The Challenge
Family law in California is expensive to advertise and easy to waste money on. We needed campaigns built around divorce, custody, and DV separately, not one bucket for everything.
— Cage & Miles LLP
When Cage & Miles came on board in March 2026, the Google Ads account was spending budget but wasn't producing attributable case revenue. Performance Max campaigns were pulling spend away from high-intent Search. Practice areas like child custody and spousal support had very different economics, but they were lumped together.
Southern California family law is one of the most competitive paid search markets in the country. Average CPCs above $10 are normal. Without tight ad groups, relevant RSAs, and ads that closely match the search intent, Google marks expected CTR below average and you lose impression share to rank, not just budget.
The firm already had a content-rich website and a popular divorce quiz that JRR Marketing did not build. We focused purely on the paid search and SEO work that turned that existing site into a consultation engine.
We started with a full audit: every campaign, search term report, WhatConverts lead source, and call tracking setup. The roadmap was fix attribution first, pause what wasn't producing consultations, then rebuild Search by location plus practice area.
For the broader legal playbook, see our law firm marketing agency hub and dedicated lawyer PPC agency services.
What We Found in the Audit:
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Google Ads spend not tied to any closed case revenue at onboarding
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Budget split between PMax and Search with unclear ROI by practice area
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High CPCs in San Diego and Los Angeles family law auctions
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Impression share lost to ad rank on divorce and custody terms
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Case value not consistently logged back to marketing channels
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Multi-location targeting needed separate SD and LA campaign logic
