Google AdWords and Microsoft Advertising are two common ways in which law firms advertise online. When individuals type in relevant keywords in the search engines, the idea is that the law firm or lawyer will show up at the top of the search in the paid advertising section.
For those who do not know, if a lawyer or law firm advertises on Google, the ads work on Google and their affiliate search engines. If a lawyer or law firm advertises on Microsoft, the ads will work on Bing, Yahoo and their affiliate search engines. Of course, paid advertising through Google and Microsoft is different than the organic rankings that are below or above the paid ads. With organic rankings, search engines employ complicated algorithms to determine where webpages rank.
With paid advertising through Google and Microsoft, however, the law firm or lawyer bids positioning in the paid advertising section on the top or bottom of the search results. Google and Microsoft then charge the attorney or law firm per click.
No question paid advertising on Google and Microsoft is expensive. When this originally became a thing in the early 2000s, the cost of Google and Microsoft Advertising was significantly less costly than the traditional alternatives like radio, television or the phone book. It is not less expensive today. Given the popularity today, and because an increasing number of individuals find and locate lawyers online, the cost of advertising online is now as much or more than the traditional advertising options.
However, one additional problem with running Google and Microsoft Ads, beyond the cost, is fake and fraudulent clicks. The unfortunate reality is that many will click on the ads of a lawyer or a law firm when they have no intent on hiring that lawyer or law firm. They might be a competitor. It could be a former employee. It could be some advertising agency. It might even be a bot clicking on the ads.
When there are ad clicks that are fraudulent, this can cost a law firm or lawyer a lot of money needlessly. Wasting money on fraudulent clicks can be frustrating. It can deplete a budget quickly on a given day or week. It can also mute the entire impact the advertising efforts could have had.
Thankfully, there is software out there that is supposed to help with filtering out fraudulent clicks. One of the most popular ones is ClickCease. There are other alternatives out there to ClickCease that claim to offer the same general protection.
The cost of ClickCease is presently $15 to $50 per month. However, the amount of money that ClickCease can save could far surpass that amount. For some lawyers and law firms, it can save them thousands of dollars blocking the IP addresses of individuals or bots that are fraudulently clicking the paid, online ads of a lawyer or law firm.
If somebody in your firm is running the Google or Microsoft Ads, they ought to look at ClickCease and the various alternatives. Additionally, if you are hiring a marketing company to run your paid ads through Google or Microsoft, you ought to talk to them to see if they are using software to filter out the fraudulent clicks.
In the end, most attorneys and law firms cannot afford to waste their advertising dollars on fraudulent clicks. It is vital for most who advertise online to utilize some software lick ClickCease or one of the alternatives if they are using Google or Microsoft Advertising.
If you have any thoughts, feel free to share them below.
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