From PPC Waste to Marketing ROI

How Optimizing Client Experience Protects and Multiplies Law Firm Marketing Spend

Executive Summary

In today’s hyper-competitive environment, law firms that serve consumer clients—particularly in areas like personal injury, family law, criminal defense, workers’ compensation, disability, and immigration—must dedicate a significant percentage of their revenues to marketing just to stay visible. Unlike large corporate firms that rely on referral networks or brand prestige, consumer-facing firms win or lose based on how effectively they capture demand in their market.

Benchmark data shows that the average company invests around 9-10% of its revenue into marketing. But personal injury law firms often exceed 20-30%, with some leaders, like Ken Hardison of PILMMA, encouraging aggressive growth-minded firms to spend as much as 35% of revenue on marketing.

Yet no matter how much money is invested in advertising to drive prospects to clients, one truth remains constant: if a client cannot reach their attorney or receive updates easily, they will find their way back to the firm through the most intuitive digital channel available—Google search. When that happens, guess what is at the top of the list search? That’s right, the paid search result. When the client clicks this result at the top, the firm ends up paying for a click it never should have paid for. In essence, poor client experience converts existing clients into a recurring line item of wasted PPC spend.

This Article Explores:

• The state of marketing spend benchmarks across industries and within legal services.

• How spending trends compare with firms like Ken Nugent, P.C., which invests roughly 30% of revenue into marketing.

• Case studies of Lundy Law and Ken Nugent, P.C., both of which uncovered thousands of dollars each month being wasted on pay-per-click campaigns because existing clients Googled their firms just to make contact.

• How client experience technology like Case Status shines a light on this dark corner of operations to eliminate this waste while simultaneously improving ROI and client satisfaction.

Part I: Benchmarking Marketing Spend

Marketing Spend Benchmarks: Industry, Company Size, and B2B vs. B2C Models

Marketing Spend Summary

Across sectors, marketing outlays vary widely, but recent cross-industry surveys converge on an average of roughly 9-10% of revenue devoted to marketing in 2023—a climb from pandemic lows yet still shy of mid-2010s peaks. This headline number masks substantial dispersion by business model and industry structure.

Consumer-facing categories (retail, e-commerce, consumer packaged goods) typically sit at the upper end of the range (often 10-20%+ of revenue), reflecting the premium placed on mass awareness and rapid demand capture. Conversely, industrial and professional services—which rely more on direct sales, reputation, and relationships—frequently operate at under 5%.

The B2B vs. B2C split follows the same logic: B2C brands tend to invest more to reach broad audiences, while B2B firms concentrate spend on targeted programs and sales enablement. Notably, a 2023 Gartner readout measured B2B at ~8.4% vs. B2C at 5.7%, an inversion of the long-run pattern driven by pandemic-era contractions in several consumer categories.

Company Size and Lifecycle Effects

Company size inversely correlates with marketing as a share of revenue. Startups and new entrants frequently allocate 15-30%—sometimes more in an individual year—to establish awareness and accelerate growth, while mature enterprises often scale absolute spend but compress the percentage to mid-single digits as brand equity compounds.

Within industries, outliers underscore the point: for instance, high-growth software firms may sustain very high sales-and-marketing ratios, while mega-brands can succeed at ~6% given formidable base demand and scale efficiencies. The takeaway is situational: stage, strategy, and competition should anchor the ratio more than any single “universal” benchmark.

Industry Patterns at a Glance

Sectoral differences persist even after controlling for size and model. CPG routinely lands among the highest spenders (often 15-30%), while professional services and industrial manufacturing commonly fall near the bottom. Retail/e-commerce and media/communications often sit in the low- to mid-teens, with financial services in the high single to low double digits depending on mix (consumer vs. institutional).

A UK-anchored composite chart reflects a similar rank order globally: consumer goods and real estate at the top, energy and B2B services at the low end, and most other sectors clustered between ~10-15%.

Marketing Spend as % of Revenue – Benchmarks by Industry and Business Model

The average marketing expenditure is about 9–10% of company revenue in recent surveys[1].
However, this varies significantly across industries and depending on whether a company is B2B-focused or B2C-focused. Table 1 summarizes typical marketing spend ranges by industry, distinguishing B2B vs. B2C where applicable:

Table 1: Typical Marketing Spend Ranges by Industry

Legal Services: An Outlier Inside Professional Services

Large corporate law firms typically devote ~1-2% of revenue to marketing (excluding salaries), with pre-COVID readings occasionally higher; this reflects heavy reliance on partner-led business development and institutional relationships. Small to mid-size firms, particularly those in consumer-facing practice areas, are a different story: SBA-aligned guidance and practice-area advisors commonly recommend ~7-8% (or more) for established firms, with 10-12%+ for growth-oriented shops in competitive markets—consumer-facing practice areas often at the top due to case values and intense advertising environments. Personal Injury tops the list, hitting as much as 30-40% of revenue on program spend in some cases.

Channel Mix and the Digital Tilt

The composition of marketing budgets has evolved dramatically over the past five years. Digital now represents roughly 55-60% of total marketing spend, up from about 45-50% pre-2020, according to The CMO Survey and Gartner’s 2024 marketing budget analyses. This shift reflects a broad move toward measurable, data-driven channels and an emphasis on full-funnel orchestration where brand awareness, engagement, and conversion are all tracked through analytics platforms.

For most industries, this digital acceleration has been permanent. The pandemic forced organizations to digitize client touchpoints, and consumers never went back. Even as traditional media and in-person events have regained relevance, the bias toward digital efficiency and attribution remains the defining characteristic of 2023-2025 planning cycles.

Within digital, pay-per-click (PPC) and paid search have emerged as some of the largest single line items in the mix. Across sectors, search advertising accounts for roughly one-third of total digital spend, with many B2C and local service industries—including legal, healthcare, and home services—relying on PPC as their primary demand-generation channel. In consumer law specifically, PPC is often the lifeline of lead flow, capturing intent-driven prospects at the exact moment of need.

However, that dependence comes at a price. The economics of PPC are not static; they are auction-based. Every time a firm bids on a keyword such as “car accident lawyer near me,” it enters a real-time marketplace against competitors in its region. As more firms join the bidding pool and as large players increase budgets, the cost per click rises.

Industry data from Wordstream and the Legal Marketing Association show that the average cost per click for legal services now ranks among the highest of any vertical—often $25-$150 per click depending on the market and practice area. This inflationary pressure is compounded by the fact that large firms, flush with marketing capital, can afford to “raise the stakes” in bidding wars. The result is a kind of marketing arms race, where every additional competitor drives costs higher for everyone else.

For smaller and mid-sized law firms, this dynamic poses a significant challenge. When the same keywords are being contested by national advertisers—for example, Morgan & Morgan’s $350 million annual ad budget as reported by Forbes (December 2024)—it becomes nearly impossible for regional firms to maintain visibility without either overspending or innovating in efficiency. Even well-funded firms like Ken Nugent, P.C., which invests nearly one-third of total revenue into marketing, must vigilantly track ROI and minimize leakage to remain profitable.

This is why marketing efficiency and client experience are now inseparable. Every wasted click—such as those generated when an existing client Googles their own attorney just to get an update—represents both a budgetary loss and a missed opportunity to reinvest in true growth. As PPC consumes an ever-larger share of the marketing portfolio, firms that fail to control that waste will find themselves trapped in an escalating bidding cycle with shrinking returns.

In short, digital dominance has made PPC both indispensable and dangerous. It is the channel most directly tied to measurable demand, yet also the one most exposed to competitive inflation. For modern law firms, mastering PPC efficiency and eliminating unnecessary clicks through improved client communication has become a critical pillar of sustainable marketing economics.

What This Means for Consumer-Facing Law Firms

For consumer practices, benchmarking against true peers (consumer vs. corporate, regional intensity, firm size) matters more than the all-industry mean. The data above explains why marketing-led firms in categories like personal injury rationally operate well above the 9-10% average, often into the teens—and why the most aggressive market leaders purposefully exceed even those levels when the lifetime value and competitive dynamics justify it.

Part II: Ken Hardison’s Guidance vs. Industry Practice

Ken Hardison, founder of the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing & Management Association (PILMMA), has been one of the most outspoken advocates for aggressive marketing investment in the legal industry. When Hardison first began teaching lawyers about growth, his golden rule was that firms should reinvest 25% of their revenue into marketing. At the time, this was considered almost radical compared to the conservative 2-5% many firms were allocating.

But over the past two decades, competition in consumer-facing legal services has intensified dramatically. Pay-per-click costs have skyrocketed, traditional media is saturated with law firm advertising, and consumers are bombarded with choices. Hardison has since updated his guidance: 30-35% of revenue should now be dedicated to marketing for firms that want to dominate their market.

To many attorneys—particularly those in practice areas that do not rely on heavy consumer demand—this sounds almost impossible. But context matters. Consider that consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies regularly spend 20-30% of their total revenue on marketing to sell commodities like soda or toothpaste. In such environments, attention is the product. The law is no different for personal injury: when consumers face legal needs, they don’t consult a catalog or carefully compare options. They open Google, they call the first firm they see, and they decide within minutes.

The sheer scale of modern legal advertising underscores Hardison’s point. As Forbes reported in December 2024, Morgan & Morgan spent $350 million on advertising in a single year, an amount that rivals the budgets of national consumer brands. The article noted:

“Morgan & Morgan’s $350 million ad blitz in 2024 placed the firm among the heaviest-spending advertisers in the country, underscoring how personal injury law has transformed into a brand-driven business where visibility equals survival” (Forbes, December 2024).

This reality helps explain why firms like Ken Nugent, P.C. align so closely with Hardison’s philosophy. In a recent conversation, Marketing Director Jack Derrickson shared that Nugent’s firm invests around 30% of its total revenue into marketing, perfectly within the updated Hardison framework. That level of spend is far above most industry averages, but in Georgia’s fiercely competitive personal injury market, it is the price of staying visible.

Nugent’s marketing portfolio is deliberately diversified. According to Derrickson, the firm divides its spend roughly into three equal parts:

• One-third on PPC and digital advertising: Google Ads, Local Service Ads, and other paid digital placements.

• One-third on traditional media: Such as TV, radio, billboards, and marquee sports sponsorships with the Atlanta Braves, Falcons, and Georgia Bulldogs.

• One-third on digital initiatives outside of PPC: Such as retargeting campaigns that keep the Nugent brand in front of consumers who have already interacted with it.

This balance of lead capture, brand awareness, and audience retention mirrors sophisticated strategies from consumer brands. But with this level of investment comes heightened risk. When a firm is spending 30 cents of every dollar it earns just to maintain visibility, any inefficiency compounds quickly. Dollars wasted on ineffective campaigns or lost to existing clients clicking on PPC ads are not minor irritations—they are costly leaks in a high-pressure system.

In this context, Hardison’s updated philosophy is not aspirational; it is survival. The bidding wars are on. The more competitive the landscape becomes, the more aggressive and disciplined firms must be. And as Forbes highlighted with Morgan & Morgan’s $350 million year, personal injury law has officially entered the era of brand-scale marketing.

Part III: The Hidden Drain – PPC Waste from Existing Clients

The Modern Legal Consumer

The modern legal client no longer behaves like the referral-driven customer of decades past. Today’s consumer has been trained by Amazon, DoorDash, and Delta Airlines to expect information on demand. They don’t memorize phone numbers or keep business cards; they simply expect digital access whenever they need it. When they want to contact their attorney, they reach for the nearest device, open Google, type the firm’s name, and click the first visible result.

Unfortunately, that “first visible result” is almost always a paid advertisement.

This simple, intuitive behavior creates an invisible but costly leak in law-firm marketing budgets. Each click—whether from a brand-new lead or a current client—triggers a pay-per-click (PPC) charge. And unlike a coffee order or food delivery fee, these costs can be substantial. In legal advertising, every click can cost between $25 and $150, depending on the market, the keyword, and the competitiveness of the practice area.

What makes the problem particularly insidious is that nothing about the client’s intent looks malicious. They aren’t gaming the system or ignoring instructions—they’re following the same pattern of digital convenience that defines the rest of their lives. In a world where people Google “nearest pharmacy” instead of saving CVS in their contacts, it’s only natural that they Google their law firm, too.

Yet the consequences are enormous. Each time a retained client clicks a firm’s branded ad to find a phone number, the firm pays for the privilege of speaking to someone who is already under contract. Multiply that behavior across hundreds or thousands of active clients, and the cumulative waste becomes staggering.

Why It Happens

At its root, PPC waste from existing clients stems from a communication gap disguised as a marketing cost. When clients don’t receive timely updates or lack an easy, trusted digital channel to reach their firm, they default to search engines as their primary navigation tool. The Google search bar has become the universal customer-service portal.

This behavior is further reinforced by how Google structures search results. Even when a firm’s organic listing appears on the page, paid ads dominate the top slots, especially for branded terms such as “Smith & Associates” or “Nugent Law.” Many consumers can’t distinguish between ads and organic results; they click whatever appears first. That click triggers a PPC fee—often on the firm’s own name.

For law firms that compete in dense urban markets or across multiple regions, this problem compounds. Google’s ad platform automatically serves paid ads to local users even for branded searches, meaning firms can end up paying to capture their own traffic in every geography where their name appears.

The Scale of the Problem

The numbers illustrate just how expensive this hidden drain has become. A 2024 Legal Marketing Association survey confirmed that digital advertising now consumes more than half of the average law firm’s marketing budget, with Google Ads and Local Service Ads (LSAs) representing the single largest portion of that digital mix.

For personal-injury and mass-tort firms, monthly PPC budgets between $20,000 and $100,000 are not uncommon. Some national practices exceed that tenfold. Yet industry data—and firsthand analyses from firms such as Lundy Law and Ken Nugent P.C.—reveal that a significant portion of those paid clicks originate from existing clients rather than new prospects.

This means that law firms are, in effect, subsidizing client communication with prospecting budgets. Dollars intended to acquire new cases are instead being spent to answer status questions or facilitate phone calls that should have been free.

When even 10 percent of paid traffic comes from current clients, a firm spending $50,000 per month on PPC is losing $5,000 outright—money that could fund additional advertising, staff resources, or technology improvements. At 20-25 percent, the waste balloons into tens of thousands monthly, quietly eroding return on marketing investment.

The Operational and Financial Impact

Beyond the obvious budgetary waste, PPC leakage from existing clients skews performance metrics. Cost-per-lead (CPL) and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) calculations become distorted, making marketing campaigns appear less efficient than they truly are. Intake teams are left handling calls from people who aren’t new leads at all, clogging phone lines and inflating reported conversion rates.

Over time, this distortion forces firms into a vicious cycle: they increase budgets to compensate for declining efficiency, bidding more aggressively in auctions already inflated by competitors doing the same. What begins as a communication problem escalates into a systemic profitability issue—one that can quietly drain six or seven figures annually from a growth-minded firm.

Why Awareness Is Rising Now

Firms are only recently discovering the scale of this issue because few historically tracked the origin of inbound calls beyond the channel level. Tools like CallRail, HubSpot, and Google Ads attribution dashboards now make it possible to match call logs with existing client lists, exposing the magnitude of duplicate traffic. When those analytics reveal that 10-30 percent of clicks come from current clients, partners are understandably alarmed.

As the data becomes undeniable, forward-thinking firms are reframing the conversation. This isn’t just a marketing-efficiency problem—it’s a client-experience failure with financial consequences. Clients click ads because they can’t easily find what they need elsewhere.

Turning the Problem into an Opportunity

The same digital behavior that creates PPC waste also points toward the solution. Clients expect fast, frictionless communication; they’re comfortable in digital environments; and they will adopt a simpler channel if it’s provided.

By offering a branded, mobile-first client app that delivers real-time updates, messaging, and document access—such as Case Status—firms can satisfy that instinct for instant access while cutting off the unnecessary return path through Google Ads.

In essence, every dollar saved by eliminating PPC waste becomes a reinvestment in growth. By improving the client’s digital experience, firms reduce their paid-search exposure, protect their budgets, and strengthen relationships simultaneously.

Part IV: Case Study – Lundy Law

Jordan R. Lundy, partner at Lundy Law, recounts the hard decision to spend significant revenues on marketing budget, partly to play offense to capture those next round of clients, but also as defense against his competition. He and the team became ultra-aware that many of these PPC clicks (and the program dollars spent) were coming from existing clients.

By cross-referencing CallRail phone data with client records, Lundy’s team realized that clients who had already retained the firm were Googling the firm, clicking on paid ads, and calling through those links just to ask for updates.

“What shocked me more was realizing how many of those clicks came from our own clients. They were Googling us to get an update or call us and they were doing it through our paid links.”

— Jordan R. Lundy, Managing Partner

The firm adopted Case Status, an intelligent client experience platform that delivers case updates, document access, and secure messaging through a branded mobile app. With Case Status, firms are able to get 80% or more of their clients onto a dedicated channel. With the app on their phones, clients were no longer wondering how to reach their legal team and no longer had to Google the firm. The result: thousands in monthly savings and a measurable lift in client satisfaction.

Jordan summarized the shift:

“With Case Status, there is no need for clients to Google us anymore. They get everything they need from the app already installed on their phone. That change alone has saved us more than we ever expected and we’re delivering a better experience too.”

Lundy Law’s story highlights the broader issue: PPC waste is not an isolated quirk but a systemic problem created by poor client communication channels.

Part V: Case Study – Ken Nugent, P.C.

At Ken Nugent, P.C., Jack Derrickson’s marketing team manages one of the most robust advertising portfolios in Georgia. With a budget tied directly to overall revenue, the firm has little room for inefficiency and is constantly trying to optimize for seasonal ups and downs.

Jack shared a striking anecdote from the “before” era: one client, in the span of a single month, cost the firm $3,500 in PPC clicks. This client repeatedly Googled the firm and clicked the paid link to call. The tragic irony is that the total revenue from this client’s case was only $2,500. The firm lost $1,000 simply because a client used the wrong channel to reach them.

This incident was not an isolated case. Jack acknowledged that the firm had “definitely seen existing clients come into expensive intake channels just to get a case update,” directly undercutting ROI.

To address the issue, Nugent’s firm rolled out Case Status integrated with its case management platform, Assembly Neos. By inviting clients into the app, communication consolidated in a central, always-available channel.

The Operational & Financial Impact:

• PPC spend held steady or decreased while case counts from PPC remained the same or increased.

• Client communication shifted away from paid channels into the app.

• The marketing portfolio became more efficient overall.

As Jack put it:

“Since rolling out Case Status, we continue to see PPC contribute at or above the case count it contributed before. But now, the program spend is lower for the same yield.”

— Jack Derrickson, Director of Marketing

Part VI: From Waste to ROI – Why Client Experience Is the Multiplier

At its core, this issue underscores the connection between client experience (CX) and marketing efficiency. Poor communication forces existing clients into expensive marketing funnels. Better communication frees those funnels to do what they are supposed to do: generate new clients.

When clients are proactively informed through an app like Case Status, they stop Googling. They stop clicking. And PPC spend starts working at its intended purpose again.

Partner Firms Report:

• Significant decreases in client calls for updates.

• Reduced branded PPC spend.

• Higher online reviews driven by better client experiences.

The savings often pay for the technology several times over. In some cases, the net savings alone are enough to increase marketing capacity without adding budget.

Conclusion

Consumer-facing law firms are spending more of their revenue on marketing than almost any other professional service industry. In many cases, 20-30% of revenue is reinvested to secure market position. With budgets at this scale, waste is unacceptable.

The stories of Lundy Law and Ken Nugent, P.C. prove that client communication gaps are silently draining PPC budgets. Without intervention, firms will continue paying thousands per month for clicks that should cost nothing.

By embracing client engagement solutions like Case Status, firms not only eliminate PPC waste but also strengthen client relationships, improve reputation, and extract more value from every marketing dollar. The lesson is clear: optimizing client experience is no longer just about client satisfaction—it is a critical lever for protecting and multiplying marketing ROI.

References

1. What Percent of Revenue Do Companies Spend on Marketing and Sales? [2025] [Breakdown by Industry] – https://vitaldesign.com/percent-of-revenue-spent-on-marketing-sales/

2. What Percent of Revenue Do Companies Spend on Marketing and Sales? [2025] [Breakdown by Industry] – https://vitaldesign.com/percent-of-revenue-spent-on-marketing-sales/ (Asana workspace management public data context)

3. What Is the Typical Marketing Budget Percentage by Industry? – https://www.copy.press.com/kb/measurement/marketing-budget-percentage-by-industry/

4. What Is the Typical Marketing Budget Percentage by Industry? – https://www.copy.press.com/kb/measurement/marketing-budget-percentage-by-industry/ 

5. The State of Marketing Spend 2025 – https://sopro.io/resources/blog/the-state-of-marketing-spend/

6. Top Insights: Average Marketing Budget by Industry – https://asymmetric.pro/top-insights-average-marketing-budget-by-industry/

7. 30th Marketing Partner Forum: Assessing the state of law firm marketing & business development – https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/legal/marketing-partner-forum-marketing-business-development/ 

8. How to Create a Marketing Budget for Small Law Firms – https://www.clio.com/blog/marketing-budget-for-small-law-firm/

9. How Much Should You Spend on Your Law Firm Marketing Budget? – https://rankings.io/blog/law-firm-marketing-budget/

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