Today on our podcast, Alan Schneider, Good2bSocial’s Director of Paid Search discusses the difference between retargeting and remarketing for law firms, its effectiveness, and the qualifications your firm needs in order to participate.

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Podcast Show Notes

Alan Schneider is the Director of Paid Search at Good2bSocial. He is a 14-year search engine marketing (SEM) veteran and the former co-owner of Mr-SEO.com. Alan manages paid search on the AdWords and Bing Ads platforms for all of Good2bSocial’s clients.

Paid Social for the Legal Industry

There is a huge difference between the legal industry and other industries when it comes to PPC advertising. For one, lead generation is a little more difficult than sales because law firms are typically working under a finite geographic area rather than a national marketplace. Among law firm’s the competition is extreme especially in the Northeast where a large number of firms are competing for impressions every day. However, PPC and remarketing specifically can still be rewarding when you generate leads which turn into cases.

Retargeting vs. Remarketing

Retargeting first started when companies began a system in which they would look at a site’s analytics and then put a tag on the visitors that came to your site. Then, they would go back and advertise to them later on a different website if the visitor didn’t make a purchase or fill out a lead generation form.

Remarketing is ultimately the same process, but Google’s own version. In order to participate in remarketing, you have to use Google Analytics and have it linked to Google AdWords. Retargeting is just using a third-party company to set up campaigns rather than working directly with Google.

How effective is remarketing for law firms?

Remarketing works incredibly well in terms of conversion rates. In fact, remarketing conversion rates are typically higher compared to other types of ads. When you retarget your site’s visitors, you can even set up parameters. For example, only showing retargeting ads to those who visited certain pages or spent a certain amount of time on your site.

Cost

Not only is remarketing more effective than traditional PPC, it’s actually quite less expensive too. Through AdWords you can either choose to have your ads shown on Google’s search results page or have your ads shown on other websites, the latter is referred to as display ads. Traditional PPC shows ads on the search results page and is more expensive due to the level of competition – you know you’re targeting an audience that has an interest in your services or products because they used specific keywords on Google to search for it. On the other hand, with display ads the targeting has nothing to do what the site is about and is  not based on competitive keywords.

Qualifications for Remarketing

While remarketing may sound like a great option for your law firm, you may not be qualified. Only a certain percentage of users who visit your site will see your ad on another site, and of that percentage only a certain percentage will actually interact with the ad. Therefore, the larger the audience you have the better it is for remarketing. Google sets the rule that you need at least 1,000 unique visitors per month in order to participate.

Another obstacle is the types of people you can remarket too. You can’t show an ad to anyone who you’ve identified as having a condition. This guideline may prove difficult to personal injury law firms who are mainly targeting audiences with a condition.

If you’re law firm doesn’t qualify for remarketing, there are similar options to advertise. For example, you could target by keywords, but it could be costly. Another option through AdSense would be to find particular websites that you would like to advertise on. You can even select subdomains in order to reach specific practice areas.

Takeaway

Remarketing gives you a potential rich of about half a billion individuals which makes it a valuable tool for legal marketers. However, it shouldn’t be your law firm’s primary focus. In order to truly convert leads you must focus on your website, SEO, and content in order to make remarketing fully effective for your law firm.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising Services for Lawyers, Law Firms and Legal Vendors

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