to people you know have visited your website. This reminds them of your brand and of the problem they’re looking to solve. Mid funnel isn’t as common of a term, but it has its place.

 

What is Low Funnel Marketing?

Low funnel marketing is targeting people you know are about to become clients. It’s the people who might have something in their cart but haven’t proceeded to check-out in the past week. It can also be advertising to people directly searching for the problems you cover. If you’re an LGBTQ+ friendly family lawyer specializing in child custody in the North Platte, Nebraska area and someone types “same-sex child custody lawyer Lincoln, NE,” you should target them specifically. 

 

Is High Funnel or Low Funnel Better?

It depends on your goals. If you are trying to increase traffic to your site and broaden your market then high funnel is probably good for you. If you are just trying to get clients, low funnel is preferable. Of course, the best option is a balance of both. You can’t have a business without brand awareness, but you also can’t have a business if no one is buying anything.

 

How Do I Keep People Moving Down the Funnel?

Remarketing is a good way to keep people moving and in the funnel. Previously mentioned about mid-funnel marketing, remarketing mainly just reminds consumers that if they haven’t found a solution for their problem yet, there’s a brand that has solutions. You’ve seen remarketing in action when you look at a product then see ads for that exact product everywhere for the next three days. It’s considered a highly effective strategy.

 

Where Does this Blog Post Fit in the Funnel?

This blog post would be considered high funnel, as it’s targeted at a more general audience than our specific market. Since it’s informational rather than opinion-based it’s designed to be picked up by search engines and answer people’s general questions on marketing funnels. If you start seeing ads for Mockingbird or decide to look at what services we offer, you’ll have entered the middle of the funnel. If you eventually become a client, congrats on two accounts! First for making it all the way through the funnel, second for getting a great marketing team for your law firm.

Let’s Make 2020 the Year of No Long Term Contracts

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Here at Mockingbird, we have made our disdain for long-term contracts well-known. We have seen too many law firms fall victim to the predatory practices of FindLaw and other such agencies. Too many of our clients have come to us after being stripped down by contracts designed to empty their wallets. It’s because of this that we want to warn you of the dangers of signing onto a long term contract and how to avoid it.

 

The Dangers

Domain Ownership

Ownership of the website often sits in the fine print of these contracts, and it rarely benefits the law firm. This is one of the ways agencies trap their clients; they can’t leave without losing their website. 

 

Content Ownership

Right alongside domain ownership is content ownership; the agency owns all the content on the website. This means that even if the client manages to leave, they can’t keep anything from the website they might have been adding to for years.

 

Upselling Poor Service

When you’re trapped in a contract the agency has little motivation to provide you with the service you deserve. When you find them failing to deliver, they might even ask you to pay more for certain features that should be included or are completely irrelevant. Suddenly the contract is more expensive and the service is just as bad.

 

Our Experiences

We’ve been in the business for a while, and we’ve had more than a couple of firms come to us desperate and without a website:

Helping these firms get back on their feet has made us painfully aware of how damaging long term contracts can be. That’s why we’ve built a guide for escaping FindLaw. 

 

What to Look for When Signing a Contract

As a lawyer, you’re probably used to the implications of the fine print. The fine print for your marketing agency shouldn’t be given any less attention than what’s in your clients’ cases. Here are a few of the things you should keep an eye out for and flag:

  • Domain ownership
  • Content ownership
  • Termination penalties
  • End dates

If you see yourself about to sign a contract that will hold you for years, stop and think: is there a better way?

 

There is. Don’t make bad decisions in 2020 that will follow you for the next decade. Don’t sign the contract.

Impacts of Google’s January Update on the Legal Industry

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Google released a new core update in mid-January, most of which has been rolled out at this point. As with all updates, Google reassured webmasters that no specific sites or industries were targeted. That being said, some industries saw greater impacts than others. And since we’re a legal marketing agency, we like to focus on the impacts on the legal industry. 

 

Based on research from SEMrush.com, the legal and government industries have seen a fair amount of volatility over the past week. The peak days of change were January 14-16, and things appear to be back to normal now.

 

But just because things are no longer changing doesn’t mean there wasn’t an impact. SEMrush works to track SERPs (search engine results pages) in a number of categories, from featured snippets to reviews. 

 

By looking at a selection of these SERPs (not all of them are relevant to the legal industry, such as shopping results) we can get an idea of how legal websites might have been affected.

 

HTTPS Usage

From semrush.com

 

HTTPS usage saw a drop when the update was rolled out and has been steadily declining since. Fortunately, it looks like it might be bouncing back. 

 

Local Results

From semrush.com

 

Local results, or “Local pack” as it’s called on SEMrush, consists of location-based results that appear on the map and the first three results (see below).  After an initial dip, local SERPs seem to have bounced back to where they were before the update.

Reviews

From semrush.com

 

This metric refers to the number of organic results that appear with a star rating under the URL. As with the local results, there was an initial dip immediately following the update. Fortunately, this result is also creeping back up to where it was.

 

Top Ads

From semrush.com

 

Top ads refer to the ads that appear at the top of the page of search results. These have been seeing some serious fluctuations over the past 30 days, but seem to have been on a steady increase since before the update.

 

What Does This Mean

So what do these metrics really mean for you and your business? Mostly it means that there might be a bit of instability in your traffic for a little while after this update. Unless your website is seeing a long-lasting and extreme drop in traffic, it’s nothing to worry about.

Should You be Advertising on DuckDuckGo?

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Neglecting all search engines that aren’t Google might not be your downfall, but it definitely won’t help you. It’s also possible to run whole advertising campaigns just on Google and Bing’s main sites. Here’s the thing: you shouldn’t.

 

The Underdog Engines

Google owns a majority of the global search engine market. This makes it a highly competitive market for advertisers, since that’s where a lot of the consumers are. This is why Microsoft Ads (or Bing Ads, depending on who you’re talking to) are a good alternative. The competition is lower, the prices are cheaper, and return on investment is often comparable if not higher than with Google Ads. 

 

Where DuckDuckGo Fits In

Going further down the funnel from Bing is DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo doesn’t own half a percent of the global search engine market, but it is growing. 

 

The business model of the platform rests on ensuring user privacy. Unlike Google and Bing, DuckDuckGo advertises based solely on keywords, not user history. This makes it particularly appealing to users who are concerned about their personal safety and privacy.

 

Who Could Benefit from Advertising on DuckDuckGo

Due to the secure nature of the search engine, DuckDuckGo should be particularly appealing to businesses dealing with sensitive matters. As a law firm, it’s likely that you are dealing with sensitive matters.

 

A quick glance at a few of our clients has shown some pretty significant numbers of pageviews over the past six weeks from DuckDuckGo users. As in, over 100 users for some firms. This may not be a lot percentage-wise (less than 1% of total traffic),  but some of them have been leading to conversions. For a platform that isn’t getting much focus, it has a lot of potential.

How to Advertise on DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is an affiliate with Microsoft, meaning advertising is distributed through the Bing Ads interface and network. This means that you can set up your Bing Ads to be distributed on DuckDuckGo searches. 

 

You can make sure DuckDuckGo is included in your Bings Ads by going to Settings → Ad Distribution → Network → select All Search Networks.

If you would like help managing your law firm’s digital advertising, contact Mockingbird today.

How Google’s Ever-Changing Search Experience will Impact the Legal Industry

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Google is constantly updating, improving features, removing bugs, and changing user experiences. This is quite noticeable for those of us in marketing, who make it our job to keep our finger on the pulse of changes in the search engine world. 

 

How Ads are Changing for Services

Google provides opportunities to advertise just about anything under a variety of categories from restaurants to stores to legal services. You have probably noticed this on Google Maps and might have noticed this when you search for flights. Different categories are being provided with different user experiences. 

 

For legal services, the ads have remained relatively unchanged upfront. Plug-in options have increased, targeting options have changed, and contact options have improved, but these might not be as immediately visible to consumers. This is how legal ads currently look:

 

 

 

This isn’t anything we haven’t seen before; nothing to write home about. However, a recent Search Engine Land article showed how different services’  advertisements differ:

 

 

One of the potential reasons for Google’s delay on local service ad upgrades could be the category’s susceptibility to spam. It’s not unheard of for multiple fake businesses to appear in searches, oftentimes almost indistinguishable from legitimate businesses. 

 

The future of local ads could see more protections going up to fight spam, more carouselling ads, and more individual add-ons based on the business type. It’s hard to know what’s coming for legal advertising, but we know we’ll be ready.