Cutting CPA by 38% while growing monthly leads by 81%

How seven years of continuous Google Ads management for a regional family law firm evolved into a high-efficiency account delivering more leads at lower cost across a doubled geographic footprint.

-38% CPA reduction Across the measured four-year period

+81% Monthly lead volume Same client, same market

+77% Conversion rate uplift Doubled efficiency on every click

Major Family Law has been a Glass Digital client since 2018 — seven years of continuous Google Ads management across the North East. By 2022, the account had been running steadily for several years, generating consistent enquiry volume for the firm. But family law is a category where competition has intensified materially over recent years: more firms competing for the same searches, rising keyword costs, and audiences whose decision-making journey has lengthened as legal services have become more digitally researched.

Family law as a category is a specific paid search challenge. Search intent is high — people don’t search for family lawyers casually — but competition is intense, keywords are expensive, and the audience is making a sensitive, considered decision under emotional pressure. The campaigns that worked when the account first launched needed continuous evolution to keep pace.

By the end of 2022, the account was delivering leads but operating at CPA and conversion rates that left meaningful headroom on the table. The brief became: take a long-running account that we knew intimately and rebuild it for the current market — lower cost per lead, higher conversion rate, expanded geographic reach. Same client, same market, better outcomes.

Starting position

High CPA For the category at baseline

Inconsistent Month-to-month conversion rate

Limited Geographic reach across two regions

Below potential Every campaign metric showing headroom

Issues identified

CPA running high for current family law category benchmarks
Conversion rates inconsistent month-to-month
Geographic reach limited to two regions of a wider serviceable market
Account structure not optimised for highest-performing campaigns
Bidding, keyword targeting, and audience strategy all showing headroom

After several years of running the account, we’d built deep understanding of which campaigns, locations, audiences, and keyword groups delivered for Major Family Law — and where the headroom was. Three strategic priorities shaped the evolution.

Account restructure for efficiency. The bid strategy, keyword targeting, and campaign structure that worked when the account first launched no longer matched the current competitive landscape. We rebuilt the bidding architecture, refined keyword targeting to focus on highest-intent searches, paused underperforming areas, and consolidated spend into the campaigns and locations delivering strongest. The principle: every pound of spend earning its place against current market conditions rather than running on legacy structure.

Geographic expansion with disciplined testing. Major Family Law’s serviceable market extended well beyond the regions the account was actively bidding into. Rather than launching broadly across new geographies, we treated Yorkshire as a dedicated expansion test — building a campaign specifically for the region, A/B testing broad match keyword strategies, and only rolling out the winning approach more widely once the data supported it. This kept early-phase CPAs low while building confidence in the expansion playbook.

Conversion path and audience optimisation. With efficient bidding and broader reach in place, the third priority was conversion rate uplift — making every visit count more. Demographic targeting refinement, ad schedule optimisation around peak enquiry windows, and mobile-first URL handling each contributed. The work compounded: efficient acquisition plus higher conversion rate plus expanded geographic reach delivered the headline outcome of more leads at lower cost in the same market.

Pillar 01

Account restructure for efficiency

The first phase combined two interlocking workstreams: rebuilding the bidding and targeting architecture, then consolidating budget toward what was working. We restructured the bid strategy from the ground up, refined keyword targeting to focus on the highest-intent searches in the family law category, and paused campaign areas that consistently underperformed against the rest of the account. With the leaner structure in place, we consolidated spend into the campaigns and locations delivering strongest — running roughly 40% lower total spend while holding CPA steady at the new improved baseline. The principle: every pound of spend earning its place against current market conditions rather than running on legacy structure.

Pillar 02

Geographic expansion with disciplined testing

With the account running efficiently in its existing geographic footprint, the second priority was unlocking new lead volume from regions the firm could serve but wasn't bidding into. Rather than launching broadly across new geographies — which often inflates CPA in the test phase — we built a dedicated Yorkshire campaign as a structured expansion test. The Yorkshire launch served two purposes: capturing genuinely new lead volume in a region with strong demand for family law services, and acting as a controlled environment to A/B test broad match keyword strategies against tighter match types. Once the data showed which approaches delivered the strongest results, we rolled out the winning playbook more widely — taking CPC down by roughly 50% on the expanded broad match deployment. The expansion ultimately doubled the firm's geographic reach from two regions to four-plus, opening lead volume the account had never previously accessed.

Pillar 03

Conversion path and audience optimisation

With efficient bidding and broader geographic reach in place, the third priority was making every visit count more. Three workstreams contributed: refining demographic targeting to focus on audiences most likely to convert for family law services, optimising the ad schedule around the time windows where enquiries actually came through (which for family law skew distinctly outside standard business hours), and updating URL handling to deliver a properly mobile-first landing experience for the majority of traffic now coming from phones. The compounding effect: conversion rate climbed substantially across the engagement, meaning every click into the account was now delivering meaningfully more enquiry value than at the baseline of the optimisation cycle.

-38% CPA reduction Across the measured four-year period

+77% Conversion rate uplift Nearly doubled efficiency on every click

+81% Monthly lead volume Same client, same market, same firm running the service

x2 Geographic reach Two regions to four-plus across the engagement

Growth at scale, year on year

Annual lead volume change vs 2022 baseline

Period	Value
2022 baseline	0%
2023	-23%
2024	11%
2025	40%

Annual lead volume across the measured optimisation period. 2023 represented a deliberate transition period as the account restructure and budget consolidation work bedded in — total volume dipped while CPA and conversion rate were rebuilt. From 2024 onwards, the new account structure delivered compounding gains, with 2025 lead volume up roughly 40% above the pre-restructure 2022 baseline.

Google Ads running but not delivering?

Whether your account has plateaued, CPA is creeping up, or you've outgrown your current setup, we'll review your Google Ads account and show you where the headroom is. Free, no obligation.

Book my free PPC review