Case studies / Legal
Family law · Google Ads & Yelp AdsYelp produced almost as many leads as Google. Most agencies would never have tried.
Sternberg Family Law runs $5,000 a month on each platform. Google returns around 120 leads, Yelp around 100, roughly $42 and $50 a lead. In a practice area where people are choosing who to trust rather than what to buy, advertising inside a review site turns out to be a serious channel.
A family law firm selling something people evaluate slowly.
Sternberg Family Law handles divorce and child custody matters. Unlike the criminal defence accounts we run, almost nobody here needs a lawyer this week, they've been considering it for months.
We were brought in to run Google Ads and Yelp Ads for the firm side by side, treating a review platform as a genuine second channel rather than an afterthought.
In family law, the review is the advertisement.
Nobody chooses a divorce attorney on price or proximity. They're choosing the person who will handle the worst year of their life and, frequently, decisions about their children. That makes it a trust purchase, and it means the thing most likely to convince someone isn't the ad copy, it's what other people in the same situation said afterwards.
The ad and the proof live apart.
Someone searches, sees an ad, clicks through to a landing page, and then usually opens another tab to look up reviews before doing anything. The advertising captures the intent; the trust decision happens somewhere the advertiser doesn't control.
- Intent Explicit
- Proof Elsewhere
- Steps to contact Several
- Cost per lead ~$42
They arrive already checking.
Someone on a review platform is mid way through exactly the evaluation a family law client has to make. The advertising appears inside that process rather than before it, so the proof and the prompt to make contact are in the same place.
- Intent Evaluating
- Proof On the page
- Steps to contact Fewer
- Cost per lead ~$50
A high stakes decision people take slowly.
Sternberg Family Law handles divorce and child custody matters. Unlike the criminal defence accounts we run, almost nobody here needs a lawyer this week, they've been considering it for months.
Four things shaped how both channels were built.
The decision takes weeks, not hours
People research divorce long before acting on it. That rules out urgency based messaging and means the same person may see the firm several times across different platforms before making contact.
Trust decides it, not the offer
There's no equivalent of a price comparison here. What a prospective client wants to know is whether this person is competent, discreet, and will handle their children's situation properly.
Custody and divorce aren't the same search
Someone contemplating divorce and someone in a custody dispute are at different stages with different anxieties, even when they're eventually the same client.
One channel would have capped the volume
At this budget, pushing everything into search would have meant bidding further up the auction for progressively less relevant traffic. Two channels at $5,000 each reach more of the market than $10,000 in one.
Four decisions, held for five years.
Two channels, run as one programme rather than two accounts.
Run Yelp as a real channel, not an afterthought
Equal budget to Google rather than a token allocation. Most agencies treat review site advertising as marginal and spend accordingly, which guarantees marginal results. Funded properly it produced roughly 100 leads a month at a cost per lead comparable to search.
A second channel of genuine scale.
Separate divorce from custody
The two matters given their own campaigns and messaging. Someone deciding whether to file and someone fighting over custody arrangements need different reassurance, and a shared campaign speaks past both of them.
Messaging matched to the stage, not the practice.
Write for a long decision, not an urgent one
Ad copy and landing pages built around what someone considering divorce wants to understand: process, timelines, what happens to the children, what the first conversation involves. Nothing in family law is helped by urgency language.
Enquiries from people ready to talk.
Measure the two channels separately, always
Each platform tracked and reported on its own, so neither could be credited with or blamed for the other. Combining them into a single cost per lead would have concealed which channel was actually carrying the volume in any given month.
Around 220 leads a month across both.
Two channels, near parity.
| Channel | Monthly spend | Leads | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | $5,000 | ~120 | ~$42 |
| Yelp Ads | $5,000 | ~100 | ~$50 |
| Combined | $10,000 | ~220 | ~$45 |
A 20% gap in cost per lead between a search platform and a review platform is not the result most people would predict. The usual assumption is that search wins decisively because the intent is explicit, someone typing "divorce lawyer" has declared what they want.
The assumption holds in most categories. It weakens wherever the buying decision is mostly about trust, because the platform people use to establish trust is, by definition, where they are when they're deciding.
Why the second channel matters more than the cost per lead
Putting the full $10,000 into search would not have produced 240 leads. Beyond a point, additional budget in one auction buys progressively worse positions on progressively looser terms, the pattern we've documented elsewhere, where eight times the traffic produced 46% more leads.
A second channel doesn't have that ceiling, because it's a different pool of people. Two $5,000 channels reach more of the market than one $10,000 channel, and that's true well before either one saturates.
We don't publish consultation or retention figures for this account, we don't hold them. Lead volumes are client reported monthly averages.
Five Years, One Review.
"We are thrilled with the services provided and the results rendered! Thank you!!!!"
Sternberg Family Law · five star review, posted publicly during an engagement now in its fifth year.
Four things about second channels.
Advertise where the decision happens
If your customers evaluate you on a review platform before contacting anyone, that platform isn't a directory listing, it's where the choice is made.
A token budget guarantees a token result
Most secondary channels are tested at a tenth of the primary budget and then declared not to work. Fund it properly or don't test it at all.
Two channels beat one bigger one
Doubling spend in a single auction buys worse positions on looser terms. A second channel reaches a different pool entirely, long before the first is saturated.
Never blend channel reporting
A combined cost per lead hides which platform carried the month. Report each separately or you can't tell what to change.
What went into it.
Five of our services, over five years.
Everything in one channel?
If your entire budget sits in one auction, the last portion of it is buying your worst traffic. Give us read only access and we'll show you where the returns start flattening, and whether a second channel would reach people the first one can't. Findings are yours to keep either way.
Read only access · No obligation · You keep your accounts