Understanding the Impact of AI on PPCs for Lawyers

In little over a year since Open AI released its Chat GPT artificial intelligence software, AI has already had a significant impact on the digital marketing ecosystem, and the practice of digital marketing for lawyers.

Many law firms are already using AI technology for content creation, image creation, SEO, and email marketing. But perhaps the biggest shift in the legal marketing sector has been the effect that AI has had – and will have – on PPC marketing.

Facebook, Google, and other PPC platforms have used technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing to help law firms and other advertisers optimize their PPC campaign performance for many years. 

But since the emergence of commercially-available AI technology for PPCs during the last year, our agency has seen significant changes in the way paid search campaigns for lawyers operate in the real world.

AI & Facebook (Meta) Ads

No paid search platform has been more impacted by the emergence of artificial intelligence for PPCs than Facebook.

Before 2020, Facebook and Instagram advertisements with Meta Ads relied on pinpointing certain demographic or interest groups that could make effective target audience for law firm advertisements.

When Apple announced that year that it would begin allowing iOS users to stop Facebook and other advertisers from tracking them online, Facebook’s paid search business was heavily effected: advertisements on Facebook fell by an estimated 20%.

Over the last year, Facebook has employed AI technology to compensate for the lost targeting options from Apple’s iOS updates, and the results have been impressive: we have seen significant improvements in cost-per-lead and cost-per-clients with PPC campaigns on Facebook managed by The Abbery. 

Since Facebook’s AI updates, we have begun to once again strongly recommend Meta Ads to our law firm clients where their practice areas make a good fit for the advantages of ads on Facebook.

AI & Google Ads Optimization

While Google PPCs have been less-heavily impacted by AI than Facebook, the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies to Google Ads has nevertheless ushered in significant changes to how we optimize PPCs on this platform.

Over the last several years, Google has started pushing advertisers on Google Ads to use its machine learning technologies to optimize bidding, instead of relying on manual bid optimizations. 

Before recently, we had observed mixed results with Google’s “maximize conversions” or “maximize clicks” bid optimization strategies: while effective for some firms, we also found that these options often times worked better for Google than they did for our law firm clients: spending rose drastically without a comparable increase in leads or clients.

As Google has shifted to AI technology for bid and conversion optimization over the last year, we have begun to observe significantly improved results for PPC optimization with the platform’s automated strategies.

Contact The Abbery for Help With PPCs for Your Firm

Want to know more about how AI is impacting PPCs for lawyers? Ready to find out how using artificial intelligence for paid search optimization can generate new leads and new clients for your law firm?

The Abbery has been helping law firms across the U.S. with PPC for more than 15 years. Regardless of your firm’s practice areas, if you’re ready to get started with PPCs, we can help.

To schedule a free consultation about how The Abbery can help your firm with PPCs or for a free quote on building, launching, optimizing, and tracking paid search campaigns, contact us by sending us a message with the consultation form at the top of this page.