How can I tell whether new clients came from my marketing agency? Per-channel tracking numbers plus asking every new client directly — and keep an honest “unknown” category, because its size tells you how much any of your numbers are worth.
Most firms have one attribution method and a large blind spot they have never measured. The blind spot is the useful finding.
- Published pricing — $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, on the site.
- Month to month. No contract is holding you anywhere.
- A former attorney of 17 years who filed 5,000+ cases works your account.
- You see your rankings move for 14 days before you are billed a dollar.
- Law firms only — no other industries, ever.
| Attorney Pro Marketing | Scorpion | FindLaw | Typical legal agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing published on the website | Yes — $2,500 / $3,500 / $4,500 per month | Not published | Not published | Rarely published |
| Contract term | Month to month, 30 days’ notice | Not published | Not published | Commonly 12 months |
| Who works on your account | A former attorney of 17 years, in every account | Assigned account team | Assigned account team | Account manager, often across industries |
| Your website is built on | Standard, portable code | Proprietary platform | FirmSite platform | Varies — ask before signing |
| See results before you are billed | Yes — 14 days, then you decide | No | No | No |
| Ad spend billed by Google directly to you | Yes, no markup | Ask | Ask | Often passes through the agency |
“Not published” means the figure does not appear on that company’s own website as of October 2026 — check for yourself before you sign anything, with them or with us.
The Three Mechanisms
- 1. Per-channel tracking numbers. A different phone number on the Google Business Profile, on the site for organic visitors, and in paid ads. Each forwards to your real line, and each call is logged against its source. This is the backbone.
- 2. The direct question. Whoever answers the phone asks how the caller found you, and writes down the answer in the same field every time. Free, and it catches what tracking cannot.
- 3. Site conversion tracking. Form submissions and click-to-call events tagged with the traffic source. Handles everything that arrives in writing rather than by voice.
Two of the three gives you a reliable picture. One leaves a gap, and the gap gets filled with whatever you already believed.
What Each One Misses
Tracking numbers miss the typed number. Someone finds you in the Map Pack, does not call immediately, and dials your main line from a note two days later. That call shows as direct and was produced by the profile. They also miss walk-ins and calls made from a number a referrer passed on.
The direct question misses accuracy. People answer “I found you online” or “Google”, which does not distinguish the Map Pack from an ad from an organic result. Clients also genuinely misremember — someone who clicked an ad will often say they searched and found you.
Conversion tracking misses phone calls made after a visit without clicking the number, which is a large share of legal enquiries, and it loses accuracy when people switch devices between research and contact.
Which is why the right answer is overlapping methods, not a better single method.
Asking the Question Properly
- Ask it every time, by the person who answers. Not on an intake form the client fills in later. The answer degrades within hours.
- Ask a specific follow-up. “Online” is not an answer. “Do you remember whether you clicked an ad at the top, or the map, or a regular result?” People often do remember when prompted.
- Record it in one field, consistently. With a fixed set of options plus “unknown”. Free-text answers cannot be counted.
- Accept “I don't remember” and log it as unknown rather than guessing. Guesses look like data and are worse than a blank.
- Ask referred clients who referred them. Separating referral sources tells you which relationships to maintain, which is its own return.
The Overlap Problem, and What to Do About It
Most clients touch more than one channel. Somebody sees your ad, reads an article of yours, checks your reviews in the Map Pack a week later, then calls. Which channel gets the credit?
Large advertisers solve this with multi-touch attribution models, which require more volume than a small firm generates. Three practical alternatives:
Credit the first touch for strategy, the last for optimisation. First touch tells you what creates awareness; last touch tells you what closes. Both are useful for different decisions, and neither is the truth.
Accept directional accuracy. With overlapping methods you will know which channels are material and which are not, and that is enough to allocate a small firm's budget. Precision to the percentage point is not a decision input at this scale.
Watch the unknown category. Under 15 percent is workable. Above 30 percent, your attribution is not good enough to act on and fixing it is the highest-value marketing project available to you.
Attorney Pro Marketing includes call tracking with recordings and lead attribution from the Growth tier, so mechanism 1 and mechanism 3 are set up for you rather than left as a project. The Google Ads account and Google Business Profile are in your firm's name, which means the source data is yours permanently — and if you ever leave, the attribution history does not leave with us. Mechanism 2 is yours and costs nothing; we ask for your signed-case list monthly so targeting moves toward the terms that actually produce retainers.
Published pricing at $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, month to month with 30 days' notice, with a day 0 baseline and a day 14 report before you are billed for that period.
See it before you pay for it.
We snapshot your rankings on day 0, build and launch your site within three days, and show you the movement on day 14. If it has not moved enough to be worth continuing, you owe nothing for that period and you keep the Google Business Profile work.
Related Questions
Use at least two of three mechanisms: a separate tracking number for each channel — Google Business Profile, organic, paid — all forwarding to your real line; a “how did you hear about us” question asked by whoever answers the phone and recorded in one consistent field; and site conversion tracking tagging form submissions with their traffic source.
Each misses different cases. Tracking numbers miss calls made later from a number someone wrote down, plus walk-ins. The direct question is imprecise, since people say “I found you online” and genuinely misremember clicking an ad. Conversion tracking misses phone calls made after a visit without clicking the number.
Every time, by the person who answers the phone rather than on a later form, since the answer degrades within hours. Follow up specifically — whether they clicked an ad at the top, the map, or a regular result — because people often remember when prompted. Record it in one field with fixed options, and log “don't remember” as unknown.
Most do. Credit first touch when making strategy decisions and last touch when optimising campaigns, treating neither as the truth. At small-firm volumes, directional accuracy about which channels are material is enough to allocate budget. Keep the unknown category under about 15 percent; above 30 percent the data is not actionable.