By Clemente Guido
Lately, there has been a lot of buzz around Google Ads encouraging advertisers to shift toward broad match keywords. According to Google and many PPC experts, broad match is now smarter and more efficient when used with Smart Bidding.
But if your law firm is running ads, the situation looks different. In our experience working exclusively with legal campaigns, broad match still brings too many irrelevant and low-quality leads.
Legal services require precision.
Google’s automation is not yet able to consistently tell the difference between someone who needs legal help and someone who is simply browsing for information or making general legal queries.
Most of the time, it pulls in broad searches like “lawyers” that belong to unrelated practice areas, which are not relevant to what the firm is actually offering. That is why we continue to rely on phrase match and exact match to drive relevant, qualified leads for law firms, even if they are more expensive.
Why Relevance Is More Important Than Ever
Legal keywords are among the most competitive in Google Ads. If your law firm focuses on areas like personal injury, VA benefits, disability law, family law, or criminal defense, targeting must be precise. Otherwise, you risk wasting budget on clicks that lead to unqualified inquiries or irrelevant calls.
With broad match, we often see:
- Ads triggered by vague or unrelated queries
- Leads outside of your service area or practice focus
- Searches that reflect research intent instead of hiring intent
- Queries that include the names of competing law firms, despite having negative keywords in place
One of the most frustrating issues we experience with broad match in legal advertising is how often ads are triggered by overly generic terms like “lawyers” or “attorney” without context, or by searches that include the names of competing firms. Even after adding large volumes of negative keywords, competitor names and general queries still slip through, draining budget and lowering lead quality.
Even with Smart Bidding, which uses machine learning to automatically set bids based on the likelihood of a conversion, broad match often lacks the level of control that legal campaigns need to succeed. While Smart Bidding can help improve efficiency by adjusting bids in real time, it does not fully compensate for the unpredictability of broad match keywords, especially in highly competitive legal markets where precision is key.
We’re also noticing similar patterns with AI Max, Google’s new campaign type that is currently in beta. While it’s still early in its rollout, AI Max appears to behave much like broad match, often generating a high volume of irrelevant search queries. These include overly general terms and competitor names, even when negative keyword lists are in place.
We hope Google continues to improve this product before it rolls out more broadly, especially for industries like legal where precision is critical.
Higher CPCs Can Be Worth It
There is no denying that phrase match and exact match CPCs have gone up. But for law firms, lead quality matters more than cost per click.
Here is how we recommend using match types:
- Use exact match for high-intent keywords that clearly show someone is looking to hire a lawyer
- Use phrase match to cover relevant variations while maintaining search intent
- Use broad match only for limited testing or research purposes, and never as the core strategy
Control Over Volume
Broad match may deliver more impressions and clicks, but that does not always translate to better results. For law firms, more volume often means more noise. It is usually more effective to get fewer, higher-quality leads than to pay for traffic that will not convert.
If you choose to experiment with broad match, be sure to:
- Build strong and well-maintained negative keyword lists
- Monitor search terms regularly
- Track actual signed cases, not just surface-level conversions like form fills or calls
Consultwebs Recommendation
At this time, we do not recommend replacing phrase match or exact match with broad match for legal advertising. Despite the higher cost, phrase and exact match still deliver better lead quality and give you more control over who sees your ads.
Google’s tools continue to evolve, but for law firms, performance is what matters. Until broad match can consistently match the precision that legal campaigns require, we believe that sticking with phrase and exact match is the best approach. Speak with our legal marketing professional one-on-one to learn how we can help your law firm grow.
