Personal injury legal services constitute one of the most competitive areas in digital marketing. PPC bid prices for keywords such as “car accident lawyer” might go beyond $100, and CPL can be much more costly when taking conversion rate into account.

And in order to succeed in it, you have to know precisely what makes this business so costly and where lies the potential.

Why Personal Injury Leads Cost So Much

Contingency fees in personal injury cases have a potential value of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This results in the increased price for all types of advertising, Google ads, Local Services ads, even directory advertising since the bid is made against the value of one case, and not against the budget.

In effect, smaller and newer law firms cannot possibly compete with established firms with bigger marketing budgets just on the amount they spend on ads.

What really matters are the advertising channels where the size of the budget does not guarantee the number one position.

SEO: The Long Game That Pays Off

Due to the high cost of advertising, search engine rankings are of great importance in personal injury law.

It’s all about organic ranking in “car accident lawyer,” where you won’t be paying per click for traffic – that’s the whole difference.

The difficulty lies in the fact that personal injury SEO is quite competitive, as well as time-consuming, 6-12+ months to see results of any kind, and there will be firms already having years of links and content on the market, which will give them a great advantage.

More local or specific terms are a better place to start than trying to rank for the most popular ones.

Local Services Ads and Google Business Profile

Google’s Local Services Ads (aka “Google Screened,” those listings that come first in search) have been one of the most vital methods for generating leads for the personal injury niche because they come before any regular pay-per-click or organic results.

Unlike typical search ads, they use a pay-per-lead system, and so the stakes are different.

Additionally, having an optimized Google Business Profile, complete with a high number of authentic reviews, is essential due to the emotional and financial burden people feel when searching and relying heavily on social proof.

Referral Networks

There have always been quite a number of personal injury clients coming from referral sources:

• Previous clients of the attorney
• Lawyers not specializing in personal injury cases (or particular type of PI case)
• Chiropractors or body shops that deal with the victims of accidents

It is possible to build this network and get good-quality leads from them without spending much money on lead generation methods.

Lead Generation Companies and Legal Marketplaces

There are companies (and call centers) dedicated to providing personal injury leads, which can be sold in a shared or per-call fashion.

This source is quick to supply volume, but the quality is extremely diverse, and with shared leads, you may be sharing the same case with another company.

The need to vet out lead qualifications of a lead generation company and get an initial period of testing becomes critical in this niche, in particular, because a bad lead generator may ruin your business.

Content and Case-Type Specificity

Since the term “personal injury lawyer” is too generic, most companies which have achieved success tend to market their services using more specified areas of cases like motorcycle accidents, dog bites, and certain kinds of work-related injuries.

Tracking What Actually Matters

Since this product segment is rather pricey, the metrics will need to expand beyond cost per lead:

• Cost per closed case, not cost per inquiry
• Quality of lead source, which sources close cases and which generate calls but fail to close cases
• Tracking of phone calls right down to keyword or campaign level, as phone leads dominate this business segment

Bottom Line

Personal injury lead generation favors those companies that can take the longer-term approach of SEO, reputation management, and referrals, instead of those looking to simply outspend their competition on paid leads.

With the high cost of making a mistake in this industry, every paid source of leads needs to be approached carefully and measured all the way to the signed case.