TL;DR — Most PI firms running Google Ads are wasting 25–45% of their spend, and they don't know it because nobody on their team opens the account more than once a month. This 30-minute quarterly audit uses eight specific checks — search terms, conversion actions, negative keywords, geo, device, ad extensions, landing page match, and attribution — to find the leaks. On a $25,000/month account, fixing the top three usually recovers $7,000–$10,000 in monthly spend within 60 days.
Key takeaways
- Run this every 90 days. Google Ads drifts. What worked in January is lighting money on fire by April because of auction dynamics, new competitors, and auto-applied recommendations you didn't approve.
- Search terms are check #1 for a reason. On a typical PI firm account, 20–35% of spend goes to queries that will never sign a case (job searches, existing-client support, unrelated injury types, competitor employees).
- Conversion actions are usually broken. We've audited firms counting page views, phone clicks that never connected, and form fills from vendors as "conversions." Fix this before you fix anything else.
- Auto-applied recommendations are the silent killer. Google turns these on by default. They routinely add broad-match keywords and location expansions your campaign never asked for.
- A 30-minute audit won't replace an AI-first ads platform, but it will tell you whether your current setup deserves your money. If you find three or more of the eight issues below, something is structurally wrong — not just fine-tuning.
Why this audit exists
Google Ads is the single largest line item in most PI firms' marketing budget. A mid-size firm spending $15k–$60k/month on paid search is normal. A $20M+ firm at $100k–$300k/month is normal. And in almost every one of those accounts, there is 25–45% waste sitting in plain sight.
The waste is not subtle. It's not a clever optimization a data scientist needs to find. It's broken conversion tracking, runaway search terms, disabled negative lists, and auto-applied recommendations that someone at Google turned on without asking. You can find most of it in thirty minutes with an account login, a coffee, and this checklist.
This is a companion to our 2026 PI firm marketing strategy pillar and our lead generation playbook. If you want the "why" behind paid search in a PI stack, start there. If you want to know what to do in the next half hour, keep reading.
The 30-minute Google Ads audit: eight checks
Run these in order. Each check has a time budget. If you blow past it, flag the issue and move on — you can come back.
Check 1 — Search terms report (5 minutes)
Open Insights and Reports → Search Terms, last 90 days, sorted by cost descending.
You're looking for four kinds of waste:
- Job-hunting queries. "Personal injury paralegal jobs," "law firm hiring near me." Any PI firm running broad match has paid for these.
- Existing-client support. "[Your firm name] payment portal," "status of my case [firm name]." These are current clients, not new cases. Don't pay to re-acquire them.
- Wrong practice area. A car accident firm showing for "workers comp lawyer," "nursing home abuse attorney." Happens constantly with Google's "close variants" matching.
- Nominal competitors and their employees. "[Competitor firm name] careers," "[competitor] reviews." You're subsidizing their recruiting budget.
Add every bad query as a negative keyword — exact or phrase match depending on pattern. Do not add them as broad negatives; you'll block queries you actually want.
Check 2 — Conversion actions: what is Google actually counting? (4 minutes)
Go to Tools → Conversions. Look at every action marked "Primary" or included in "Conversions."
The question: Does every conversion on this list represent a signed retainer or a qualified intake call?
What we find in roughly 7 out of 10 audits:
- Page views counted as conversions (someone landed on /contact/ — that's not a conversion)
- Phone clicks counted without duration (a 4-second misdial is not a lead)
- Form submissions from intake vendors counted twice — once in Ads, once in CallRail
- "Conversions" that are really newsletter signups, blog subscribers, or resource downloads
Fix: Primary conversions should be call-connected with duration ≥ 60 seconds, contact form submission with IP filtering, and — ideally — qualified intake confirmed via CRM webhook. Everything else moves to "Secondary" or gets archived. This is the single most common source of false positives in PI firm Google Ads.
For context on what good attribution looks like, see our lead generation pillar.
Check 3 — Negative keyword lists (3 minutes)
Open Tools → Shared Library → Negative Keyword Lists.
Every PI firm should have at least three active negative lists, applied to every campaign:
| List | Purpose | Sample entries |
|---|---|---|
| Industry negatives | Block non-PI legal searches | "criminal," "divorce," "immigration," "bankruptcy," "DUI defense" |
| Junk intent | Block non-commercial searches | "free," "pro bono," "jobs," "salary," "how to," "wikipedia" |
| Brand negatives | Block own-brand and competitor searches you don't want | own-firm name, competitor names (unless you're running a deliberate conquesting campaign) |
If any list is missing, empty, or not attached to your campaigns, that's finding #3 already.
Check 4 — Auto-applied recommendations (2 minutes)
This one is fast and almost always a win. Go to Recommendations → Auto-apply settings (gear icon, top right).
Google turns auto-apply ON by default for many recommendations. The dangerous ones:
- "Use broad match keywords" — will broad-match every keyword in the account
- "Add new keywords" — will add keywords you never approved
- "Expand to other locations" — will run ads outside your state bar's jurisdiction
- "Upgrade your existing keywords to broad match"
For a PI firm, every auto-apply should be OFF. Your targeting is regulated by state bar advertising rules (Florida Bar Rule 4-7.13, Texas Disciplinary Rule 7.02) and by the practice areas your firm actually signs. Google doesn't know either. Turn it off.
Check 5 — Geographic targeting and exclusions (3 minutes)
Go to Campaign → Locations → Location Report. Check two things:
-
Where are your clicks actually coming from? Sort by cost. If a car accident firm licensed in Georgia is paying for clicks from Tennessee because "Presence OR interest" targeting was left on, that's a direct leak. Change targeting to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations." Never "interest."
-
Are there zip codes or cities inside your target state that you should exclude? Rural counties with low case values, markets where another firm in your network handles cases, or geos where CPLs are 3–5x state average. Exclude them.
For a solo practice launching in one county, the opposite problem: targeting is often set to the entire state and should be narrowed to a 30–50 mile radius.
Check 6 — Device performance and bid adjustments (3 minutes)
Segment → Device, last 90 days.
For PI, the pattern is almost universal: mobile dominates clicks, mobile dominates conversions, and desktop has higher cost-per-signed-case (because desktop searchers are often comparison-shoppers, not post-accident leads).
What you're checking: Is your cost-per-conversion on desktop more than 1.5x your mobile CPA? If yes, apply a -20% to -40% device bid adjustment on desktop. If tablet conversions are negligible, adjust tablet by -50% or exclude. Small change, real savings.
Check 7 — Ad extensions and landing page match (5 minutes)
Two quick looks.
Ad extensions (now called "Assets"):
- Sitelinks: at least 4, linking to practice area pages, not your homepage
- Callouts: at least 4, with state bar-compliant language (no "best," no "guaranteed," no "#1")
- Call asset: scheduled to your intake hours, with call reporting on
- Location asset: linked to verified Google Business Profile
- Lead form asset: turn off — call it heresy, but lead form ads on Google typically produce low-intent leads that don't sign
Landing page match. Click three of your top-spending ads and follow them to the landing page. Ask:
- Does the landing page match the search intent? ("Truck accident lawyer" ad → truck accident page, not homepage.)
- Is the phone number clickable on mobile, at the top of the viewport, and does it match the ad's call tracking number?
- Is there a form above the fold?
- Does the page load in under 2.5 seconds on 4G? (Check in Chrome DevTools → Network → Fast 3G.)
If any ad is pointing at a generic homepage or a slow page, kill that ad group until the landing page is fixed. For design standards, see our law firm website pillar and practice area pages guide.
Check 8 — Attribution model and data retention (3 minutes)
Go to Tools → Measurement → Attribution.
- Attribution model: should be "Data-driven" if you have enough volume (>300 conversions in 30 days), otherwise "Position-based" or "Time-decay." Last-click is almost never right for PI because the journey involves multiple touches.
- Conversion window: set to 30–60 days, not 90. PI case journeys are shorter than people think; 90-day windows inflate conversion counts with assists that didn't actually drive the retainer.
- View-through conversions: for search campaigns, should be off or counted separately. For Display/YouTube, different analysis.
Then cross-check: pull the same date range in your CRM or intake system. If Google Ads says 47 conversions and your intake log says 28 signed retainers originated from paid search, you now know your true cost-per-signed-case.
That number — cost per signed retainer, not cost per conversion — is the only one that matters. Our reporting service exists because almost no firm has this number clean.
How does this audit differ by firm stage?
The checks are the same. The priorities are not.
| Firm stage | Priority checks | Typical finding |
|---|---|---|
| Solo / new firm (0–$1M revenue) | Checks 4, 5, 7 — auto-apply OFF, geo tight, landing pages match intent | Running too broad, targeting whole state, homepage as landing page |
| Mid-size firm ($1M–$15M) | Checks 1, 2, 3 — search terms, conversion actions, negatives | 25–35% of spend on bad queries, conversion actions counting junk |
| Established firm ($15M+) | Checks 2, 6, 8 — attribution, device bids, true CPA | Paying agency on "conversions" that don't convert to signed retainers |
What do I do with what I find?
One of three things happens after an honest 30-minute audit:
- You find zero to two issues. Account is in good shape. Run the audit again next quarter.
- You find three to five issues. Normal. Fix them in priority order over the next two weeks and you'll see CPA improvement within 30–45 days.
- You find six or more. Your current setup is structurally broken. Either your agency isn't doing their job, your in-house manager is underwater, or you're running the account yourself when you shouldn't be. Time for a bigger conversation.
A common pattern we see: firm #3 has been paying an agency $3,500–$8,000/month to manage a Google Ads account that clearly hasn't been opened in six weeks. The agency has a monthly report that shows "conversions up 22%" — and the conversions are page views. This is why we built our AI ads service: the audit-and-optimize loop runs continuously, not quarterly, and the conversion definition is tied to signed retainers, not vanity metrics.
Frequently asked questions
How often should a PI firm audit their Google Ads account?
Quarterly at minimum for any account over $10k/month. Monthly for accounts over $50k/month. The 30-minute checklist above is the quarterly version — a proper monthly audit adds ad copy testing, keyword quality scores, impression share analysis, and competitor ad monitoring. Accounts left unaudited drift fast because Google's system actively changes your settings through auto-applied recommendations and bid strategy adjustments.
Can I run this audit myself, or do I need an agency?
A managing partner can absolutely run this audit. The checks are in the Google Ads UI and don't require technical skill. What you can't do yourself in 30 minutes is the fix — rewriting negative lists, rebuilding conversion actions, restructuring geo targeting. That's 10–20 hours of work the first time. Our view: do the audit yourself quarterly. Outsource the execution.
What's the single most common Google Ads mistake PI firms make?
Counting the wrong conversions. We've audited firms whose Google Ads dashboard showed a $180 cost-per-conversion and whose actual cost-per-signed-retainer was $2,100 — a 12x gap — because "conversions" included form fills from spam bots, 3-second call clicks, and newsletter signups. Fix conversion tracking before you fix anything else. Everything downstream (bid strategies, budget allocation, attribution) is built on top of it.
Does this audit apply to Google LSA too?
No. Local Services Ads run on a different system with different mechanics (pay-per-lead, not pay-per-click), different controls, and different optimization levers. LSA has its own 20-minute audit — lead disputes, business hours, service areas, review velocity. See our Google LSA pillar for the LSA-specific version.
We use an agency. Shouldn't they be doing this?
Yes. Ask them for their last quarterly audit document. If they can't produce one, or if the "audit" is a slide deck full of "we increased conversions by 22%," that's your answer. A real audit lists the issues found, the fixes applied, the projected impact, and the actual impact 30 days later. If you're paying $3,500+/month for account management, you're paying for this work whether they're doing it or not.
The bottom line
Thirty minutes, a logged-in account, and this checklist will tell you whether your paid search budget is working or bleeding. On a $25k/month account, the first audit typically finds $7k–$10k in recoverable monthly spend. On a $100k/month account, it's often $25k–$40k.
The audit isn't complicated. The discipline of actually doing it is the rare part.
If you'd rather have someone run this audit for your firm — with a named cost-per-signed-retainer number at the end, not a "conversions up 22%" slide — request a free audit. 48-hour turnaround, no sales call required. We'll send back a one-page memo with the top three findings and what fixing them is worth.