Back to the Google Ads campaign in Fresno.
We increased the budget to $25,000/mo and ran the campaign for 2 months going after highly competitive key phrases. It converted very well, with nearly 50% of the clicks turning into a phone call. We ended up going after the top spots 4 days each week. This resulted in about 6 calls each week. Calls were tracked and recorded via CallTrackingMetrics. All calls were promptly answered.
Quality of the leads were not great (with a phone call counting as a lead). Essentially, about 1 out of every 12 - 16 calls converted into a client.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) was $12,000 - $16,000 (avg $14k).
Totally not worth it. Interestingly, we have had significantly better results in other regions.
The question had to be answered: WHY are the firms there who are running Google Ad campaigns still running them?
While I can't be certain, I've bumped into a couple of firms out there who intentionally run Google Ad campaigns even though they are not cost effective. Their strategy is to simply break even across all marketing channels, then focus on growth via marketing to past clients. It's an interesting strategy, and one I had not considered as I've always focused on ROI.
So there you have it. In most cities in California, running personal injury ads is very expensive. In most major cities such as Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc, if you're after the big ticket keywords, you're going to pay a lot for them. There are indeed cities where PPC campaigns may still be run cost effectively, but you're unlikely to find them in California.
