Speaker 1: 0:05

Why are so many lawyers still running ads with no retargeting? Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. Today we are talking about retargeting, sometimes referred to as remarketing. I'm going to use those terms interchangeably. We've done episodes on that in the past. Go back and look at those if you're curious about the difference. But did you know that over 90% of legal ad spend gets wasted because the first visit doesn't actually convert and no one follows up? Well, it's true, because I just made it up, so it's probably about that number. There's no way to really assess this across all firms or broadly, but it's a really high percentage because the first lead isn't going to show up and no one is following up with them, or maybe you don't have the option to follow up with them. So in 2025, today we're talking about, I mean, in this year, in this time if you're running advertising, especially on Google or on Facebook, without retargeting or remarketing, it is like showing up in court without any notes, without a pen, dressed in your pajamas. So today we're going to break down why retargeting isn't being used by so many law firms, what it's costing you and how you can fix it without blowing up your marketing budget, and there's a really easy way to do that, because remarketing is pretty cheap.

Speaker 1: 1:16

So let's talk about the elephant in the room. Why are so many firms like yours not using retargeting? It's not because the concept is new. You've probably heard of it, you've probably heard of it, you've probably heard about it on this podcast and you maybe asked your agency about it once or twice. But for whatever reason, it is still missing from a huge chunk of law firms marketing strategies. It's like everywhere and honestly, at least in my opinion, it just comes down to a mix of three things outdated thinking, bad assumptions and a little bit of fear.

Speaker 1: 1:46

So first up, there's the tech intimidation factor. Retargeting sounds complicated. Do we need special software? A huge audience, is it creepy? Are people going to be mad? So firms either assume that it's really expensive or they just decided something they'll look into later. But in reality, if you're already running Google or meta ads, you're 80% of the way there. It's not rocket science. You just tag your visitors and then show them ads. That's it.

Speaker 1: 2:08

And then there's the agency problem. A lot of PPC vendors just don't bring up retargeting. Why? Maybe they don't know how to do it well, maybe they think you won't understand it, or or maybe, let's be honest it's just easier and more profitable for them to keep pumping top of funnel traffic and pretending that that's the whole game. If they're doing an ad spend percentage, it's way easier. But without this retargeting you are basically paying for introductions and then walking away before you shake someone's hand. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1: 2:37

And then, finally, there is the ick factor. We hear this all the time. I don't want to come across as pushy or invasive, and this is totally fair, but it's just totally nonsense and it's totally avoidable. You can control how often your ads show up, who sees them and what those ads say. So retargeting doesn't have to be aggressive. It can just be a nudge, a reminder, and it can be really helpful and really reassuring and sometimes, dare I say, a little classy. But the bottom line is this If you're avoiding retargeting or remarketing, it's not because it doesn't work. It's because no one has explained how to make it work for you and for your firm. So let's talk about how it actually works.

Speaker 1: 3:17

So in a normal flow, someone clicks on your ad, they land on your website and maybe you get a couple more page views out of them. They go to your practice area page. They glance at your bio or some testimonials and then nothing. They don't call, they don't submit a form, they just leave the website. And there's no second chance here, unless we're using retargeting. Because here's the truth People don't convert on the first click, not in legal, not in most industries and especially not in 2025.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Whether it's somebody that's dealing with this contentious custody battle, a business dispute, an unexpected arrest, they're probably not going to hire the first firm they see. They're going to scroll through a little bit, they're going to check a couple websites and then they'll make a call. They're shopping around, they're comparing credentials, they're reading those reviews and maybe they're texting a friend for advice. All that research, it takes time. It could be five minutes, it could be 15 minutes, especially in the arrest scenario, but in a lot of cases it's longer than that, and so retargeting is our second and third and fourth shot. It brings those almost clients back when they are ready, not when our first ad happened to catch their eye. That might be later that night, the next morning, three days from now, while they're doom-scrolling Facebook during lunch. And if you're not there when they're finally ready to act, another firm is going to be, because it's not just about all this timing. Yes, that's really important here, but it is also about building that trust and being ready when they're ready.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Legal services are high trust purchases. We are not selling t-shirts or air fryers, despite how much I might like buying those. People need to feel like they know you and that starts with repetition. Most prospects need to see a brand three to five times before they even start to feel familiar or remember that brand. Retargeting is a great way to accelerate that cycle. Each of the touch points we provide. They build credibility for us, especially if we're using that ad to show helpful content or testimonials or even answers to common questions.

Speaker 1: 5:16

It does not all have to be CTA focused, and here's the kicker. This is the thing I alluded to at the beginning, but it's the real reason you should be doing this. Retargeting, remarketing clicks on Google, on Facebook, on Instagram, on LinkedIn. They are cheap, like really cheap. We're talking at least two to five, sometimes 10 times cheaper than cold traffic from Google ads. On average, that means your cost per lead could drop dramatically without spending anymore and it could help that cost per lead on the front end. But that's not the point. Most firms are so focused on feeding the top of that funnel that they are ignoring the lowest hanging fruit, the people who have already shown interest. So if you're not retargeting, you're basically saying thanks for stopping by, good luck out there, and that's not a strategy at all, that's just leakage. So what does good retargeting actually look like for a law firm? And there's a spoiler here it is not just show them the same ad again and hope that they click it again.

Speaker 1: 6:18

Effective retargeting is strategic, it's segmented, it's sequenced, and so there's a lot here. But let's start with the platforms. Most law firms don't need to reinvent the wheel. Yes, there are some hitches depending on your practice area, but you can use the same ad platforms you're usually going to be using. Google's Display Network is a really solid starting point. It's really easy to use. It lets you show images or text ads across millions of websites, including your local news niche blogs that your clients could be reading really interesting stuff like this and within Google, youtube is a completely underused gem when it comes to legal, especially for short brand videos. You know we can show those to people who have just visited our website. 15 seconds, no sound, just enough to say hey, we're here, remember us, and when you need us reach out. And then there's Facebook and Instagram. These are really effective for B2C practices family law, injury, criminal defense. Using these tools helps you meet your potential clients where they already are. And then for firms doing corporate or business law, don't sleep on LinkedIn. It's pricier, sure, but it's really solid for targeting business decision makers or general counsels who have been sniffing around your site, and LinkedIn's pixel works pretty well.

Speaker 1: 7:31

But now we have to talk messaging, because there are a million platforms out there. I've just scratched the surface of the top tier social media, like common stuff. There's a million other retargeting platforms out there with tons and tons of inventory that you absolutely should take a look at. But we do need to talk about the messaging, because I can't just let you guys run loose on this and following people around with the same message that's on your homepage that divorce is different, or or that we do things a different way, or that we care for you, or whatever it is. It's just not going to cut it. So what really works? Well and this will take some tweaking, but retargeting works really well as a sequence.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So if we structure our advertising so that people will get the first ad in the first day or the first week, and the second ad in the second day or the second week, and so on and so forth. We can create something like a public autoresponder. Instead of having to get their email, to send them these emails, we can do that where they already are without breaking the flow of their normal process. So let's make an example. Ad number one we're going to reintroduce the problem Going through a divorce. It's overwhelming. Let's make it easier. You're meeting the visitor with empathy and we remind them why they actually clicked in the first place. And then, ad number two we're starting to build more trust, sharing a client testimonial, highlighting a five-star review or a media mention, the press press mention something like this this is our, our credibility builder. We're not selling, we're reassuring that. Yeah, we're, we're empathic, we can help you and we've got the resume to back this up. And then, ad number three we're going to offer more clarity. So now is when we can drop in that strong CTA. We may have done this in ad number zero when they initially clicked, but in those first two remarketing ads we don't need to push them into something. We just want to remind them that we can help. But in ad three, we're offering that clarity. It's the time for a strong CTA. Download our free custody checklist or book your consultation now. You've earned this follow-up. Now we give them a clear next step. And then, finally, this is something we need to talk about. We're not going to spend too long on it, but it's really important.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Audience segmentation this is one of the absolute keys because one size fits all especially in a practice where you may be doing a couple of different types of law you're wasting money if you're doing one size fits all retargeting. So we need to start by creating some audiences so we can segment people based on what pages they visit the divorce pages, our estate law pages, work visa pages, whatever they hit. And then we develop an audience for people who started to look at stuff or started to fill out our contact form but didn't actually complete it. That's a new segment. And then we have past email subscribers or CRM contacts. We may not want to be advertising to them directly but, especially in audiences like on Facebook, we can use them as lookalikes. And then we have our intake drop-offs If we have these tracked in our CRM, same thing as the past subscribers or CRM contacts, if we have a CRM where we have people who have dropped out of intake. We can run ads to them as well HubSpot is a great option for this and each audience.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Really, what we want to be doing is showing them messages that are tailored to where they dropped off, whether it's way up in the funnel or way down, close to actually becoming a client. We want to hit them specifically with messaging that says hey, we know that this is scary. Or hey, we know you need more information, or whatever it is to hit them where they are. Someone who visited our contact page they probably just need a little bit of a nudge, but someone who only hit our homepage and then just bounced straight from there. They're going to need a lot more trust building.

Speaker 1: 11:02

But the beauty of all this retargeting is that it doesn't have to be really complex to be effective. Even this simple three ad sequence it could double our conversion rates. It doubles probably a low ball and the best part, once it's set up, it runs quietly in the background. We do what so many law firm campaigns don't giving these potential clients a reason to come back, and it's with a very light touch. So if you've been nodding along but you still feel like retargeting sounds like a next quarter project. Let's just make this really simple. You can get started today, this week. No agency overhaul, no five-figure budget, just a few practical steps to putting your existing traffic to better use.

Speaker 1: 11:40

Here's how we do it. If you're running Google Ads, you're already most of the way there. Go into your campaign settings. Make sure remarketing is turned on for display. Install the Google Ads tag on your website. If you're using Google Tag Manager, it's really easy. It's a two-minute setup. And if you're not, use your web person, just have them drop the tag in the header. That one little tag is your key to tracking and retargeting every qualified visitor. So if we have display already on, just add the audience, turn it on and you're doing it. And then on Facebook and Instagram, it's even more user friendly.

Speaker 1: 12:11

If you're a Gen Z I don't think so, but it technically is Head to Meta's ads manager and then create a custom audience based on website visitors Really easy. You don't need a massive audience to start. I think it's a hundred or 200 people and then you can start running ads to them. Just people who have visited your key pages, like your contact form, service pages, your blog that's plenty. And you could even target people who engage with a specific post or watch part of a video and this is going to get me into a tangent here.

Speaker 1: 12:47

But speaking of video, video retargeting is criminally underused in legal marketing. If someone watches like 25%, 50% of one of your videos or more than one of your videos, whether it's on Facebook, instagram, youtube, that is a highly engaged lead and we don't even have to set up the audience ourself to target these people. These are people who didn't just scroll past our page or scroll past our ad. They stopped, they watched and they engaged. Set up a follow-up ad that speaks directly to these people. It's really easy. If you're already running ads or putting video on Facebook, you absolutely need to be doing this, whether it's a client story, a quick FAQ video, personal message from you. Give them more of what they were looking for and try to figure out what you can do to get them to watch that whole video.

Speaker 1: 13:27

And here's an even more pro move I mentioned this above, but CRM integration. A lot of firms are skipping this. If you're using Clio Lawmatics, something cool like HubSpot, there's a chance that you can sync your data directly with Google or Meta, and that means your actual leads, not just the website visitors. These can be added to the retargeting audiences and we can exclude recent clients. We're not wasting money showing ads to somebody who's already signed and paid us, but it's really, really effective for Google and Facebook to be able to learn from who our best leads are. They can use those identifiers to find more people for us, Because here's the bottom line.

Speaker 1: 14:04

Like I said, remarketing does not have to be complicated. The tools are in your toolbox. You've got most of this already set up, so you just need to turn them on, define your audience and tell a clear story over a few touch points. This is not something that we're being flashy with. It's really just about being present and being there when it matters most to a client.

Speaker 1: 14:25

And we're going to be taking a break at the beginning of Q4, and I know that means that I won't be being there for you, but the paid episodes will continue on the first Monday of each month, so make sure you subscribe, and I mentioned this, I believe, in a podcast a few weeks ago. But more episodes in our catalog are going to become premium only soon. So don't forget to sign up for the premium subscription, because we're going to be transitioning more to the paid model very soon. We've got a ton of content in. We're going to be still doing a lot of lessons, still doing updates on the interesting new tech that you guys need to know about, but we are shifting more to the paid model as we've run out a lot of the core information on marketing. That isn't going to change in the next couple of years.

Speaker 1: 15:05

So, going back to retargeting, it's not a luxury, this is a basic in 2025. You're paying for your traffic. Why wouldn't you do something to keep it? At the end of the day, if you're not retargeting, you're not really marketing in this century. You're just gambling with someone's credit card. That's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more. Thanks.