Case studies / Legal
Criminal defence · Setup & handoverMost criminal defence searches aren't about a current charge.
We set up Google Ads, a landing page and SMS and email automation for Angela Hayden Law, and handed it over. The first month produced 59 leads on $1,500. What most of them wanted was something the firm hadn't asked us to advertise.
Most criminal defence searches aren't about a current charge.
Angela Hayden Law is a Pennsylvania criminal defense practice looking for a turn-key advertising solution to manage in-house. We delivered a complete setup and handover engagement, building a dedicated Google Ads account, a custom-form landing page, and automated SMS/email follow-up sequences.
In its first month, the setup generated 59 leads for $1,500 in ad spend ($25 CPL), uncovering critical market insight: the majority of searchers were seeking help clearing past records rather than defending active, immediate charges.
People facing charges are a small slice. People living with old ones aren't.
Criminal defence advertising is built around the person who was arrested this week. They exist, they're urgent, and they're outnumbered. The larger group is people whose case ended years ago and who are still paying for it: turned down for jobs, security clearances, firearm permits, housing. They search the same words and want something different.
Charged recently, needs defending now.
An active matter, a court date, a decision made within days. High urgency and high fee, and the group every criminal defence campaign is designed around, because it's the one that feels like criminal defence.
- Timing Now
- Urgency High
- Search volume Lower
- Share of enquiries The minority
Charged years ago, needs it cleared.
An old conviction blocking something specific: a job, a licence, a permit. No deadline, no urgency, and far more people in this position than in active proceedings. They search for a criminal lawyer and describe a record.
- Timing Years ago
- Urgency Triggered by a rejection
- Search volume Higher
- Share of enquiries The majority
A simple brief: build it, then hand it over.
Angela Hayden Law is a Pennsylvania criminal defence practice. The brief was straightforward: a Google Ads account, a landing page, and automated follow-up, built to be run by the firm rather than by us.
Four things shaped how it was built.
-
It had to work without us
A setup engagement is only successful if the firm can operate what's left behind. That rules out anything requiring weekly agency attention to keep functioning.
-
Follow-up had to be automatic
A solo or small practice can't answer every enquiry the moment it lands. SMS and email automation does the first response so nobody waits for someone to be free.
-
Criminal law is state law
Pennsylvania licensure means a Pennsylvania matter. Enquiries about records in other states cost exactly as much as usable ones and cannot be acted on.
-
Eligibility is invisible before the enquiry
Record relief carries statutory waiting periods. Someone can want it, be in the right state, and still be years from being able to file, and no targeting setting can tell you that in advance.
Four parts, handed over working.
Small enough for a small practice to run, complete enough to produce results in month one.
A Google Ads account built for one jurisdiction
Campaigns structured around criminal defence searches and targeted to Pennsylvania, with conversion tracking configured before launch so the account produced usable data from its first week rather than its third month.
Measurable from day one.
A landing page that let people explain
A dedicated page rather than the firm's general site, with room for someone to describe their situation in their own words. In this category people write at length, and a form that only asks for a name and number discards the information the firm needs to qualify them.
Enquiries arriving with the detail attached.
SMS and email follow-up, automated
Immediate automated response on every enquiry, then sequenced follow-up. For a practice without dedicated intake staff, this is the difference between an enquiry being answered in minutes and being answered whenever someone next opens the inbox.
First response independent of who was available.
Train and hand over
The account, the page and the automation transferred to the firm with training on running them. The point of a setup engagement is that it ends, and what's left has to be operable by the people who own it.
59 leads in the first month, at about $25 each.
Volume wasn't the problem. Composition was.
Fifty-nine enquiries in a first month on $1,500 is a working account. But reading what people wrote was more useful than counting them, and the firm's own qualification notes sorted the ones it couldn't take into three distinct groups.
Wrong practice area
People seeking to clear an old record rather than defend a current charge: the largest group by a considerable margin.
Wrong state
Records held in other states. A Pennsylvania licence means a Pennsylvania matter, regardless of where the person now lives.
Not yet eligible
The right matter in the right state, but too recent. Record relief carries waiting periods that no campaign can see in advance.
Only the second of those three is a targeting problem. The other two are the market telling you what it wants, and in criminal defence, what it mostly wants is help with something that happened a long time ago.
That's a strategic finding rather than an account problem. A firm can narrow its keywords toward active charges and accept lower volume at a higher cost per lead. Or it can recognise that record relief is the larger, cheaper, more predictable market sitting next to the one it advertises for, and decide whether it wants that work.
Either answer is fine. What isn't fine is never finding out, because nobody read the enquiries.
No enquiry content, contact details or case information appears on this page. The composition above is described in aggregate from the firm's own qualification notes.
Four things for any professional practice.
Read the first month, don't just count it
Lead volume tells you the account works. What people wrote tells you whether you're advertising the right service. Those are different questions.
Adjacent demand is a decision, not a fault
When enquiries cluster around a service you don't offer, that's market information. Narrow the targeting or widen the practice, but choose deliberately.
Eligibility can't be targeted
Where statutory waiting periods, licensing or jurisdiction decide who you can help, some unqualified enquiries are unavoidable. Budget for them rather than treating them as waste.
Automate the first response
Small practices can't answer everything immediately. An automated first reply buys the time to respond properly without the enquiry going cold.
What went into it.
Five of our services, delivered as a setup.
Have you read your last month of enquiries?
Not the count: the content. It usually tells you something the reporting can't, including whether the service people want is the one you're advertising. Give us read-only access and we'll go through them with you. Findings are yours to keep either way.
Read-only access · No obligation · You keep your accounts