Speaker 1: 0:18

Tobi Rosen, lmpt, law Firm Marketing Metrics, because most of us are drowning in marketing data, but every time I talk to an attorney, you guys really seem unsure of what's actually helping your firm grow. And today what we're going to do is we're going to try to cut through the noise a little bit and focus on the numbers that really matter. So first let's talk about why metrics matter for law firms. You probably already know this, but look, let's just jump in. Honestly, marketing can feel a lot like a guessing game for most firms, and that's especially true when you're wearing 12 different hats juggling court deadlines. But this doesn't have to be the case. That's where these metrics come in. We can simplify this and we can turn this into the GPS through the chaos, and without these metrics, we are just throwing money at campaigns and hoping that something sticks.

Speaker 1: 1:08

I see firms in this scenario all the time. So why should you care? First, because this data tells a story, and in your case, it's the story of how potential clients find you, engage with you and ultimately decide whether or not to trust you with their case. Metrics help us see what's working and, just as importantly, what's not working, so that we can stop wasting time and start doubling down on what actually moves the needle. So, for example, let's say we're running Google Ads Without tracking, we might not realize that 80% of our budget is going towards keywords that just don't convert. Or maybe we're investing heavily in SEO, but we don't really know which blog posts are actually bringing in qualified leads. When we start looking at the right data the conversion rates, the cost per lead, the call tracking we're no longer guessing. We're making strategic decisions that are based on facts.

Speaker 1: 2:00

But and this is a big one not all metrics are created equal. And here enters the vanity metric trap. These are the numbers that look impressive on paper, but they don't do a damn thing for your bottom line. We're talking about things like page views, likes, impressions. These are the digital equivalent of. We had a lot of people at our booth, but no one actually took any of our business cards. Sure, our latest Instagram post got 300 likes. That's great, it's really fun, it's good for our dopamine, but did anyone actually book a consultation because of that? Did we even get a contact form submission?

Speaker 1: 2:37

These vanity metrics give us a warm, fuzzy feeling, but they are not going to pay the team. They're not going to grow the firm, they're not going to pay the team, they're not going to grow the firm, they're not going to keep the lights on. That's why the smartest firms are looking way beyond the surface level stats and they're focusing on the data that ties directly to client acquisition and revenue. At the end of the day, marketing is only valuable if it drives results. Tracking the right metrics is how we ensure that every dollar and every minute of our time that is spent on marketing is actually working for the business and not just working for our ego. So let's talk about the numbers that actually move the needle, because if there's one thing that matters even more than the amount of traffic we have, it's what that traffic does once it lands on your site. These metrics are the backbone of any results-driven legal marketing strategy.

Speaker 1: 3:24

First is website conversion rate. This is the percentage of visitors who don't just browse, they take action. Maybe they fill out a contact form, they call the office, they schedule a consultation. It's our signal that our website is doing more than just existing. It's converting. A good baseline Aim for 2% to 5%. Maybe depending on your traffic, it really does vary quite a lot, but great landing pages and really good funnel architecture can push that much higher. Tools like Google Analytics, your CRM, whether that's Clio Grow, hubspot, etc. These can all help track those actions. And if you're getting tons of visits but no form submissions, right, there is your red flag. And don't look at these red flags as just big problems. Look at these as opportunities to tweak the messaging, the design, the CTA.

Speaker 1: 4:13

We talk about A-B testing all the time. I probably will get to it in a minute, but for now let's talk about cost per lead. After we have our website conversion rate sorted out, or a conversion rate for any particular campaign, we need to talk about our cost per lead. This is how much we are actually paying to get someone to raise up their hand and say, hey, I might need legal help. So, whether this is through Google ads, facebook campaigns, referral partnerships, the website, you need to know this number. So if you're spending $1,000 on ads and you get 10 qualified inquiries, your cost per lead is $1,000. That's your benchmark. From there, you can optimize by adjusting targeting, messaging or which channels you're using, even to bring that cost down and bring your value up, and then we have our lead to client conversion rate.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Getting a lead is just the first part of this battle we're fighting. How many of those inquiries actually turn into paying clients? This metric really shines a spotlight on your intake process specifically, are you responding quickly enough? Are your follow-ups enough and consistent enough? If you're generating solid leads but you're only converting maybe 2%, 5% of those leads, it might not be your marketing. It could be your follow-through. A CRM can be really helpful here too, tracking that full client journey from first click all the way through to a signed retainer. But the bottom line is that leads are great, but clients are what actually pay the bills. These conversion-focused metrics. They keep you grounded and they keep your firm grounded in reality, and then they give us the clarity to scale what's working.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Now let's talk traffic. But we're not talking about just any traffic. You don't need more people on your site just to inflate the numbers. You need the right people. You need people who are actively searching for legal help in your area, and that's where the SEO and the traffic metrics come in. So first we're going to start with our organic search traffic. This is our unpaid traffic, people who find our site through Google searches, not through Google ads or through Facebook ads, etc. If your blog posts and your landing pages are showing up for the relevant terms, like if you're an estate planning attorney near me or in PI, what to do after a car accident then you're on the right track already. Tools like Google Search Console, google Analytics, even things like SEMrush these help you see not just how much traffic you're getting, but what people are searching for and where they're actually coming from. Bonus points if you're ranking in the map pack for local terms, that is gold right now for law firms and for businesses in general, and we're already seeing firms that are in that map pack starting to get picked up in AI results.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Now another really important metric for your traffic is the bounce rate, and again, this can be a vanity metric, but the reality is that it is still important. So you want to make sure that this is installed correctly, that your agency is not manipulating it. But what bounce rate really shows is the percentage of visitors who land on your site and leave without clicking anything else. And why is this important? Because a high bounce rate might mean your page isn't answering the question that the visitor has, or maybe it's hard to read, or it's slow to load, or maybe it's just confusing. If someone searches for divorce lawyer in Miami and lands on your homepage with no clear call to action or specific relevant info, they're probably going to leave in five to 10 seconds, and if we want to improve our bounce rate, it's really not that hard. All we need to do is focus on user experience, and, yes, there is an entire industry of people who do this, and when I say not that hard, I'm lying entirely. But really, what this means, if we just boil it down to a couple of things, is we just need to have clear navigation, fast load times and a mobile-friendly design. We want to make sure our headlines match the search intent. We need to have clear calls to action that guide visitors toward booking a consultation or downloading a guide, or even just sending us a message. At the end of the day, it is not about attracting more eyes. It's about attracting the right eyes and giving them a reason to stick around and a chance to connect with you.

Speaker 1: 8:24

Now we move on to my bread and butter paid advertising. Paid advertising can be really really powerful, but only if it's performing well. And let's be real throwing money at Google or Facebook without looking at the results and understanding what's going on, I would rather literally light money on fire. It is a terrible way to spend money to just give it to Google or Facebook with no return, and that's why understanding our ad metrics, particularly things like return on ad spend, click-through rate all of this is really essential. So let's start with return on ad spend. We've talked about this a little bit, but I think it's been a while.

Speaker 1: 9:01

This is a big picture number. Return on ad spend ROAS this tells you how much revenue you're generating for every dollar you spend on ads. So if you're a personal injury firm spending $5,000 a month on Google ads and those ads are bringing in two cases a month worth $15,000 each, you are getting a six to one return on ad spend. That's not bad. It's not great, but it's not bad. But if you're spending the same amount and getting zero retained clients big red flag and a sign that we need to dig deeper into our targeting, our keywords, our landing page experience, maybe our followup experience and tools like Clio, grow, hubspot. They're going to help us track the leads all the way from that point where they're in touch initially whether it's through an advertising source, an organic traffic source all the way through to a signed retainer, which gives us a full picture of whether our ad dollars are actually producing these clients rather than just producing a bunch of clicks.

Speaker 1: 10:01

But we do need to talk about those clicks, our click-through rate, our CTR. This shows how often people who are seeing our ad are actually clicking on it. And if we're not getting conversions, we do want to check our CTR, because if our CTR is low, our ad might not be resonating. We might just not be getting people through the front end of the funnel. Maybe the headline is too generic, maybe the image is irrelevant or maybe the call to action just isn't motivating. But here's the good news. This is one of the easiest metrics to improve. Here's how you do it you test new copy, swap in a stronger call to action, use language that reflects the client's urgency in the situation, like get help now, talk to an attorney today or the most powerful free consultation. Don't just set your ads and forget them. This is really important. The firms that are winning here are the ones that are advertising and doing their testing constantly. They are constantly refining and they are making sure that every dollar works harder.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Winning with paid advertising isn't always about having the biggest budget. Sometimes it's about having the best strategy and marketing in general. It isn't just about attracting new clients. It's also about keeping the ones you have and turning them into raving fans and making sure that the new people coming through the pipeline can see that. That's where client retention and reputation management come into play. These are not nice to haves and they're not lower on the list because they're not important. These are probably the most significant contributors to long-term growth on this list.

Speaker 1: 11:34

And first we're going to start with client retention rate. How many of your clients are coming back or referring someone else to your firm? For some practice areas like estate planning, business law, it's really common Repeat clients are coming through all the time. If they liked their business lawyer, they're going to use them again For others personal injury, maybe, criminal defense, maybe family law, divorce referrals are really the gold mine. If you're not tracking this, you are missing a big big part of your marketing ROI, because in family law at least, hopefully, the clients aren't coming back that often. Simple tactics for this kind of marketing. They really go a long way here. Follow up after the case closes, send a thank you note, reply with a check-in email a few months later, and you could even do things like loyalty perks If you offer services that apply over time, discounted rates for returning clients, these little touches. They can turn a one-time case into a really long-term relationship because on its face, I mean, everybody likes something for free, but really what everybody likes is to feel special, and if you can make people feel special with their wallet, that's going to lead to future revenue for you.

Speaker 1: 12:45

But now we need to talk about reviews, because usually with that reputation management, this, this client retention stuff we're trying to make people happy but we need to make sure that our overall presence if these people are happy, we want to get reviews out of them. But these reviews I mean in 2025, this is really becoming even more important than we ever could have thought. These are our digital word of mouth and they matter so deeply to our presence. A presence on Google, avvo, yelp, all of this builds credibility and trust even before someone picks up the phone, whether it's a referral source or an organic searcher. But it's not just about the star rating, the volume, the recency of the reviews. This all matters. Make it a habit to ask happy clients to leave a review and always respond to them, especially on Google, and especially to the negative ones. A thoughtful, professional response shows future clients who are skimming through the reviews, that you care, you're paying attention and that you handle any issues with the highest level of integrity possible.

Speaker 1: 13:47

Reputation management is not about damage control anymore. It's about showing up consistently as a trustworthy, responsive human law firm, because when people trust you, they hire you and they tell others to do the same, and our reputation it's out there. So now that we've talked about all the things you need to be tracking, let's quickly talk about what to ignore. We need to talk about these numbers because, not that they're not helpful In fact, some of them are really helpful but some of them are just straight up distractions. They look shiny, they feel impressive, but they don't move the needle at all, unless you're in some very different businesses than we are in the legal field. We call these the vanity metrics and it's time to stop giving them so much power.

Speaker 1: 14:34

First is social media. Yes, it's fun to see a post get a bunch of likes and, sure, having a big follower count looks really nice on your profile. But here's the truth likes and followers don't pay the bills if you're not an influencer. If no one is clicking, messaging, booking a consult, those metrics are just digital fluff. What you really want to look at is engagement. That matters Comments, direct messages asking for help, clicks that drive traffic, shares of posts even. That's where social can really start to become a pipeline, not just a popularity contest.

Speaker 1: 15:07

And next we need to talk about this raw website traffic. We've all seen these. Oh, I have 10,000 visitors a month and targeting 25,000 visitors a month, and sure that's exciting, but it really doesn't mean very much. I've had websites where we have 300 to 500 visitors a month and we convert 50 people a month. That's really all we need. You could have thousands of people landing on your homepage, but if they're bouncing, they're not taking action, they're just kicking the tires and looking around. That traffic isn't helping you grow. And the more useful question here is what are people doing once they land on your site? That's where the conversion metrics, like form submissions, phone calls, all of that stuff. That's where that story can really be told.

Speaker 1: 15:53

Finally, the one that makes me crazy is email open rates. Yes, it is really tempting to celebrate a 40, 50, 60% open rate on your latest newsletter. But here's the thing Opens don't equal interest. And sure, a 60% open rate is great and your email marketing manager should celebrate it, but you should not, because these people could have opened it by accident or they could have skimmed the subject line, but instead focus on your click-through rates. Focus on the replies to that email. Are people going to the blog post that you linked? Are they clicking on your affiliate link? Are they coming to your website? Are they responding to your invitation for a consultation? This is the kind of interaction that leads to clients, not just curiosity and time-wasting. The bottom line here is that not all metrics are created equal. We need to stay focused on what's important and don't let the flashy numbers distract us from what really matters. At the end of the day, we're looking for conversions, conversations and clients. That's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more Thanks.