Running Facebook Ads is among the most successful strategies when growing your brand, generating sales and leads, and establishing loyal consumers.
However, for marketers, Facebook Ads are even more critical. This is related to the size of the audience, targeting possibilities, social network attention, and a decrease in organic reach.
It’s reasonable to think that you have a few rivals among the ten million-plus Facebook advertisers. When it comes to competition, you should preferably be aware of their assets and how successfully they are doing it. The same is true if you’re running ads on Facebook.
You may boost the effectiveness of your Facebook Ad campaign by identifying the fans of your competitors’ pages. However, there is one distinguishing feature of your competitors’ consumers that you may use.
Remember, your opponent’s audience represents a set of consumers that are already poised to purchase what you have to offer.
Therefore, as a marketer, you simply cannot afford to squander this valuable real estate. Hence, you need to know how to tailor your Facebook advertising to your rivals’ audience.
A brand is set apart by the additional value it offers. And this is established through different marketing and promotion campaigns.
Not only are inventive ideas needed in the marketing business, but one also needs to monitor their rivals’ advertising efforts, targeting their consumers.
Here is how you target Facebook ads to the competitor’s audience:
Lookalike audiences are a powerful tool on Facebook that may assist you in obtaining an audience similar to that of another business.
Install Facebook pixels on your website and establish a Custom audience for the most remarkable ad results. These audiences share certain qualities – Facebook will look for people who have these characteristics.
Using a Lookalike audience to reach audiences of a rival is a successful strategy. This is because your items are so similar; there is a lot of overlap in your targeted traffic. Therefore, adopt the same traits as your competition and fans. For example, you may find rivals’ Facebook Page fans using the Lookalike audience technique.
Lookalike audiences that target Facebook advertising to rivals’ sites do not appear overnight. Targeting the correct audience and analyzing the precise characteristics of competitors’ Facebook followers takes time.
Therefore, you should examine the advertising audiences of marketers to develop the most accurate bespoke audience.
You cannot directly target the followers of your rivals’ pages on Facebook – there isn’t a button for that! However, Facebook Ads make approaching people with common interests more accessible as well as huge competitors.
Therefore, you can give more value to your advertisements once you’ve researched the material that connects with the audience you’re trying to target.
All you have to do is go to the “Interests” area and enter the name of the competing fan page.
For example, suppose you’re producing advertisements for a local bakery business. In that case, you may target visitors in the region who “like” or have expressed interest in pages linked to top local bakery companies.
But unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all method for reaching your competition through interest-based audiences.
However, by assessing client interests, you will profit from a highly targeted audience. You may then use the information on shared interests to develop bespoke audiences. These will help you target individuals with interests likely to coincide with your contenders and your business.
Getting the focus of your rivals’ audience is less about deliberately targeting relevant page fans and more about aligning to their interests and characteristics.
This enables you to send more relevant messages by improving your Facebook Ad targeting possibilities. Additionally, customizing your Facebook. However, to prevent wasting advertising expenditures on possibly rigid consumers, this method must be implemented correctly.
As a result, hiring a qualified advertising firm with the ability, tools, and knowledge to manage such parts of your PPC campaigns is recommended.
Compile a list of particular competitor pages that you wish to target. These pages can be found using a variety of methods. As you conduct your investigation, make a note of the page titles and URLs.
With that said, these are the best ways to locate relevant competitor pages:
Please make a list of all of your top competitors and find their Facebook pages. For example, you can locate the corporate Facebook pages or the founders’ pages.
Fill the Facebook search box with relevant terms and then choose the desired pages. You can go through this list for more sites relating to your profession.
Consider your sector’s brands and public figures as an excellent tactic. Locate and add their Facebook pages to your list.
If you’ve liked a page relating to your sector, they must be doing something well. So it may be helpful to examine your own Facebook profile and make a list of the relevant pages you have liked in the past.
You may access your likes by appending ‘/likes’ to the end of your Facebook profile URL.
When you click on the Community tab on any Facebook page, you will find a list of top fans.
Navigate to their profiles and add ‘/likes’ at the end of the URL.
Now you’ll be able to look at other pages that they’ve liked.
Go to a Facebook page that is relevant to your industry. Then, in the sidebar, look for ‘Related Pages’ or ‘Pages Liked by This Page.’ These alternatives allow you to delve down the rabbit hole and uncover competition pages you may not have considered otherwise.
Add interests that are important to your business to Facebook Audience Insights. Then, click the ‘Page Likes’ tab to get a list of pages liked by individuals with those interests.
To signify significance, Facebook arranges this list by affinity score. Pay special attention to sites with a high-affinity score.
Enter your search terms into YouTube to check who has the highest-ranking videos. Look out for their Facebook sites as well. They most likely have a valid, high-quality audience you can address.
When you go straight on your competitor’s Facebook page from the Audience Insights dashboard, you’ll get many content ideas and research data. Examine your rivals’ pages and take notice of the user involvement and the content as well.
Examine the left side of your rival’s Facebook profile. You will notice direct connections to their material categorized as:
Connect each of these links and dive deeper to see what kind of engagement they are receiving.
Once you’ve determined if their engagement is favorable or harmful, you may devise strategies to adjust your Facebook Ad approach accordingly. Here are some critical questions to assist you:
Examine how relevant platforms and your rivals engage their audiences in ways that progress them along the sales funnel. You may use this information to create your audience targeting techniques that will take visitors away from your competitors.
This strategy is quite successful since you effectively retarget an already engaged Facebook audience with material they have already expressed an interest in. To pique the interest of these followers, you may add your own distinctive and personal touch.
Split testing your target audiences helps you determine which ones produce the most remarkable outcomes for your ad campaigns. Since you’ve gathered important information about your competitors’ audiences and their likes (based on data from your page list), the Facebook split test audience factor is an excellent tool for precise targeting.
This tool separates your audience into random, non-overlapping groups and enables you to collect statistically meaningful data. You can have up to five versions of your test variable in the Facebook split test. Facebook computes and compares the price per result for every ad-set.
And then, the ad-set with the lowest possible cost per outcome (cost per video view) prevails. Next, Facebook uses test data and hundreds of simulations to calculate the Confidence Level, which is displayed as a percentage. Thus, estimating your chances of having similar findings if you repeated the split test.
As a result, in this scenario, you may use an audience split test and a goal to discover which audience delivers the lowest cost per video view. The steps for building a split test campaign includes:
When your winning ad set is discovered, Facebook will stop the test. You can now apply the split test to your whole sales funnel and pit your rivals’ audiences against one another to see where your subsequent efforts should go.
Targeting competitors in Facebook is not as clear-cut as it is in Microsoft Ads and Google Ads. Despite that, it can still be a worthwhile strategy to examine.
The point to keep in mind is to be careful with what you type in as your target and observe any performance to judge whether it can work for you or not.
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Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising isn’t an optional marketing accessory – it’s a serious tool for law firms that want measurable results fast. Whether your practice areas involve personal injury, criminal defense, family law, federal crimes, or estate planning, PPC gives you access to leads who need your services now. But throwing money at Google and Facebook without a plan will only drain your budget. If you’re tired of seeing competing law firms outrank you, this guide is for you.
Let’s explore the 10 key aspects of PPC campaigns that will bring you paying clients without wasting your ad spend.
PPC only works if you get the foundation right. That means finding keywords and phrases that your ideal clients type into search engines when they need help. If you choose the wrong keywords, you could end up wasting your ad spend fast. Law firm PPC is highly competitive and one of the most expensive PPC markets around. Small mistakes can cost a lot of money.
To get this done, use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google Autocomplete, and Semrush to get a list of 30-50 keywords related to your location and practice area.
Remember that PPC keywords will differ from general keywords used to get traffic to your website. You’re paying for each click, so for PPC, you only want to target keywords that indicate the user is likely to become a paying client. High-intent keywords are the ideal target, like “DUI attorney” or “drug charge defense attorney.” These phrases indicate the user is facing charges and needs an attorney now.
Use long-tail keywords related to your practice areas. These are phrases like, “how to beat a DUI charge in [state],” “how much does a child support lawyer cost in [county]?,” and “what should I do after being arrested for [offense]?”
Long-tail keywords are less likely to be cannibalized by your other paid ads, AI-generated summaries, and featured snippets. They’re also more likely to send you hot leads who become clients.
When a user searches for the phrase “how to beat a DUI charge in California,” the algorithm will know the user’s zip code, and will serve them ads for local DUI law firms who have successfully optimized their ads for DUI-charge-related phrases.
Avoid generic keywords, like “lawyer in [city].” While there’s a possibility someone searching for a generic lawyer might need your services, there’s also a chance they’re looking for someone outside of your practice areas. It’s not worth wasting ad spend to find out.
Understand that optimizing your ads for certain searches doesn’t necessarily mean using those exact words in your copy. For example, to optimize for the search “DUI attorney near me,” you’d use the phrase “DUI attorney” and include locations by city name, county, or zip code. You don’t need to include the words “near me” because ad algorithms interpret those words as a command to return local results. Google is good at discerning intent from searches.
Your PPC ads should direct users to a specific landing page created just for that ad. Don’t send people to your home page because it will make conversions harder. Home pages are too generic and will break the user’s sense of continuity and flow.
Each landing page should be specifically relevant to the user’s search query. For example, if your ad talks about services related to divorce, clicking should send users to a web page that outlines your divorce-related services.
Most attorneys create one page for every practice area and send paid ad clicks to those pages. This strategy is good since it serves visitors regardless of their origin. However, in order to track PPC ad conversions, it helps to have landing pages that don’t show up in search results and only get shown via ads. All you need to do is make a copy of your practice area pages, give them friendly URLs, and use them for your ad destinations.
A good landing page will encourage the user to call your law firm right away. To accomplish this, you need the following elements:
Your landing pages serve one purpose: to get users to call your law firm. With that in mind, make sure your phone number is visible on every page above the fold, preferably in your header. To make it clickable use the following markup:
<a href="tel:1234567890">(123) 456-7890</a>
Use this markup for every instance of your phone number throughout your website so mobile users can click to call. This seemingly small convenience will get you more leads.
People need a reason to trust you, so include client testimonials, previous settlement wins, Google and Trustpilot reviews, and links to your Avvo or Martindale profile.
Your copy should aim to convert clicks into leads that either contact you via phone, a contact form, or chat bot. Don’t be wordy – mention your specialty, location, what makes you different, and instruct people to contact you now. For example, your drug charge landing page might state you have 20+ years of experience and that you offer free consultations. Copy doesn’t need to be long to be compelling. For law firms, shorter is better – people don’t have time to read an essay when they’re just trying to get help.
Your CTA should be visible above the fold and on every page throughout your website. It should be clear, short, and direct. For example, tell visitors to call you for a free case evaluation.
Paid ads only work when you’re willing to spend money. If your daily budget isn’t high enough, your ads won’t get served to many people. To increase your impression share and therefore increase ad visibility, you need a good ad Quality Score and a decent budget. Higher bids can push your ads into favorable positions, which can increase your click-through rate (CTR) and generate more conversions.
Legal keywords can cost more than $100 per click, so you need to invest in your ads. However, if you’re doing ads on your own, start with a conservative budget and ramp up once you identify the campaigns that are converting. If you’re working with a reputable PPC agency, you can go all-in from day one without worry.
Even though lawyers typically pay more per lead than other industries, PPC ads are still considered a low-cost, effective form of marketing. Compared to other options, paid ads are cost-effective and excellent for capturing relevant leads immediately. As long as your ads are running, you’ll get clicks to your website.
When you identify your high-performing ads, cut the fat and pause keywords or ads that are underperforming and reallocate that money to your winners. PPC ads need to be managed weekly to ensure optimal performance.
The time your ads run matters; not every hour in the day is equal. There’s no need to advertise 24/7 unless you’re going to answer calls at 3:00 a.m. People might call you, get your voicemail, hang up, and call someone else in the morning. Even if you have a contact form on your website, someone who is stressed out and facing serious criminal charges may not go back to your site to look for an alternate way to contact you. They’ll go to bed and search for someone else in the morning.
So, what are the best hours to run ads? Most law firms see the most conversions during business hours and early evenings, so that’s when your ads should run in local time. Schedule your ads to run during peak hours for mobile searches. This is easy with Google Ads. To avoid paying for junk clicks, turn off your campaigns on holidays, weekends, or hours you aren’t available unless you have someone ready to take calls.
Location targeting is how you’ll get better conversions. You only want people in your local service area to see your ads, but you need to tell the ad platforms where you want your ads to be served.
Target high-value zip codes based on income, need, and proximity. If you work on a contingency basis, you might want to target people regardless of income since you’ll get paid if and when you win their case. However, if you don’t work with contingency fees, you need to be specific about your targets.
It’s equally important to exclude irrelevant locations from your ads. If you notice you’re getting clicks from neighboring states or areas you don’t serve, set your negative geotargeting rules to block them.
To get more clicks from relevant leads, use location-specific copy in your ads. Mention your city or county in the ad headline to catch people’s attention.
Negative keywords are your secret weapon for reducing wasted ad spend on irrelevant clicks. Add negative keywords that would indicate a user is not searching for actual legal services. For example, standard words like “free,” “pro bono,” “advice,” “template,” “blog,” “forum,” or “DIY” are a good place to start. People searching for these words are unlikely to become paying clients.
Other negative keywords to include are phrases and words that:
· Indicate a person is just looking for information or resources, but they don’t need a lawyer
· Are related to legal areas outside of your practice areas
The back end of your PPC platform will track clicks, but you need to track leads. The easiest way to do this is by hiring a PPC agency to manage your entire campaign from top to bottom. However, if you’re running ads in-house, here are some tracking strategies:
· Use call tracking software. You need to know which ads are generating calls. Tools like CallRail and WhatConverts will show you exactly where your calls are coming from.
· Tie form submissions to campaigns. If you just collect general form data, you won’t know where people came from. Connect each form to the ad group or keyword so you can track clicks and conversions.
· Ignore vanity metrics. A high click-through rate doesn’t mean much if you’re not getting conversions. Focus on cost per lead and cost per signed case. If your CTR is exceptionally high compared to conversions, adjust your campaign until you get better results.
Remember that you can’t improve what you don’t track.
While some people will call right away, not everyone looking for legal help will convert immediately. People facing criminal charges are more likely to make immediate phone calls, but when the matter isn’t urgent, people tend to research their options for a bit. This is where remarketing comes into play.
Remarketing ads help you convert more leads by targeting individuals who have already interacted with your ad or website, keeping your law firm at the top of their mind. You can customize your ad based on the web pages they visited for an even more personalized experience. However, you should limit the frequency so your ad doesn’t follow them for weeks or months.
Google Ads Assets are one of the most under-utilized PPC features, but they’re packed with power that can help you generate more high-quality clicks that convert to leads. The most useful assets for law firms include:
· Lead form assets. If you want to advertise during non-business hours, lead form assets will allow users to fill out a form directly within the ad, skipping the landing page completely. This will allow you to gather leads after hours without disappointing users when you don’t answer the phone.
· Location assets. This will display your physical address, hours, phone number, and map with your ads, including on YouTube. You’ll need a Google Business profile to set this up.
· Call assets. This allows users to call you directly from an ad. It displays a click-to-call button for mobile users, and displays your phone number for desktop users. This only works on the Google Search Network.
If you want to enhance your Google Ads performance, Ads Assets are essential.
PPC isn’t something you want to wing, especially when each click can cost $100 or more. If you’re not getting leads, you need a better strategy. Managing legal PPC campaigns requires a lot of time, constant optimization, and a solid understanding of how to attract leads that will become clients. That’s where a PPC agency becomes your competitive advantage.
At PPC.co, we help law firms build high-performance PPC campaigns that convert clicks into paying clients. If you’re tired of wasting your money and want results you can see, contact us today for a free consultation. We won’t just bring you traffic – we’ll get you qualified leads who need your help now.
When this apartment complex client partnered with PPC.co, their goal was clear: generate more qualified leads through Google Ads. In just 60 days—from January to March 2025—we transformed their paid acquisition performance. Total conversions more than tripled, jumping from 10 to 32, while the overall conversion rate soared by over 300%. At the same time, we drove down the cost per conversion by 44%, delivering significantly more leads at a much lower cost.
By strategically combining Performance Max and high-intent Search campaigns, we not only increased lead volume but improved overall efficiency and ROI. This rapid and measurable improvement underscores the value of data-driven optimization and expert campaign management.
This case study is a testament to what can happen when a well-structured campaign meets expert strategy and continuous optimization. Whether you're launching a new property or looking to boost occupancy in a competitive market, PPC.co delivers real results—fast.
Ready to grow your leads and lower your cost per conversion?
Contact us today to schedule a free audit and discover how we can help you achieve similar results.
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