Every month, a managing partner somewhere opens an email from their PPC agency. The report is full of impressions, click-through rates, cost per click trends, and quality score improvements. The agency is upbeat. The numbers are mostly green.
The partner closes the email and thinks the same thing they thought last month: the agency says PPC is working, but the firm is not signing more clients. Are we being told the truth?
This is the most common conversation in law firm marketing. The question of how to know if PPC is working law firm owners ask every quarter, and most never get a real answer. The reports look fine. The signed cases do not match.
Here is the honest framework. Four signs your agency is failing, three signs your agency is fine but something else is broken, and a clear test to tell them apart.
Why You Cannot Trust the Standard PPC Report
A typical agency report shows: impressions, clicks, click-through rate, cost per click, conversions, and conversion rate. All of these are real metrics. None of them tell you whether PPC is producing signed clients for your firm.
The reason is simple. A conversion in Google Ads usually means “someone filled out a form” or “someone clicked a phone number.” It does not mean “someone called, the call was answered, they booked a consultation, and they signed a retainer.” Between Google’s definition of a conversion and your firm’s definition of a signed client, anywhere from 60 to 95 percent of the value drops out.
Agencies report on what Google reports. Google reports on what happens on the ad platform. Neither one has visibility into your CRM, your intake calls, or your retainer agreements. The result is reports that show PPC “working” while your bank account disagrees.
4 Real Signs Your PPC Agency Is Failing
These are the agency-side problems. If any of these are true, the issue is the agency itself, not your intake or your offer.
Sign 1: They cannot tell you cost per signed client
Ask your agency: “What is our cost per signed retainer from PPC over the last 90 days?” If they cannot answer in five minutes, they are not tracking the metric that matters. Cost per click is interesting. Cost per signed client is the only number that proves whether PPC is profitable for your firm.
A good agency has an answer ready. A failing agency will deflect to “that depends on your CRM” or “we measure conversions, not signed retainers.” Both are excuses. The agency should be integrated with your CRM. If they are not, that is their failure, not yours.
Sign 2: They are bidding on the wrong intent keywords
Pull your search terms report (or have them pull it). Look at the actual queries that triggered your ads in the last 30 days. You are looking for two things:
- Information-seeking queries (“what is the statute of limitations,” “do I need a lawyer for a fender bender”) that are spending budget but rarely produce signed cases
- Competitor brand queries that look like wins but actually have terrible signed-client rates
A good agency aggressively filters these out with negative keywords. A failing agency lets them keep spending because the conversion volume looks good on the report.
Sign 3: The landing pages are generic
Click your own PPC ad right now. Where does it go? If it goes to your homepage, your agency is failing. If it goes to a generic “contact us” page, your agency is failing. If it goes to a landing page that mentions the specific service you advertised, with a phone number above the fold and a simple form, the agency is doing this part right.
Generic landing pages waste 30 to 50 percent of qualified clicks. There is no excuse for them in 2026.
Sign 4: They will not give you transparent access to the Google Ads account
You should have full Google Ads access. Not a screenshot. Not a PDF report. Actual login access to your own account. If your agency refuses or makes this difficult, the account is not yours, the agency owns your spend, and you are locked in.
This one is non-negotiable. A good agency hands you the keys on day one and trusts you to use them. A failing agency gatekeeps the account because they know what is inside it would not survive transparency.
If three of these four signs are true at your firm, the agency is the problem. If only one is true, the issue is probably elsewhere in your funnel.
3 Signs the Agency Is Fine but Intake Is the Problem
These are the patterns we see at firms where the PPC agency is actually doing solid work, but signed clients are still not showing up. The breakdown is happening inside the firm.
Sign 1: Leads are coming in but no one is answering fast enough
Pull the timestamps on the last 50 PPC leads. Compare them to the timestamps of your first contact attempt. If more than 25 percent of leads are not contacted within 15 minutes, the agency is doing its job and your intake is killing the leads.
Speed-to-lead is the single biggest predictor of consultation booking rate. A 15-minute response converts at roughly 3x the rate of a 60-minute response. Your agency cannot fix this. Only your intake team can.
Sign 2: Consultations are booked but not closing
If consultation booking rate is healthy (above 35 percent of qualified leads) but signed-retainer rate is low (below 25 percent of consultations), the agency is delivering qualified leads and your closing process is the bottleneck. This is an attorney training issue or a pricing issue, not a marketing issue.
Sign 3: The cost per signed client is fine, you just want more volume
Sometimes the agency is doing well, the math works, and the firm simply has not increased budget enough to scale. If your cost per signed client is profitable and your case capacity is not maxed, the answer is more spend, not a different agency.
Firms often fire their PPC agency right when they should be doubling their budget. Check the unit economics before you make a change.
The 5-Minute Test
Here is a fast diagnostic you can run today. Pull these five numbers for the last 90 days:
- Total PPC spend
- Total qualified leads from PPC
- Total consultations from those leads
- Total signed retainers from those consultations
- Average case value
Now do the math:
- Cost per lead = Total spend ÷ Total leads
- Lead to consultation rate = Consultations ÷ Leads
- Consultation to signed rate = Signed ÷ Consultations
- Cost per signed client = Total spend ÷ Total signed
- Marketing ROI = (Signed × Case Value) ÷ Total Spend
Three possible outcomes:
Outcome A: Cost per signed client is profitable
If cost per signed client is less than 30 percent of average case value, your PPC is working. The agency may not be perfect, but the unit economics are. Optimize, do not replace.
Outcome B: Cost per lead is high, intake metrics are good
If your cost per lead is high but your intake conversion rates are healthy, your agency is the problem. They are delivering expensive leads that your team is converting well. A better agency would deliver cheaper leads at the same conversion rate.
Outcome C: Cost per lead is reasonable, intake metrics are weak
If leads are coming in at a reasonable cost but lead-to-consultation or consultation-to-signed rates are below benchmark, your agency is doing its job. The breakdown is inside your firm. Fixing intake or closing will produce more gains than switching agencies.
The Conversation to Have With Your Agency
Once you have the numbers, schedule a 30-minute call with your agency. Bring the data. Ask three questions:
- “Our cost per signed client over the last 90 days is X. Is that profitable for our firm given our average case value of Y?”
- “What specific changes would you make in the next 30 days to lower that number?”
- “What do you need from us, in terms of CRM data or intake reporting, to optimize against signed clients instead of conversions?”
A good agency will engage with all three questions, push back on any numbers they think are wrong, and give you a concrete plan with timelines. A failing agency will get defensive, blame your intake, and pivot the conversation back to clicks and impressions.
How they respond to those three questions tells you almost everything you need to know.
When to Actually Fire Them
Three conditions, all true at once:
- Cost per signed client is unprofitable AND has been for at least 90 days
- You have given them clear feedback and a specific 30-day window to improve
- They cannot or will not give you transparent CRM-integrated reporting
Firing a PPC agency without those three conditions usually just resets the clock with the next agency. The new agency takes 60 to 90 days to ramp up, makes the same mistakes, and you are 6 months further from profitable PPC.
If you are going to make the change, document the decision in writing, request all account access and data exports, and give 30 days’ notice. Then run a focused search for a new agency that already has law firm experience and CRM integration capability.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a reasonable cost per signed client from PPC for law firms?
It depends entirely on practice area and case value. Personal injury firms commonly accept $2,000 to $5,000 per signed client because case values are high. Family law firms typically need to stay under $800 to $1,200. Estate planning firms aim for $400 to $700. The metric to watch is the ratio: cost per signed client should be less than 30 percent of average case value.
How long should I give a new PPC agency before judging them?
90 days. The first 30 days are setup and learning. Days 31 to 60 are optimization. Days 61 to 90 should show measurable improvement against cost per signed client. If they have not produced a clear trend by day 90, they will not.
Should I switch from an agency to in-house PPC?
Only if you are spending more than $15,000 a month on ads. Below that, the cost of a qualified in-house PPC manager exceeds what you save on agency fees. Above that, in-house starts to make sense, especially for firms with multiple practice areas.
My agency offered to lower their fee. Should I stay?
A fee cut does not fix bad targeting, generic landing pages, or refusal to integrate with your CRM. If those issues exist, a 20 percent fee reduction does not solve them. If those issues do not exist, you probably do not need to leave anyway. Fee renegotiations are usually a distraction from the real conversation.
Get Help Auditing Your PPC Agency
If you are stuck between “the reports look fine” and “the signed cases do not match,” we can run the 5-minute test on your firm in real numbers and tell you, with specificity, whether the issue is your agency, your intake, or your offer. No pitch. Just a clearer answer than your current monthly report gives you.
Want help figuring out if your PPC agency is actually performing?
Book your free 15-min strategy call at getgoinginbusiness.com
Related: How to Build a Law Firm Marketing Dashboard That Actually Makes Sense →