Ask an agency what your firm should spend on Google Ads and you will usually get a range. Two thousand a month to start. Maybe five. See how it goes.

That is not a budget. It is a guess wearing a suit.

A real number comes from three inputs, all of which you either already know or can find in an afternoon.

Start with what a case is worth

Not what you bill. What a signed matter actually contributes, on average, in the practice area you want to advertise.

Firms resist this because the range is wide and the average feels dishonest. Run it anyway. Take your last twenty matters in that area, total the revenue, divide by twenty. That number is the ceiling on everything that follows.

If the average matter is worth four thousand dollars, you now know that spending three thousand to acquire one is a bad trade and spending four hundred is a good one.

Then find what a click costs

Legal is one of the most expensive verticals in paid search, and the variance inside it is enormous. Personal injury in a major metro can run into the hundreds per click. A niche practice in a smaller market can be a few dollars.

Google’s own tools will tell you this for free. So will any agency you are considering, and if they will not, that tells you something.

Then work out the math nobody wants to do

Here is the chain, and every step loses people.

Clicks become visitors. Some fraction of visitors contact you. Some fraction of contacts are actually a fit. Some fraction of fits sign.

Say twenty percent of clicks produce a contact. Half of those are qualified. A third of qualified contacts sign. That means roughly thirty clicks produce one signed matter.

At fifteen dollars a click, one case costs about four hundred fifty dollars to acquire. Against a four thousand dollar matter, that works.

At eighty dollars a click, the same case costs twenty four hundred dollars. That is a different conversation entirely, and it might mean paid search is the wrong channel for you right now.

You will not know your real conversion rates until you have run traffic. Start with conservative assumptions and correct them with data.

Why underfunding is worse than not starting

This is the part firms get wrong most expensively.

A campaign needs enough volume to produce meaningful data. If your cost per click is eighty dollars and your monthly budget is one thousand, you are buying about twelve clicks. Twelve clicks will not tell you whether your ad copy works, whether your landing page converts, or which keywords are worth keeping.

You will spend twelve thousand dollars over a year and end up knowing nothing.

A firm that cannot fund enough volume to learn something is usually better off putting that money into content and organic search, where a smaller budget still compounds.

Read the right numbers

Once you are running, most reports will show you impressions and clicks. Neither is a result.

The chain that matters runs from click to qualified contact to signed matter, and the metric is cost per qualified lead. Not cost per click. Not cost per lead, since unqualified leads cost you time and produce nothing.

Strong click volume paired with weak conversion is not an advertising problem. It is a landing page problem, and no amount of bid adjustment fixes it.

One structural note on Local Service Ads

Local Service Ads sit above standard paid results, carry a Google Screened badge that requires background and license verification, and bill per lead rather than per click.

For firms in eligible practice areas, that changes the budget conversation, because you are paying for contacts rather than for the chance at a contact. You get less control over messaging and targeting in exchange.

Worth pricing both before committing to either.

The reframe

Paid search is traffic you rent. Organic is traffic you own.

Renting is not a lesser choice. It is the right choice when you need visibility before content can deliver it, when you are testing whether a practice area has demand, or when you want keyword data to aim an organic strategy at.

Just know which one you are buying, and know the number before you sign anything.