How to Maximize Your Paid Search Ad Budget During COVID-19

Law firms and businesses alike are finding new ways to do business while keeping their employees safe. This means working from home, taking phone consultations, video conferencing and even closing offices altogether. With everyone doing their part to keep business “running as usual,” updating your search marketing campaign can help your business thrive during this time of uncertainty.

Let Them Know You’re Open: Update Law Firm Hours on GBP and Website

Did your hours of operation change? Is your physical office location open, or are you meeting virtually?

Letting clients know that your business is open is important. Because you’re running paid ads, you need to confirm for consumers that your law firm is open when they see your ad or visit your landing page.  

If you’re working remotely and are running “call only” ads or have “call extensions” on your ads, be sure to update the phone number to where you can be reached.

Update When Your Ads are Running: 

Adjusting your ad schedule is important for your paid search campaign. During this time, you need to take extra steps to let visitors know your law practice is open.  What you want to avoid is having a potential client click on your ad, come to your website and call you, only to get your voicemail. This could indicate to them that your office is closed, and it’s also not a good use of your ad spend dollars.

To combat this, adjust your ad schedule based on the availability of the people answering the phone. This way, potential clients have a better chance of reaching someone when they call and make your ad campaign more productive.

Keep Your Google Business Profile Updated

Searchers need to know that your firm is open. Updating your hours of operation on your GBP listing, along with your website, will help you achieve this. 

You may be wondering; how does this help my paid search campaign? Isn’t Google Business Profiles organic traffic?

Now that Adwords allows you to link your GBP with your Adwords’ account if your office hours are not updated on GBP, then the location extensions shown in your ads will not be correct. So, instead of confirming for searchers that your business is open, you will be displaying incorrect information, increasing your ad spend, and possibly worse, losing a potential client.

Refine Your Geographic Target

Now that many offices and businesses are closed, people are trying to limit how often they leave the house. This also has an effect on how far people are willing to drive from their homes. If you see many clients in person, limiting your target audience will make better use of your Adwords’ budget.

To improve your search campaign’s conversions, reduce the target radius so that you only reach searchers within a short driving distance from your office. These are the people more likely to visit and hire your law firm.

Adjust Your Adwords’ Campaign for Less Mobile Traffic

Mobile traffic has dropped for most businesses since the COVID-19 crisis. Given this change, reviewing your campaign may help you determine if you should change your device bid adjustments to lower your spend on mobile devices.

With so many people staying indoors, you should prepare to see a big change in performance on both mobile and desktop devices.

While business may have slowed down, optimizing your Adwords’ campaign to get the most out of your advertising dollars, can help your law firm navigate this challenging time.