LinkedIn Advertising for Law Firms

Linkedin advertising for law firms is one way to secure prospective clients, advertise job postings at your firm, and more. Though, with a bustling firm to run and clients to support, advertising on LinkedIn is likely an afterthought for most attorneys. However, with over 740 million users and a higher return on investment (ROI) than native ads and Google Adwords, lawyers need to consider LinkedIn advertising. 

How you can benefit from LinkedIn advertising for law firms

When done strategically, LinkedIn advertising can help firms grow their business, generate more targeted leads (through more personalized ads), potentially leading to increased revenue. In fact, you might have more success advertising on LinkedIn than other mediums. Research shows the ROI of LinkedIn marketing is 17.6, beating out native ads—14.9, and Google Adwords—3.1. However, with any advertising opportunity, LinkedIn advertising should be just one piece of your marketing plan.

Get practical advice on marketing your law firm by watching our on-demand webinar—Law Firm Marketing–the Basics. 

When firms know their target audience’s occupations, Linkedin advertising for law firms is a strategic method for finding prospective clients. LinkedIn ads are especially relevant for firms that serve business professionals or entrepreneurs. And if you represent businesses, LinkedIn is full of potential B2B clients. In fact, a Salesforce report found that LinkedIn’s audience has twice the buying power of the average web user.  

With that said, LinkedIn users span across a wide range of industries. So long as firms and attorneys like yourself know a bit about their prospective clients’ roles, titles, and/or industries, you can target “look-alikes” using LinkedIn’s impressive targeting features. We’ll discuss these features in detail below. 

How to get your law firm started with LinkedIn advertising

To get started with Linkedin advertising for law firms, you’ll need a verified email address and LinkedIn account. You’ll also need a LinkedIn Page for your firm to execute Sponsored Content or Sponsored Messaging. You can learn more about the different LinkedIn advertising offerings below. 

Understand your LinkedIn advertising goals

What are you trying to accomplish by advertising your firm or services on LinkedIn? When considering Linkedin advertising for law firms, it’s a good idea to get clear on your goals. Your objective might be to secure a certain number of leads, finding your firm’s next paralegal, or simply building brand awareness. Your goal will depend on your firm’s needs. But no matter what it is, try to make it as specific and quantifiable as possible. You should be able to measure your goal and track your progress. Ultimately, this will make it easier to pinpoint which ads are working and which aren’t. 

Having a clear goal will also help you persuade more of your target audience (if needed) towards that goal. Get tips on the art of persuasion in this interview with Dr. Robert Cialdini.

Determine your law firm’s advertising budget for LinkedIn ads

Allocating a budget for LinkedIn advertising doesn’t have to be complex or time-consuming. That’s the beauty of social media advertising, as a little goes a long way. 

Let’s start with the basics: The minimum daily budget required to run ads on LinkedIn is $10. That minimum $10 amount is for all ad formats. 

When it comes to default budgets for those new to advertising on the platform, experts at LinkedIn recommend starting with just $25. Slowly testing campaigns in $25 increments will allow you to adjust as you go. Afterall, no good will come of blowing your budget before you even identify what works. 

Identify your target audience for LinkedIn ads

As outlined above, setting a measurable goal is integral to the success of any campaign. Once your objective is clear, you build on that by defining your target audience. This is the ideal LinkedIn user you want to see your ad. Who do you picture scrolling through their phone or sitting at their desk as your ad pops up? Give this step some serious thought. The more specific you can be, the better. If you don’t already have detailed buyer personas, creating them will support all your marketing efforts, especially Linkedin advertising for law firms. 

LinkedIn audience targeting

LinkedIn boasts precise and powerful targeting, but what does that entail? Well, they’re certainly correct about their precise targeting capabilities. You can serve ads to an audience of your choosing by defining the following: 

1. Location: This is the only mandatory field and requires an entry. This should be easy enough for attorneys to enter, since most attorneys only have one state bar license.  
2. Company: This option allows you to target by company connections, industry, size, name, followers, and more.
3. Demographics: Using this field, you can select the age and gender of your audience. 
4. Education: From filtering by what they studied (field of education) to the school they attended, this is a useful targeting option if your firm wants to promote a job posting. 
5. Job experience: Just as with education, this targeting option is beneficial for those promoting job postings. 
6. Interests and Traits: Perhaps the most specific targeting option—interests and traits allow you to target based on groups the user is a part of which share their same interests. 

How to develop great LinkedIn ads

The average American sees anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 ads everyday. There’s more pressure than ever to stand out and capture attention. Here are a few universal tips for social media advertisements: 

• Use a high-quality, eye-catching but relevant image or video. Remember, you’re trying to stop someone from scrolling and capture their attention. 
• Have one obvious call to action (CTA). Keep it short and simple. 
• Include one link that goes to a page with a clear next step. This could be a newsletter sign-up box, a free consultation form, a calendar to book time with you, etc. 

Below we explore each of the LinkedIn advertising options in detail. 

Sponsored InMail

Sponsored InMail is the paid version of regular InMail. It allows advertisers to connect with their target audience by sending personalized, private messages. Best practices for sponsored InMail include: 

• Personalization: Use the recipient’s first name in the message. 
• Succinctness: Ensure your message is concise and relevant. Body texts under 500 characters have 46% higher CTR. 
• Linking: Including a trackable link will not only help you measure click-through rates (CTRs)— it will also provide a next step for recipients. This is integral to any advertisement.   

Different LinkedIn ad options

These are the traditional advertisements you likely see on your own social media feeds. And even when it comes to Linkedin advertising for law firms, there are many different kinds of ads you can run, which will present themselves on users’ LinkedIn feeds. These include: 

• Conversation Ads: Similar to InMail, these are direct messages with your customers. 
• Message Ads: Messages are sent to your prospect’s LinkedIn Messaging experience when they are active. 
• Video Ads: These are an eye-catching way to get noticed by your target audience. 
• Text Ads: These are the sidebar ads you may notice on your own LinkedIn homepage. 
• Dynamic Ads: These are highly-personalized ads tailored to each member based on their own LinkedIn profile data.
• Carousel Ads: As with the video ads, these are the most visually compelling ways to capture your audience’s attention. 

With so many different LinkedIn advertising options available, it might feel overwhelming to choose. Our advice: Start simple. Test just one of the above and don’t feel pressured to try them all. Your goal is to test until you find out what resonates with your audience. 

How to set your LinkedIn campaign budget

When scheduling a campaign, you will be prompted to set a bid, budget, and schedule. These three factors give you control over your spending. 

Bidding strategies: When setting up a LinkedIn advertising campaign for your law firm, you’ll have the option to set up a bid that supports your campaign objective. There are four different bidding strategies to choose from.   

Budget: With budget options of daily, lifetime, and a combination of both, it’s easy to stay in control of your spending. There are also continuous and set schedules for campaigns. Learn more about the different budget capabilities for LinkedIn advertising. 

Scheduling: The scheduling tool allows you to either set a start and finish time for your campaign, or set a start time and run it continuously after that. For more details, take a look at the campaign schedules overview. 

We hope the above information gives you more clarity and context into confidently setting up a budget for your Linkedin advertising for law firms. 

Optimizing your LinkedIn ads

As your campaigns roll out, you’ll begin to notice which images perform better and what CTAs get the most clicks. You’ll want to pause the lowest-performing campaigns and make adjustments accordingly. Once you’ve saved a campaign, you’ll be able to change the below details: 

• Audience
• Audience expansion enablement
• LinkedIn Audience Network enablement
• Budget
• Schedule
• Bidding
• Conversion tracking
• Ads in this campaign

If you don’t yet have the data to understand what’s working, or haven’t had consistent success with any specific elements in your campaign, you might want to consult some outside resources.  When it comes to text ads specifically, LinkedIn has a helpful guide for optimizations.  

Final notes on LinkedIn advertising for lawyers 

While it does require some thoughtful planning initially, LinkedIn advertising for law firms is a relatively low-cost, precise way to capture the attention of prospective clients. It’s highly trackable, easy to pause, adjust, and optimize ads, not to mention the impactful ROI. If you’re not already using LinkedIn to advertise for your law firm, we hope this blog makes the case for you. 

We published this blog post in January 2022. Last updated: December 12, 2022.

Categorized in: Marketing