Renter or landlord. Most law firm marketing is structured so that the month you stop paying, everything disappears, and the report in between explains nothing. These are the questions that expose the difference. Ask them of whoever you talk to next, and hold us to our answers.
| The question | What you will often hear | Our answer |
|---|---|---|
| What do we own when we leave? | Often the site, the ad account and the data are held in the agency’s name, and the month you stop paying, everything disappears. | Everything: site, footage, accounts, data, reviews, under your name from month one. Landlord, not renter. |
| What number do you report? | Impressions, clicks, rankings, leads. Metrics that never connect to revenue. | Signed cases, by source. Everything else is beneath it. |
| How is the website built? | A template, or a design chosen for taste, with copy that leads with credentials. | A rebuild on the seven-layer crisis sequence, from a study of 7,600 sites, with the fear named before the firm. |
| What happens when the phone rings? | Not the agency’s problem. The form often opens the visitor’s own email app. | The 60-Second Standard, containment scripts, a hundred calls reviewed a month, every lead in ScoreBoard. |
| What does the content target? | High-volume terms and a posting cadence. | The question a frightened person types at 3 a.m., answered by a page that regulates as well as ranks. |
| How are the ads judged? | Cost per click and impression share. | Cost per signed case, with landing pages that continue the ad’s sentence. |
| Is there a guarantee? | Rarely, and rarely in writing. | Twenty signed cases in ninety days, or we work for free until you get them. In the agreement. |
| How many firms in my market? | As many as will pay. | One per practice area per market. Once yours is claimed, it closes. |
| Is the price on the website? | Almost never. Quote after the call. | Yes. $7,500 a month, $6,150 for NACDL members, ad spend separate. Our own study says pricing transparency is 22 percent of trust. |
| How long am I locked in? | Twelve months is common, sometimes longer. | Thirty days’ notice, either way, at any time. |
| Who is on camera? | A stock model in a suit, or nobody. | The attorney the visitor will meet, filmed twice a year, placed where the decision is made. |
| Who wrote the method? | Best practices, borrowed. | Eight books, one study, and every page on this site built the same way we build yours. |
No agency is named here on purpose. The point is the questions, not the competitor; if your current agency answers them well, keep them.
If the site comes down, the ad account goes dark and the data leaves with the vendor, you were renting. If everything stays, and the engine keeps running until you turn it off, you were building. Ask the question before you sign, and read the ownership clause twice.
Ten dimensions, one week to build, forty-five minutes to deliver.
We check whether your market is open, live on the call.
Twenty signed cases in ninety days, or we work for free until you get them.
