A low cost per signed case can make an advertising report look excellent while the number of cases stays flat. Before you approve more spending, ask which searches brought those cases and whether the campaign is reaching more people who need the work your firm wants.
Use the ten measures below to answer three questions: Are suitable people contacting us? Are we helping them reach a decision? Can the firm afford the work we sign? Keep branded and other searches separate when you review growth, and follow the same people through intake rather than treating every recorded conversion as a new opportunity.
When a low case cost hides flat growth
We once reviewed another agency’s report for a personal injury firm. The cost of acquiring signed cases looked good. The firm was signing the kind of cases it accepted, but the volume barely moved as spending changed. That was the number I wanted explained.
Once we had access to the client’s advertising accounts, we examined the keywords and tracked conversions. The previous agency had set up good conversion tracking, which helped us trace the cases back to branded campaigns: searches for the firm’s name. The measurement was useful. The growth plan needed a closer look.
Branded campaigns can have a role in helping people who already know your firm reach you. Their results also need to be read in that context. A low average acquisition cost does not tell you how much additional work the campaign generated, or whether increasing its budget will bring in more people who have never heard of the firm.
We asked the firm what cases it wanted more of, who its ideal clients were, which markets it wanted to serve, and what made a case successful for its business. The usual intake criteria mattered: practice area, geography, filing deadline eligibility, and whether the person had already hired a lawyer. The firm’s goal was more specific. It accepted serious injury cases involving hospitalization and did not want minor accident work.
That changed the keyword strategy and the landing page messaging. We focused the content on those desired cases and used our StoryBrand approach to present the firm as a guide: show that it understands the injured person’s situation, explain how it can help, and make the next step clear. The advertising and the page needed to describe the same work.
After the changes had time to settle, we observed a 20% increase in signed serious injury cases over a 90 day window. That is my account of this engagement, not a benchmark or a promise for another firm. Several changes were made together, so the observation does not isolate the effect of a keyword or a landing page on its own.
The question for your next meeting is practical: Which cases are behind this average, and what evidence supports spending more? If branded searches account for much of the signed work, ask the team to show those results separately and explain its plan for reaching additional suitable prospects.
Five points to take into the next budget meeting
- Count real people and prospective matters, not every call, form, and callback as a separate lead.
- Separate unsuitable inquiries from qualified people the intake team failed to reach.
- Use the same inquiry cohort and cost definition when comparing sources.
- Let signed, accepted work and its expected contribution guide scaling decisions.
- Start with inquiry quality, intake progress, and signed work; add contribution and cash recovery when those records are trustworthy.
The operating chain: Recorded inquiry → valid → qualified → first human response → two way contact → evaluation completed → retained → expected contribution → cash recovered. A practice that evaluates suitability only after speaking with someone can record the contact and qualification timestamps in its actual order; the definitions and denominators must remain clear.
Jump to diagnose the leak, the shared record, metrics 1 to 7, matter economics, the starter dashboard, or the 30 minute review. The page’s sidebar also lists the sections.
Find the leak before you change the budget
Scroll sideways to review every column.Each row is shown as a labeled card.
| If you see this | Look at | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Inquiries up, signed cases flat | Metrics 1 to 2, then 7 | Check source and qualification reasons before raising spend. |
| Low cost per signed case, but case volume stays flat | Branded and other searches separately, then metrics 2, 7, and 8 | Trace the signed work to keywords and conversions. Define which cases and markets should grow. |
| Qualified inquiries arrive, few sign | Metrics 4 to 6, then 7 | Test coverage, routing, appointments, and attorney capacity. |
| Signed work rises, cash is tight | Metrics 9 to 10 | Review matter mix, delivery cost, and fee timing. |
| Source A has cheaper CPL than B | Metrics 3 and 8 | Compare both sources with the same cohort and cost basis. |
Create one record that survives the handoff
Give every prospective matter one inquiry ID when the first call, form, chat, or Local Services Ads contact arrives. A later callback from the same person about the same matter updates that record; it does not create another opportunity. Connect it to the marketing, intake, CRM, and case data handoff.
The minimum data contract is: inquiry ID; first touch date and time; channel, campaign, and ad group where available; contact method (call, form, chat, or LSA); exclusion reason; qualification status and reason code; first substantive human response timestamp; attempt count, contact achieved, and opt out; consultation or review scheduled, completed, rescheduled, or no show; retained, declined, lost to competitor, or still open, with an owner and date; then expected fee, variable delivery cost, and cash collected to date. Keep an opened matter as a separate stage if the firm opens files after engagement.
Use a shared disqualification codebook: outside practice area; outside geography or court; no liability or damages threshold where relevant; already represented; conflicts; cannot pay or fee terms rejected; and not the decision maker. Record the reason as well as the rate. Many outside practice contacts point to targeting or ad message work. Many already represented contacts may call for a different diagnosis. Keep spam and exact duplicates in the invalid category, not the disqualification category.
Keep pending work visible: For rates based on completed decisions, keep pending decisions separate. For response and contact measures, show every inquiry already due for action, including those still unanswered. Report the pending count and the cohort’s age beside the rate. Group records by first inquiry date and follow them forward. September spend divided by clients who first called in June does not describe one acquisition cohort.
Marketing owns source and spend data, intake owns response and disposition, attorneys own acceptance and capacity reasons, and finance owns fees and cost assumptions. One named person should reconcile the IDs across systems. The wider law firm marketing analytics guide explains the reporting system; here the task is deciding what to do with paid media.
Worked example: follow the same inquiries through the ten measures
Consider a hypothetical September cohort: a firm spends $12,000 on media and $3,000 on agency work, creative, tracking, and direct acquisition related intake labor. It records 120 inquiries. After removing 30 spam, duplicate, test, solicitation, or wrong number records, 90 are valid. All 90 have completed qualification; 50 meet the firm’s stated criteria. All 90 receive a first substantive human response attempt and are due for follow up; 38 reach a two way conversation. Twenty eight of the 50 qualified people complete the firm’s evaluation step, and 10 sign and are accepted as clients. All 50 qualified inquiries have final retention decisions.
To illustrate the measures the counts alone cannot supply, stipulate that analysis of the 90 first touch and response timestamps gives a 20 minute median and four hour 90th percentile. At signing, the 10 matters are forecast to bring in $60,000 in fees and require $20,000 in variable delivery cost. A hypothetical follow up ledger then records cumulative cash actually collected in this imagined scenario of $18,000/$38,000/$60,000 by days 90/180/365, with cumulative delivery cash outflows of $6,000/$12,000/$20,000; the $15,000 acquisition cost is paid at the outset. These are invented teaching inputs, not Juris Digital client results, a benchmark, or a forecast that can be treated as received cash.
Scroll sideways to review every column.Each row is shown as a labeled card.
| Metric | Same cohort basis | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Valid inquiry rate | 90 valid ÷ 120 recorded | 75% |
| 2. Qualified inquiry rate | 50 qualified ÷ 90 reviewed valid | 55.6% |
| 3. Cost per qualified inquiry | $12,000 media or $15,000 loaded ÷ 50 qualified | $240 media; $300 loaded |
| 4. First human response time | Stipulated timestamp analysis of all 90 valid inquiries | 20 minute median; four hour 90th percentile |
| 5. Two way contact rate | 38 contacted ÷ 90 valid due for follow up | 42.2% |
| 6. Evaluation completion rate | 28 completed ÷ 50 qualified eligible | 56% |
| 7. Qualified to retained rate | 10 retained ÷ 50 mature qualified | 20% |
| 8. Cost per retained client | $12,000 media or $15,000 loaded ÷ 10 retained | $1,200 media; $1,500 loaded |
| 9. Expected contribution | $60,000 forecast fees − $20,000 forecast variable cost − $15,000 acquisition | $25,000 forecast; $2,500 per retained matter |
| 10. Net cohort cash after costs | Cumulative collections − cumulative delivery cash outflows − $15,000 acquisition | Day 90: −$3,000; day 180: $11,000; day 365: $25,000 |
That makes media cost per recorded inquiry $100 ($12,000 ÷ 120), media cost per qualified inquiry $240 ($12,000 ÷ 50), and fully loaded cost per retained client $1,500 ($15,000 ÷ 10). A partner can now ask a better question: where did the other suitable opportunities go, and what will the signed matters contribute after delivery costs?
1. Valid inquiry rate: did the phone ring for real prospects?
Formula: valid, deduplicated inquiries ÷ all recorded inquiries. In the September example, 90 ÷ 120 = 75%.
Keep separate counts for spam, tests, vendors, solicitations, wrong numbers, and duplicates. A real caller with an unsuitable matter is valid; qualification handles that later. If volume rises and validity falls, the media buyer should inspect search terms, placements, forms, location settings, call tracking, and deduplication before celebrating more “leads.”
2. Qualified inquiry rate: is this work the firm wants?
Formula: qualified inquiries ÷ valid inquiries with completed qualification. All 90 valid records in the hypothetical cohort were reviewed, so 50 ÷ 90 = 55.6%. If 20 were pending, the denominator would be the 70 reviewed records, and the dashboard would show “20 pending.”
Segment by campaign, practice, geography, contact method, and reason code when volume permits. If the firm wants more cases in a particular practice area, the attorney and intake lead must agree on what “qualified” means before the media buyer optimizes to it. Conflict checks and deeper legal review may later change acceptance; those outcomes belong in metric 7.
3. Cost per qualified inquiry: what does suitable demand cost?
Formula: attributable acquisition cost ÷ qualified inquiries. In September, media cost per qualified inquiry is $12,000 ÷ 50 = $240. The fully loaded version is $15,000 ÷ 50 = $300.
Scroll sideways to review every column.Each row is shown as a labeled card.
| Definition | Numerator ÷ denominator | Result and use |
|---|---|---|
| Media CPL | $12,000 media ÷ 120 recorded | $100; platform hygiene |
| Media cost per qualified inquiry | $12,000 media ÷ 50 qualified | $240; campaign comparison |
| Fully loaded cost per qualified inquiry | $15,000 media plus direct acquisition costs ÷ 50 qualified | $300; acquisition opportunity cost |
| Fully loaded cost per retained client | $15,000 same loaded cost ÷ 10 retained | $1,500; budget against matter economics |
The $3,000 includes only costs assigned to this cohort, such as agency, creative, tracking, and direct acquisition related intake labor. Label the numerator every time. Comparing one channel’s media only CPL with another’s fully loaded cost makes the cheaper source look better for the wrong reason. If an ad platform view hides cost, use its billing record or export for spend; the formulas and denominators do not change.
4. First substantive response time: how long did a caller wait for a person?
Measure: elapsed time from inquiry receipt to the first meaningful human response attempt. An automated confirmation is not a human response. In the hypothetical September cohort, all 90 valid inquiries receive a first attempt; the stipulated timestamp analysis yields a 20 minute median and four hour 90th percentile. These statistics cannot be derived from stage counts alone. A real firm needs each first touch and response timestamp and should also show the share meeting its stated response target.
Show both elapsed clock time and business hours time if after hours staffing is a decision. Business hours reporting should not hide what an evening caller experienced. The intake lead can then fix coverage, alerts, routing, or ownership. Until that path works, more ad spend may simply create more unanswered calls.
5. Contact rate: did anyone have a two way exchange?
Formula: valid inquiries with two way contact ÷ valid inquiries due for follow up. Assume all 90 valid September inquiries were due for follow up: 38 ÷ 90 = 42.2%. A voicemail is an attempt, not contact. Record attempts, wrong details, opt outs, future follow ups, and unresolved records separately.
Read contact rate alongside first response time. A quick first call can still fail if the follow up sequence, timing, or channel does not fit. The intake lead should set a practice appropriate policy and comply with applicable communication requirements.
6. Evaluation completion rate: did suitable people reach a decision?
Formula: completed consultations or attorney reviews ÷ qualified inquiries eligible and due for that step. In this hypothetical cohort, all 50 qualified inquiries were due for evaluation, so 28 ÷ 50 = 56%. The 28 completed evaluations are part of the same 50 qualified inquiries, not a new lead pool.
For a consultation practice, also show completed consultations ÷ scheduled consultations whose appointment time has passed. Keep future appointments and reschedules out of the completed appointment denominator. For another practice, the decision step may be conflict clearance, document review, or a direct attorney assessment. The intake lead owns scheduling and preparation; the reviewing lawyer owns the decision and its reason.
7. Qualified inquiry to retained rate: did suitable opportunities sign?
Formula: retained and accepted clients ÷ qualified inquiries in a mature cohort. In September, if all 50 decisions have matured, 10 ÷ 50 = 20%. Define retention as a completed engagement plus any required firm acceptance. If opening a matter happens later, track that milestone separately.
Code the 40 other mature outcomes: lost to another firm, declined after deeper review, conflict, fee terms rejected, no further response, or declined because the firm had no capacity. A full attorney calendar can lower the retain rate without any deterioration in ads. Show that reason separately from case quality. If decisions are still pending, report them separately and wait before calling this the final cohort retain rate.
In a Juris Digital podcast conversation with Yani Smith, Smith described a situation where increasing leads did not produce a corresponding increase in cases; reviewing rejected opportunities changed the diagnosis. Her example illustrates why marketing, intake, and the accepting attorney need to read the loss reasons together.
8. Fully loaded cost per retained client: what did signed work cost to acquire?
Formula: acquisition cost assigned to the cohort ÷ retained clients from that cohort. September’s fully loaded cost is $15,000 ÷ 10 = $1,500 per retained client; media only cost is $12,000 ÷ 10 = $1,200. Put the 10 retained clients and maturity status next to the average. Ten recent files give less confidence than a larger, mature sample.
This retained client cost is an attributed cost assigned under the firm’s chosen attribution rule. Attribution does not establish that the ads caused all 10 clients. The ROAS guide explains why a platform revenue ratio cannot settle that question.
9. Expected contribution: will these files support the firm’s goals?
Formula per retained matter: expected collected fee − expected variable delivery cost − allocated acquisition cost. To continue the same hypothetical September cohort, assume each of the 10 retained matters is expected to collect $6,000 and require $2,000 in variable delivery cost. Total expected fees are $60,000, total variable delivery cost is $20,000, and expected contribution after the $15,000 acquisition cost is $25,000, or $2,500 per retained matter. These fee and cost assumptions are illustrative, not actual case forecasts.
Finance should use relevant matter type history and show the sample and uncertainty. Do not substitute the amount in controversy, gross billed fees, or the largest recent result for expected collected fees. Avoid counting intake labor twice in acquisition and delivery cost. The guide to profitability as a firm grows places this measure in the wider firm budget.
10. Cohort cash recovery: can the firm finance the growth?
Measure: cumulative cash collected from the September matters minus acquisition cash outflow and attributable variable delivery cash outflow at each checkpoint. In the hypothetical follow up ledger, the $15,000 acquisition cost was paid at the outset. Day 90 shows $18,000 collected − $6,000 delivery cash − $15,000 acquisition = −$3,000. Day 180 shows $38,000 − $12,000 − $15,000 = $11,000. Day 365 shows $60,000 − $20,000 − $15,000 = $25,000. These are stipulated cash observations in an invented scenario, separate from the $60,000 fee forecast made at signing. A real dashboard needs actual payment dates and delivery outflows; it must never count forecast fees as collected cash.
A contingency matter can take much longer to collect and has greater outcome variance than a flat fee matter paid at engagement. Use checkpoints suited to the practice and avoid stopping a sound program simply because recent matters have not matured.
Scroll sideways to review every column.Each row is shown as a labeled card.
| Decision | PI contingency | Flat fee practice |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per retained | Compare by case type and expected cost to prosecute, with a mature cohort. | Compare with the collected fee and delivery margin per service. |
| Expected contribution | Use conservative, matter specific outcome ranges and variable costs. | Use the actual fee schedule, collections, and labor needed to deliver. |
| Cash recovery | Plan for long, uneven collection timing and case financing. | Check deposits, installment timing, refunds, and faster delivery costs. |
For criminal defense or another higher volume, lower fee practice, segment separately: intake speed and capacity may dominate the path to an accepted engagement. Do not average these economics into a PI dashboard and call the result a useful benchmark.
Start with a dashboard the firm can maintain
Week 1: capture inquiry date, source, valid yes/no, qualified yes/no with reason, and retention status (signed, declined, or pending) with its date. Add the advertising spend and assigned acquisition costs to calculate metrics 1 through 3 and show a provisional retained count. Keep pending records visible.
Week 4: add first human response timestamp, two way contact yes/no, and evaluation status with its scheduled or completed date. The intake lead can then find delays and failed contact before the media buyer increases volume.
Quarter 2: connect expected collected fee and variable delivery cost, then actual collection dates, amounts, and delivery cash outflows at suitable 90, 180, and 365 day checkpoints. Metrics 9 and 10 can wait until the first eight measures are trustworthy. The data contract above is the eventual target, not a demand that a four attorney firm buy a new system this week.
Leave click through rate, Quality Score, and other platform diagnostics on the media buyer’s working view. They may help tune ads, but they should not replace calls, qualified opportunities, signed clients, and matter economics on the owner’s dashboard.
What should change in the ad platform?
Before changing bidding, ask which conversion actions the account is optimizing toward and whether those actions represent the work you want. A phone call, a form submission, and a signed client describe different stages. Preserve useful tracking while correcting the goal or targeting.
Send the stage reasons back to the media buyer. Invalid and unqualified reasons can guide negative keywords, locations, ad copy, LSA categories, and form fields. Cost per qualified inquiry can support bid limits, asset group changes, and campaign pause rules. If human response time or contact rate is poor, repair intake coverage before labeling the media source a failure or scaling it.
Once retention and expected contribution are reliable, ask the team whether the account can use enhanced conversions for leads to connect eligible offline outcomes to advertising interactions. The team must verify the supported upload method, matching fields, account requirements, and consent handling. A signed client event and its supported value need a reliable intake record first; sending a form fill does not establish that a case was accepted. Do not upload sensitive matter details. Follow the platform’s data policies and use only the approved event and matching fields.
Run a 30 minute review that ends in assignments
- Marketing: separate branded from other searches, show signed case volume beside acquisition cost, and reconcile source and spend for one first inquiry cohort. Identify invalid or unsuitable patterns and nominate one source to pause or constrain if the evidence supports it.
- Intake: reconcile valid, qualified, contacted, evaluated, and retained records. Test the call path and commit to one intake fix with an owner and date.
- Finance and the managing partner: agree whether the review uses media only or fully loaded cost and which direct costs belong in it. Record one shared cost definition.
- Together: name the largest unresolved stage, the competing explanation, and the date to check whether the change worked.
The broader law firm KPI research helps when a campaign decision affects staffing or the growth plan. The intake operations guide helps assign the follow up fix. A statement such as “improve lead quality” is not an assignment; “review the out of area calls, test the evening route, and report the result Friday” is.
Choose an inquiry cohort from the last 60 to 90 days and record its age. Start this week with metrics 1 through 3 and the signed count, showing pending decisions. Add response, contact, and evaluation records as the team can maintain them. Before raising spend, ask whether the source is reaching the desired case types, whether its results depend on branded searches, and whether intake can handle additional suitable inquiries. Then calculate fully loaded cost per retained client and, as the matters mature, cash recovery. The goal is a phone that rings for work the firm can accept, serve well, and build on.
If you want help connecting your paid media decisions to the cases your firm accepts, explore our paid media and PPC services for law firms. Bring the report, the case criteria, and the questions the current numbers do not answer.
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