Case studies / Legal
DUI & traffic defence · VirginiaWe targeted Virginia. A lot of the best leads had already left.
Virginia is the interstate everyone drives through, and reckless driving there is a criminal charge rather than a ticket. Most drivers don't find that out until they're home in another state. For Christina Pendleton's firm, the setting most advertisers switch off is the one that reached them.
A Virginia firm defending charges filed against people who've already left.
Christina Pendleton & Associates defends DUI, DWI, and traffic charges in Virginia, a state carrying two of the busiest corridors on the East Coast and enforcing some of the strictest traffic law in the country.
We were brought in to run Google Ads for the firm on a modest monthly budget, in a market where a large share of the people who need the firm most are no longer physically in the state.
In Virginia, speeding can be a criminal charge.
Reckless driving in Virginia is a misdemeanour, not an infraction, and it can be triggered by speed alone. Someone passing through on I-95 or I-64 accepts what they assume is a ticket, drives home to New Jersey or North Carolina, and later discovers they have a court date and a criminal record at stake. The search that follows happens hundreds of miles outside the state the firm advertises in.
The setting most advertisers switch to.
Restricting ads to people physically inside the target state is standard advice, and usually right. It stops paying for clicks from people who can't use the service. In Virginia it would have excluded a large share of the people who most needed this firm.
- Reaches People in Virginia
- Excludes Drivers who went home
- Usual effect Less waste
- Effect here Lost demand
The default, left alone deliberately.
Google's default also serves ads to people outside the target who show interest in it, someone in another state searching for a Virginia lawyer. The charge is in Virginia and the court is in Virginia, so the enquiry is entirely valid wherever the person is sitting.
- Reaches Both groups
- Excludes Neither
- Usual risk Irrelevant clicks
- Effect here Captured demand
A pass-through state with criminal traffic law.
Christina Pendleton & Associates defends DUI, DWI, and traffic charges in Virginia, a state carrying two of the busiest corridors on the East Coast and enforcing some of the strictest traffic law in the country.
Four things shaped the account.
The defendant is often no longer in the state
Virginia charges a great many drivers who were passing through. By the time they understand what they've been charged with, they're home somewhere else and searching from there.
People don't know what they're facing
Enquiries routinely describe a charge in terms that don't match its seriousness. Someone says they got a ticket for speeding when what they have is a criminal misdemeanour with a court date.
Charges are tied to specific courts
Virginia matters are heard in the county where the stop happened, and enquiries name places drivers passed through rather than places they live.
$1,500 a month is a small budget for this
Two practice areas, a state wide market, and competitive legal clicks. Nothing works unless the targeting and the exclusions are precise.
Four decisions, on a small budget.
One of them was leaving a default setting alone.
Target Virginia, and don't restrict it to presence
Campaigns targeted to Virginia, with the location setting left on its default so people searching for a Virginia lawyer from elsewhere still saw the ads. Standard practice is to tighten this to presence only. In a state where the defendant frequently isn't there any more, tightening it would have cut off valid demand.
Enquiries from drivers already back in other states.
Separate DUI from traffic
The two practice areas given their own campaigns and budgets. DUI clicks cost several times what traffic clicks cost, and on $1,500 a month a shared budget means the traffic campaign quietly stops running.
Both practices funded and separately measurable.
Cover the language people actually use
Keywords built around how drivers describe what happened rather than the legal classification: speeding, a ticket, being pulled over, a court date, because someone charged with reckless driving by speed usually doesn't search the term they were charged with.
Reaching people who didn't know what to call it.
Let people write their situation down
Forms built to accept detail rather than just a name and number. Enquiries came back describing the stop, the county, the speed, and the court date, which is what lets a firm triage before calling back.
~70 written enquiries in the period we hold records for.
The default setting was doing real work.
We can't show you the enquiries. They contain names, contact details, and people's accounts of criminal charges, and none of that belongs on a marketing page in any form. What's worth reporting is the pattern inside them.
- Monthly media $1,500
- Written enquiries counted ~70
- Period covered by records ~4 months
- Upper estimate per enquiry ~$88
That figure excludes phone calls, so the real cost per enquiry was lower. Lead capture later moved into the firm's own CRM, and the records we hold stop there, which is why we're publishing a partial count rather than a six month total.
A meaningful share of enquiries came from people who were no longer in Virginia, including from outside the United States. Every one of them had a Virginia charge and a Virginia court date. On the tightened location setting, none of them would have seen the ads.
Why this is worth checking in your own account
"Set location targeting to presence only" is close to universal advice, and for most local businesses it's correct. A plumber has no use for someone three states away.
It's wrong whenever the obligation is tied to a place rather than the person. Court dates, property, permits, licensing, medical treatment at a specific facility, a wedding venue, a university. In all of those, the customer can be anywhere and the service is still entirely relevant to them.
The default setting carries a real risk of irrelevant clicks, which is why the advice exists. The question isn't whether to follow it, it's whether your business is one of the exceptions. Reading where enquiries physically came from answers it in about ten minutes.
Four things about location and jurisdiction.
Check whether your obligation is tied to a place
If your customers have a court date, a property, a permit or an appointment somewhere specific, they don't need to live there, and restricting to presence excludes them.
People search the word they know
Someone charged with reckless driving searches for speeding. Cover the layperson's description as well as the legal one, or you miss the people who don't yet understand what they're facing.
Separate practices before you're forced to
Where click prices differ several fold between services, a shared budget quietly starves the cheaper one. On a small budget that happens within days.
Look at where your leads physically are
It's one report and it either confirms your targeting or shows you demand you've been excluding. Most accounts never check.
What went into it.
Five of our services, over six months.
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