Case studies / Legal
Criminal defence · Account setupThree practice areas. Three landing pages. Before the first click.
Carter Law Firm brought us in for one week to build a Google Ads account from scratch: DWI defence, drug charges and domestic violence, each with its own campaign and its own page. Separating them at setup costs nothing. Separating them six months later means throwing away six months of blended data.
Three practice areas. Three landing pages. Before the first click.
Carter Law Firm is a Texas-based criminal defense practice handling DWI defense, drug offenses, and domestic violence cases. They brought us in for a 1-week sprint to build their Google Ads foundation completely from scratch: designing three dedicated landing pages and structuring separate campaigns for each practice area.
By architecting clean campaign boundaries and end-to-end conversion tracking prior to launch, we ensured maximum ad relevance and full performance visibility without wasting data or budget on blended campaigns.
“Criminal defence” isn't one campaign. It's three different clients.
Someone charged with a DWI, someone facing a drug possession charge and someone accused in a domestic matter are not the same person having the same week. They search differently, they're worried about different consequences, and the first thing each needs to read is different. Put them in one campaign and one landing page serves none of them well, and the reporting can't tell you which of the three is paying for the account.
Fast to launch, expensive to unpick.
A single “criminal defence” campaign pointed at a general page. It runs immediately and produces a cost per lead that describes an average of three unrelated practice areas, so the first real decision about budget can't be made until the whole thing is rebuilt.
- Time to launch Immediate
- Cost per lead by charge Invisible
- Page relevance Generic
- Cost of fixing later Months of data
A few days longer, permanently readable.
Each charge type with its own campaign, budget, keywords and landing page. Slightly more work at setup and no more expensive to run, and from the first week the firm can see which practice area its advertising is actually producing.
- Time to launch One week
- Cost per lead by charge Visible
- Page relevance Per charge
- Cost of fixing later None
A new account, and one week to get it right.
Carter Law Firm defends criminal charges in Texas across DWI, drug offences and domestic matters. The brief was a Google Ads account built properly from nothing, in a week.
Four things shaped how it was built.
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Three practice areas with different economics
DWI, drug charges and domestic matters carry different click prices, different search volumes and different case values. Judged together, the expensive one silently absorbs the budget and nobody can see it happening.
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Each charge needs a different first paragraph
What reassures someone facing a first DWI is not what reassures someone facing a drug charge. A shared page has to be vague enough to cover all three, which means specific enough for none.
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Domestic violence searches are ambiguous
The same words are used by people accused and by people seeking protection from someone. A defence firm needs to reach the first group without its ads appearing to the second.
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Setup decisions are the hardest to reverse
Structure, conversion tracking and campaign architecture shape every number the account produces afterwards. Getting them wrong isn't a bad month: it's a rebuild and the loss of whatever data came before it.
Four decisions, made once.
Everything the account reports later depends on these.
One campaign per charge type
DWI defence, drug charges and domestic violence given separate campaigns with their own budgets and keyword sets. The firm can move money toward whichever practice area it wants more of, and can see what each one costs without waiting for a restructure.
Three readable practice areas instead of one average.
A landing page written for each charge
Three pages rather than one, each answering what someone facing that specific charge wants to know first: what happens next, what the process looks like, and how quickly they can speak to a lawyer. The ad's promise and the page's answer describe the same thing.
Relevance from the click through to the enquiry.
Separate the accused from everyone else
Domestic violence terms are used by people seeking a defence lawyer and by people looking for protection, support or a protective order. Keyword selection and negatives were built to reach the first group only. Reaching the second isn't a wasted click, it's the wrong message to someone in a difficult situation.
A campaign aimed only at the clients the firm represents.
Track conversions before launch, not after
Call and form conversion tracking configured at setup so the account has usable data from its first week. Accounts that launch without it spend their early months producing numbers nobody can act on.
Measurable from day one.
This is a setup, not a performance case study.
We built the account and the landing pages over one week. We didn't run the campaigns, so there are no leads, no cost per lead and no conversion figures to report, and we're not going to imply any.
What a setup engagement is actually worth is visible later, in what the account can tell you. An account separated by practice area on day one answers “which of our services is worth advertising” from its first month. One that isn't can't answer it at all until it's rebuilt.
That's the case for spending a week on architecture before spending anything on media. The structure costs the same to run either way: the difference is entirely in what you can learn from it.
Where we do hold performance data from long-running legal accounts, we publish it, including the months that went badly. See Alatorre Law and Ticket Crushers.
Four things for launching a new account.
Separate at setup, not at review
Splitting practice areas or service lines later means discarding the blended data you've paid for. It costs nothing extra to do at the start.
One landing page per thing you sell
A page general enough to cover three services is specific enough for none. The visitor arrived with one problem and has seconds to see it addressed.
Check who else uses your keywords
In sensitive categories the same words are searched by people on opposite sides of a situation. Reaching the wrong one is worse than reaching nobody.
Conversion tracking goes in before launch
Every week an account runs untracked is a week of spend producing numbers you can't act on. It's the cheapest thing to do first and the most expensive to add late.
What went into it.
Four of our services, in one week.
Launching a new account, or untangling an old one?
If you're starting from nothing, a week of architecture decides what the account can tell you for years. If you've inherited one, we'll show you what it can't currently answer and what it would take to fix. Either way, findings are yours to keep.
No obligation · You keep your accounts