Case studies / Legal
Drink driving defence · Queensland, AustraliaHe'd already spent more than our entire budget on clicks that went nowhere.
Harper Finch Lawyers had run its own Google Ads before we started, around AU$1,820 at AU$15.67 a click, for traffic the firm described as random and unrelated. We ran the same category on AU$500 a month, using the words Queenslanders actually search, and the enquiries arrived as paragraphs about people's charges.
A Queensland firm defending traffic and drink driving charges.
Harper Finch Lawyers handles traffic offences and drink driving defence across Queensland, Australia, for clients who typically have a court date and a charge to respond to quickly.
We were brought in after the firm had already run its own Google Ads on a small budget, with results the firm itself described as random clicks that went nowhere.
Nobody in Queensland searches for a DUI lawyer.
DUI is an American term. In Queensland the offence is drink driving, the charge is often described by the reading, and the things people urgently want are a work licence or a special hardship order. An account built on American vocabulary will serve ads to Australians who are reading about the topic rather than facing a charge, which is exactly the traffic the firm had been paying for.
AU$1,820, and no usable enquiries.
The firm's own account had been spending at around AU$15.67 a click on roughly 116 clicks. The client's description of what arrived was blunt: random clicks from unrelated visitors, and money he considered thrown away.
- Spend ~AU$1,820
- Cost per click AU$15.67
- Clicks ~116
- Usable enquiries Effectively none
AU$1,500, and people writing paragraphs.
A smaller total budget, spent on Queensland drink driving and traffic offence terms. The enquiries that came back described charges, readings, court dates, and licence problems in the person's own words, people with a real matter, not readers.
- Spend AU$1,500
- Written enquiries 17+
- Plus Phone calls
- Per enquiry ~AU$88
In the client's own words, before we started.
"I have tried myself a few times and it's been a waste. I tried earlier this year and I think I threw away all the money. I was getting lots of random clicks from unrelated visitors."
David Abrey, Harper Finch Lawyers · from the brief, describing his earlier in-house attempt.
That's not a complaint about Google Ads. It's an accurate description of what happens when a small budget meets the wrong keywords.
AU$500 a month leaves no margin
At Australian legal click prices that's a small number of clicks. Every one spent on someone researching rather than seeking representation is a meaningful share of the month gone.
The vocabulary is Australian, not American
Drink driving, work licence, special hardship order, breath test. Campaigns built on US terminology miss the searches that matter and catch the ones that don't.
Queensland has its own procedures
Licence consequences and the applications available to drivers differ by state. Someone searching is usually searching for their state's specific remedy.
Traffic law attracts researchers
People check penalties, read about readings, and look up what happens next far more often than they hire a lawyer. Separating the two is most of the work.
Four parts, on AU$500 a month.
At this budget the account is decided almost entirely by what it refuses to buy.
Rebuild around Queensland vocabulary
Keywords, ad copy, and landing page language built on the terms people in Queensland actually use for these offences and the remedies they're looking for, not the American equivalents that dominate most templates and guides.
Ads matching the searches of people with a charge.
Restrict the geography to what the firm serves
Targeting bound to Queensland rather than Australia broadly. Traffic law is state law, and an enquiry from another state costs the same as a useful one while being impossible to act on.
Budget confined to servable enquiries.
Exclude the research traffic relentlessly
Tight match types and continuous negative keyword work against the informational searches that share vocabulary with genuine intent: penalties, explanations, general guidance. This is where the earlier in-house budget had gone.
Fewer clicks, and different people clicking.
Give people room to explain themselves
Landing pages and enquiry forms designed around what someone facing a charge wants to do first, which is describe their situation. The enquiries that came back ran to full paragraphs: circumstances, dates, readings, what they needed.
17+ written enquiries in three months, plus calls.
The length of a lead tells you a lot.
We can't show you the enquiries. They contain names, contact details, and people's accounts of criminal matters, medical circumstances, and family situations, none of which belongs on a marketing page, in any form.
What's worth saying is this: they were long. People wrote a hundred words explaining their charge, their court date, and what they were worried about, because they had a real problem and wanted the lawyer to understand it before calling back.
That's the clearest signal of qualification there is, and it costs nothing to look for. Someone idly researching a topic doesn't type six sentences about their own circumstances into a form. Someone with a court date in three weeks does.
It's also the direct contrast with what the firm had been getting on its own budget. The problem was never the platform or the price of clicks. It was which searches the money was buying.
- Total media, three months AU$1,500
- Written enquiries 17+
- Cost per written enquiry ~AU$88
- Prior in-house spend ~AU$1,820
Four things for small budgets and local law.
Use the words your market uses
Legal and medical vocabulary differs by country and state. Templates and guides are overwhelmingly American, and copying them means advertising to people who don't exist in your market.
Small budgets are won on exclusion
Under a few hundred a month, what you refuse to buy matters more than what you bid on. Negatives are the whole strategy, not a maintenance task.
Read the length of your enquiries
Long, detailed messages mean people with real problems. One line enquiries and blank forms usually mean your keywords are catching researchers.
Match geography to jurisdiction
If your service is bound by state or territory, so is your targeting. Enquiries you can't legally act on cost exactly as much as the ones you can.
What went into it.
Four of our services, over three months.
Tried running it yourself and it didn't work?
That's usually a keyword problem rather than a budget problem, and it's visible in about fifteen minutes. Give us read only access and we'll show you which searches your money actually bought. Findings are yours to keep either way.
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