The price of the click, cited
Top-of-page bids on core law firm marketing terms run roughly $100 to $150 per click in Google Ads Keyword Planner auction data - personal-injury terms carry retail CPCs above $90. That figure is Webclat's own auction-data pull, method and quarter noted; a specific firm's actual cost per click will vary with its account, geography, and quality score.
Setting up conversion actions that mean something
Call-only ads, website calls, and form fills each need distinct handling. A call conversion needs a minimum duration threshold and a join to intake disposition to mean anything beyond "the phone rang" - "a call happened" is not the same claim as "a prospect called."
Quality score and ad rank: proxies, not proof
Quality Score affects what a firm pays per click and where the ad shows; it says nothing about case volume or case value. A high Quality Score campaign producing zero signed cases is still a failed campaign, whatever the platform's own health indicators say.
Lane: We are measurement engineers, not a marketing agency - Webclat does not sell SEO, PPC, or marketing services. What follows is what to verify about the SEO/PPC/marketing spend a firm already buys, from us or from anyone else.
What a Google Ads signal can and cannot tell you
| Signal | What it measures | What it cannot tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Click | Someone clicked the ad | Whether they were in the right jurisdiction or practice area |
| Call conversion | A call was placed to the swapped number | Whether intake disposed it as a real prospect |
| Form conversion | A form was submitted | Whether anyone followed up, or it converted |
| Quality Score | Relevance/CTR/landing-page signals to Google | Case volume or case value |
Invalid clicks and click fraud
Google's own invalid-click filtering catches some patterns and misses others, particularly in high-CPC, high-competition niches like legal. Cost per disposed, real contact is a more reliable check on wasted spend than invalid-click credits alone.
Illustrative: the same month's data can read three ways - the platform's claimed conversions, analytics' form-based conversions, and intake's actual disposed count - each measuring a different moment. Reconciling all three, not picking a favorite, is the actual measurement task.