--- title: "What a signed case costs, by channel, for personal injury firms | Link & Impulse" description: "Your intake records have a source field, but too often it says “Internet”, “Google” or nothing. For personal injury firms, we fix the tracking so every intake carries the ad, campaign and search behind it, then report what a signed case costs by channel, every month." url: "https://linkandimpulse.com/" --- # Which ad signed your last case? Your intake records have a source field. For too many signed cases it says “Internet”, “Google” or nothing, so the cost per signed case it implies is wrong. For personal injury firms, we fix the tracking so every intake arrives with the ad, campaign and search that brought it in. [Book a call](https://linkandimpulse.com/contact) [How the tracking fix works](https://linkandimpulse.com/tracking) Exhibit A Illustrative One intake record, before and after the tracking fix | Field | Today | After the fix | | ---------------- | ----------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | Received | Sep 18, 9:42 pm | Sep 18, 9:42 pm | | Arrived by | Phone call | Phone call | | How did you hear | “saw u on google” | Internet search (chosen from a picklist) | | Channel | not recorded | Paid search | | Campaign | not recorded | Free consultation | | Click ID | not recorded | EAIaIQob… | | Landing page | not recorded | /free-consultation | | First visit | not recorded | Sep 14 | | Status | Retainer signed | Retainer signed | Same caller, same signed case. Only the record on the right can be divided by what the ad cost. ## A signed case is the end of a chain. Break one link and the source on the intake record is a guess. 1. ### The click The ad platform knows what the click cost, and tags the visit with a click ID. The ID sits in the address of the first page and nowhere else. gclid=EAIaIQob… 2. ### The visit People land on one page and get in touch from another, often days later. Unless something stores the click ID, it’s gone by the contact page. /free-consultation 3. ### The call Many new clients phone rather than fill in a form. A call to the number on your site carries no source unless the number does. Sun 9:14 pm, 6 min 4. ### The intake Your intake team types where the client heard of you. Free text, spelled differently every time. “saw u on google” 5. ### The signing Your case management system knows the retainer was signed. It has no idea what the click cost. Retainer signed $3,940 per signed case from paid search Carry the source through every link and the question becomes arithmetic. We work it out for every channel you pay for. Illustrative, from Exhibit B below. ## We fix the tracking first, so the number is true. A cost per signed case is only as good as the source on each intake, so this is where most firms start: $5,000, fixed and paid at the start, about two weeks from the day we have access. We change only what’s on this list. [The tracking fix in full](https://linkandimpulse.com/tracking) - Every web form records the ad, campaign and search that brought the visitor in, even after they browse a few pages first. - Every call from the website carries the same information. - That source lands on the intake record in Litify, Filevine or Clio, where your team already works, and stays with it when the intake becomes a case. - Your ad platforms count real intakes, not page views, so they bid for the people who call or fill in a form. - The tracking runs from your own domain, so browsers and ad blockers are less likely to cut a visitor’s source off before it’s recorded. - Nothing about a client’s matter is sent to any ad platform. ### The number that proves it The share of new intakes that arrive with their source attached, measured before we start and again two weeks after. We don’t promise a figure: referrals and walk-ins never carry a click ID, and the right share depends on your mix. - Before Measured at your firm - After Measured at your firm Exhibit B ## Then we can tell you what a signed case cost. Once intakes carry their source, cost per signed case is what you spent on a channel divided by the cases it signed. That’s what a freelancer’s tracking setup or a form-capture plugin stops short of. We carry it through to the signed case and do the division every month for every channel, including the TV, billboards and referrals no ad platform reports. Media cost per signed case, one month Illustrative figures | Channel | Media cost[^b1] | Signed[^b2] | Per case | | ------------------ | --------------- | ----------- | ------------ | | Paid search | $47,280 | 12 | $3,940 | | TV | $52,360 | 7 | $7,480 | | Billboards | $27,400 | 4 | $6,850 | | Radio | $21,600 | 4 | $5,400 | | Legal directories | $15,360 | 3 | $5,120 | | Attorney referrals | none[^b3] | 9 | not measured | [^b1]: Ad platform spend, plus the offline spend your firm records each month. [^b2]: Cases counted in the month the retainer was signed. [^b3]: No spend recorded, so no cost per case. Left blank rather than $0, which would make referrals look free. ## Billboards and referring attorneys get their own line. Most marketing reports file offline spend and referrals under “Other”. For a personal injury firm that’s often where the biggest checks go, and where some of the best cases come from. So each gets its own row, costed from the spend you record. Offline and referral sources become the picklist your intake team chooses from; online ones are read from the click ID and tags, which know more than the caller does. ### Online - Paid search - Paid social - Display and video - Organic search - Email - Direct ### Offline and referral - TV - Radio - Billboards and transit - Direct mail - Legal directories - Attorney referrals - Medical referrals - Client referrals Exhibit C ## The calls nobody answered. Your office is staffed nine to five. People call when they get home, and a voicemail at 9 pm often means they ring the next firm on the list. Your call tracking already records every call that rang out; the monthly report reads it for you. Share of calls that went unanswered, by day and hour, over one quarter Illustrative figures In office hours, weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm, 10% of calls went unanswered on average. Outside them, 47%. Weekends and evenings after 9 pm were worst. - Under 15% - 15 to 30% - 30 to 45% - 45 to 60% - 60% or more - Office hours * Unanswered in office hours 10% * Unanswered outside them 47% * What last month’s 31 after-hours misses were likely worth[^c1] About $46,500 [^c1]: 31 unanswered calls × a 1-in-20 sign rate × a $30,000 average fee. The report uses your own sign rate and fees. ## What you buy, in order. Each step has to be worth its price on its own, and you can stop after any of them. The tracking fix is why the monthly report’s numbers can be trusted. 1. ### [The tracking fix](https://linkandimpulse.com/tracking) Every web form and website call records the ad, campaign and search behind it, and that source lands on the intake record in your case system. Your ad platforms count real intakes. One number before and after: the share of new intakes that arrive with their source attached. $5,000 Fixed, paid at the start. About two weeks from the day we have access. 2. ### Clean data builds up New intakes arrive with their source, and enough of them sign to read. We book the check-in before we hand over. 60 to 90 days 3. ### [The monthly report](https://linkandimpulse.com/report) Cost per signed case by channel. What the ad platforms counted, against the intakes that reached your case system and the cases that signed. Missed calls, tracking health and one recommendation, with a quarterly write-up every third month. If your tracking already works, you start here. Scoped on the call Which step you start at is what the first call is for. [Book a call](https://linkandimpulse.com/contact) ## Numbers you can defend in a partners’ meeting. Six rules every report follows. [How the numbers are made](https://linkandimpulse.com/method) 1. ### Every figure is computed from your data. Report text is assembled from the computed numbers, so a sentence can’t contain a figure the data didn’t produce. 2. ### Unmeasured is not free. A channel with no recorded spend is left blank, never shown as $0. Zero would make it look like the best deal you have. 3. ### Recent months are marked as incomplete. Some of last month’s inquiries haven’t signed yet. We say so, instead of reporting it as a bad month. 4. ### We report what moved, not why. The numbers can’t separate the market, the season and the marketing, so we don’t pretend they can. 5. ### Problems are stated plainly. “Four matters sit in a stage we don’t recognise, so they’re missing from the signed count.” Not an error code. 6. ### Estimates are marked as estimates. When your system records a case’s outcome but not the fee, we estimate the fee from your usual terms and label it. ## Your clients’ names stay out of it. We count cases, not people. Client names, phone numbers and case captions aren’t stored by default. We don’t ask your case management system for them, and if it sends them anyway, they’re dropped before anything is saved. The one exception is the client’s email address in Clio, which is how an intake gets matched to its case. The tracking fix follows the same rule: nothing a client types about their matter goes to any ad platform, and no name or phone number goes into a page address. Your data sits in a database of its own. [Security in detail](https://linkandimpulse.com/security) ## Start with a call. A short call about how your intakes arrive and where their source gets lost. If your tracking already holds, we start with the monthly report. If it doesn’t, we fix it first, because a report on intakes nobody can trace can’t tell you much. [Book a call](https://linkandimpulse.com/contact) [How the tracking fix works](https://linkandimpulse.com/tracking) If neither would pay for itself at your firm, we’ll say so on the call.