Our client is a major US law firm that covers a wide range of practice areas. The firm has been extremely conservative when it comes to online promotions and paid advertising as their attorneys are very mindful of how they appear online and have historically preferred print media. Further, their business model has relied strongly on recommendations and word of mouth, rather than on a direct marketing. However, the pandemic made it difficult to utilize these existing channels for attracting new clients and the firm decided to experiment with paid digital media. We began advertising a newly formed taskforce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Higher engagement
0x
Longer sessions
0%
More users
0%
Industry
Law
Objective
Brand awareness, Client calls
Media
Display, Video, Social, Search
The challenge
Working with this client was challenging for several reasons:
1) they had limited experience with online advertising;
2) their experience was based on working with third parties that did not provide sufficient transparency;
3) the service we had to promote was related to COVID-19. The delicate subject matter and the lack of realistic expectations meant that we were practically starting from scratch.
We had to do detailed research on which channels work best and then experimentally verify our findings were correct. As the feedback became statistically significant, we had to optimize towards the channels with best performance. At the same time, our work was educational in order to make sure the client fully understands how to best craft their messages and media buys.
Key results
We were able to gather statistical data about best performing channels and strategies within each channel. As a result, we developed clear targeting plan based on specific demographics, 1st and 3rd-party audience segments, geo targeting, creative messages. The targeting plan varied across the board for the difference aspects of the COVID-19 taskforce in relations to the targeted clients, for example business owners across multiple industries. Brand IQ then defined specific KPIs and gave the client realistic understanding of the benefit of advertising online and potential impact on their business.
Overall, we were able to accomplish an impressive 2.5x higher engagement compared to the client’s organic traffic and 60% longer sessions. Further, we were able to bring 30% more engaged visitors.
The solution
The initial conditions of the campaigns were challenging because we were targeting business owners affected by COVID-19. There was a certain saturation in the media space of news, opinions, and data related to the virus. The virus fatigue combined with platform restrictions made it challenging to reach truly interested visitors. Despite this, we had good progress and recorded multiple engagements, visitors, and conversions, which signified an interest in legal help during the recovery process from COVID-19. The main challenge remained targeting at scale and driving statistically significant results faster.
With enough data, we eventually overcame the lack of audience segmentation and started focusing on the messages, with each industry having a completely different set of targeting criteria and corresponding creative assets. Brand IQ was able to define key metrics very well. With the gradual recovery of the economy from COVID-19, our client began shifting gears toward areas unrelated to COVID-19. We built on the experience and saw significant decreases in CPC, especially in search advertising. The inclusion of social media resulted in relatively low interaction costs and boosted website traffic. During all campaigns, we defined conversions as calls or form completions. Although both methods are not perfect due to the nature of the client’s business and the fact that this method does not account for potential clients dialing the number without clicking on the website, we found that conversions do indicate interested clients reaching out to attorneys. Our approach defined KPIs in a number of practice areas and defined the client’s future approach to digital advertising.