Industries · Legal services
Value-Based Bidding for Law Firms: Bid on Case Value, Not Inquiries
A serious case and a quick question both arrive as one inquiry, and legal clicks are among the most expensive there are. Use your own intake and case history to estimate what each new inquiry is likely to be worth to the firm, so bidding learns which matters to pay for.
Why lead counts fall short
Why a count of inquiries misses what your cases are worth
Legal intake is full of inquiries that were never going to become clients: questions outside your practice areas, matters in another jurisdiction, people shopping for free advice. They look exactly like a strong case in a lead report, and at legal cost per click every one of them is paid for in full.
Your case management system knows the difference. Some practice areas sign far more often; some fees are many times others. Bidding that counts inquiries buys more of whatever is cheapest to generate, which is rarely the work the firm wants.
Signing rate and fee move separately
Some matters sign often for a modest fixed fee; others sign rarely for a large one. Expected value weighs both, so neither the busiest practice area nor the biggest fee wins by default.
Contingency fees arrive late
On contingency work the fee is known only when the case resolves, often a year or more after the inquiry. Price on the fee your system records, and accept that a longer history is needed before the model can see enough resolved cases.
Intake details are sensitive
Injury details, health, immigration status and similar facts do not belong in an advertising signal, and the product refuses them by column name. Practice area, jurisdiction and how recent the matter is are the fields to use.
The funnel
From inquiry to fee recorded
- Inquiry
- Consultation
- Client signed
- Fee recorded
Known when the lead arrives
What a new lead can be priced from
- Practice area or case type
- Jurisdiction or office
- How recently the matter arose
- Whether another firm is already instructed
Learned later
What the history is trained on
- Whether a consultation took place
- Whether the client signed
- The fee recorded on the matter
The practice area and the basic facts of the inquiry are what price a new lead. The consultation, the signed engagement and the fee are what the history is trained on.
How it works
From your sales history to what the ad platforms see
- 1
Bring in your history
A CRM export or a HubSpot connection: leads with their outcomes, won, lost or still open.
- 2
Find what relates to value
Each field known when a lead arrives is tested against your closed deals. Only the ones that clearly moved outcomes are kept.
- 3
Estimate each new lead
Its expected value: how likely leads like it are to become customers, times what those customers were worth.
- 4
Send the value
To Google Ads or Meta, as a conversion value on the lead. Sending changes no bid by itself.
- 5
Judge it on real outcomes
Compare closed deals before and after your campaigns start optimising on the values, never the values we sent.
Worked example
Three leads, three different values
Expected lead value = the estimated chance of becoming a customer × the expected value of that customer.
Value basis: Fee recorded on the matter. The fee your system records on a signed matter: a fixed fee, billed hours to date, or a contingency fee once collected. Use one basis consistently across the export.
Road traffic injury, matter arose last month
- No other firm instructed
- Within your jurisdiction
20% × $9,000
$1,800
estimated value of this lead
Divorce with shared property
- Wants to start within weeks
- Local office
35% × $6,500
$2,275
estimated value of this lead
General question, no practice area chosen
- Matter arose over three years ago
- Outside your usual jurisdiction
3% × $2,500
$75
estimated value of this lead
Illustrative example, not customer results.
The injury case and the divorce land close in expected value by different routes, and each is worth between twenty and thirty times the general question. At legal click prices, telling the platform that is where the budget is decided.
How the product actually estimates this
It does not score each lead on its own. It starts from your overall close rate times your average won deal, with any deal above three times the median counted at that cap, then applies a multiplier for each field that clearly moved outcomes in your history, and rescales so the average estimate matches what your leads were actually worth. Fields that do not clear the evidence thresholds are left out and listed. The formula above is the same idea in one line.
What data you need
Your CRM already has most of it
- Inquiry dateWhen the inquiry arrived, not when the matter opened or closed.
- Signed, not signed or still openInquiries that never became clients matter as much as the ones that did.
- Fee on signed mattersOne basis for the whole export: fixed fee, billed to date, or contingency fee collected.
- Fields from the intake formPractice area, jurisdiction, how recent the matter is, whether another firm is instructed. No injury, health or status details.
- Matching informationGoogle's click ID or the inquirer's email for Google; email or phone, plus Meta's cookies from your site, for Meta.
What matters most is reliable outcomes and enough of them. The report checks your own file and names anything it could not price, rather than applying a one-size minimum.
How activation works
Estimating, sending and optimising are three steps
The product estimates each lead's value and sends it. Your campaigns use it only once you set them to optimise for value, a change you make in the ad platform, and the platform decides when an account qualifies.
Google Ads
Sends each inquiry's estimated value to a conversion action in Google Ads, matched on the click ID or on email. Your campaigns use it only once they bid on value, for example with Maximize conversion value.
Switching a live campaign, step by stepMeta
Sends a ValuedLead event with the value through the Conversions API. Website-form ad sets bid on values once they qualify for value optimisation; instant-form ad sets can learn from the consultation and signing stages through Conversion Leads.
How the Meta route worksThe full method, from pricing a lead to measuring the result, is in the complete guide. Leads that reach your CRM without a click ID are covered in the click ID guide.
How to judge success
Measured in outcomes, not in the values we sent
Signed clients per inquiry
By practice area, before and after the switch.
Cost per signed client
Ad spend against engagements signed, not against form fills or calls.
Fee value per inquiry
Recorded fees divided by the inquiries that produced them, once enough matters have resolved.
A higher conversion value in the ad platform is only the platform repeating what we sent. The product's evaluation compares signed matters before and after the switch, with inquiries from other sources as a control.
Questions
Legal services, specifically
Most of our fees arrive a year or more after the inquiry. Can this still work?
Yes, because a value is estimated when the inquiry arrives, from similar matters that have already resolved. The long wait affects two things: you need a history long enough to hold plenty of resolved matters, and proof of the switch takes longer to read.
Can we use the details of someone's injury to price the lead?
No. Injury and health details are sensitive information, the ad platforms' policies restrict them, and the product refuses health columns by name. The practice area, how recent the matter is and the jurisdiction carry the signal without them.
One settlement was many times our usual fee. Will it distort the model?
Not past the cap. Any fee above three times your median is counted at that level, the cap is shown, and every matter it clipped is listed, so one exceptional case cannot teach the platform to chase its lookalikes.
A lot of our inquiries come in by phone. Are they included?
Yes, if your intake records them with the date, the practice area and the outcome. Matching a phone inquiry back to an ad needs the click ID from call tracking, or an email or phone number the platform can match.
We are a business law firm, not a consumer practice. Which setting fits?
Choose businesses at the start of the diagnostic. Company size and industry are then tested alongside the practice area, as they would be for any business buyer.
Check whether your lead data is ready
Upload a CRM export or connect HubSpot. In about five minutes you see which of your fields relate to value, what new leads would be estimated at, and whether your history is enough to send. The file is read in your browser; you are asked for a name and work email before the full report.