We turned $8,315 in ad investment into $60,000 in signed estate-planning cases.
In three months, Berdan Law’s paid program produced 183 qualified leads at just $39.97 each and generated $60,000 in new-case revenue — a 622% return, measured in signed cases, not clicks.
revenue
ad spend
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A solo estate-planning firm that wanted a full calendar.
Berdan Law PLLC is a solo-led estate planning practice serving the greater Richmond, Virginia market. Owner and attorney Michael Berdan focuses on the work he does best — wills and trusts — and wanted a marketing partner who could fill his calendar with the right kind of clients without him chasing referrals.
Berdan Law PLLC
- Richmond, Virginia — solo practitioner
- Estate planning: wills & trusts
- Channels: Google Search Ads + Local Services Ads
- Goal: a predictable pipeline of high-value clients
“Ad spend only matters if it turns into signed cases.”
Spend with no scoreboard.
When Berdan Law moved to Kaizen Growth from a previous agency, the account had three expensive problems hiding in plain sight:
- No line of sight on revenue. Michael had no clear view of how much actual revenue his ads produced. Spend went out the door; signed cases were never connected back to it.
- Ads that worked against the firm. The campaigns were generic and even advertised services the firm doesn’t offer — including probate — wasting budget on calls Berdan Law could never convert.
- Basic optimizations missing. Foundational elements like sitelinks and ad scheduling were absent, leaving performance and budget efficiency on the table.
The result was a familiar one for solo and small firms: spend with no scoreboard, leads that didn’t fit, and a pipeline that leaned too heavily on word of mouth.
Rebuild the program around signed cases — not clicks.
Kaizen Growth deployed its done-for-you Estate Planning Client Engine across two high-intent channels — Google Search Ads and Google Local Services Ads — and rebuilt the account from the ground up around a single principle: budget should flow to whatever produces real clients.
Refocused on real intent
Stripped out services the firm doesn’t provide (including probate) and concentrated budget on estate-planning intent — “estate lawyer,” “trust lawyer,” “wills lawyer,” “will and trust attorney,” and similar high-value searches.
Rebuilt the account
Added the optimizations the prior agency skipped — sitelinks, ad scheduling, and a tighter campaign structure — to put budget in front of the right people at the right times.
Captured top-of-page demand
Launched Google LSAs to capture top-of-page, pay-per-lead demand from local prospects actively searching for an estate attorney.
Measured in dollars
Most important of all: connected call tracking and CRM data to actual signed-case revenue, so every campaign is now measured in dollars — not clicks.
Every dollar of spend, tracked to signed-case revenue.
Berdan Law and Kaizen Growth track ad spend against real signed-case revenue — not clicks or impressions. Here is the unedited picture across the first three fully-reported months:
| Metric | January | February | March | 3-Mo Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qualified leads | 47 | 55 | 81 | 183 |
| Ad spend | $2,060 | $2,382 | $2,872 | $7,315 |
| Cost per lead | $43.83 | $43.31 | $35.46 | $39.97 |
| New-case revenue | $20,150 | $15,150 | $24,700 | $60,000 |
| Return on investment | 687% | 426% | 760% | 622% |
ROI = (revenue − total investment) ÷ total investment, where investment = ad spend + management fee. Totals include $1,000 in management fees across the period. April is intentionally excluded from revenue/ROI because of the firm’s one-month booking lag — its lead engine kept running (74 leads).
Stronger as it ran.
Google Search Ads
Local Services Ads
On Google Search, cost per lead fell from $31.70 in January to $28.03 in March — and stayed efficient at $27.90 into April — even as monthly Search leads nearly doubled. A clear signal the optimizations were compounding.
A one-month booking lag — and a high-class problem.
Demand now outpaces near-term capacity. Berdan Law books consultations roughly a month out, and revenue is back-filled into reporting after the prior month’s consultations are signed — so the most recent month’s revenue is always still landing when a report is pulled.
To make sure no figure overstates or understates performance, this case study reports revenue and ROI only through March, where the numbers are complete. The lead engine never slowed: April produced 74 leads — more than January or February — with those consultations scheduled into the weeks that followed.
The reported $60,000 is realized revenue, with more already in the pipeline. Demand is now strong enough that the firm is booked a month ahead — a high-class problem most practices would envy.
Three decisions did the heavy lifting.
Measured what matters
Tying spend to signed-case revenue meant every optimization aimed at dollars, so budget flowed to what actually produced clients.
Bought intent, not impressions
Search and LSAs reach people actively looking for an estate attorney right now — the highest-converting demand available.
Fixed the fundamentals first
Cutting irrelevant services and adding the missing account optimizations lowered cost per lead while raising lead quality.
The clearest proof of ROI isn’t a chart — it’s what’s happening inside the firm. The campaigns drove enough qualified demand that Michael’s bottleneck became his own time. Berdan Law is hiring an additional attorney to keep up, consultations are booking roughly a month out, and the engagement cleared Kaizen Growth’s 10 Clients in 10 Weeks Guarantee well ahead of schedule. Michael has since become an active referral source for the agency.
I’ve been very happy with my guy. Very personable and responsive, super knowledgeable, and lower cost than others I looked at.
Exactly where the numbers come from.
- Reporting window. Revenue and ROI cover January–March 2026 — the first three months with complete, back-filled revenue. All figures come directly from Berdan Law’s tracked paid-ads reporting (Google Ads and Local Services Ads); none are estimated or added.
- The one-month booking lag. The firm books consultations ~a month out, and revenue is back-filled once cases are signed. The most recent month’s revenue is therefore always still landing, so it’s held out of the headline figures to avoid understating performance. April’s 74 leads are cited only as a volume/pipeline indicator.
- ROI definition. (revenue − total investment) ÷ total investment, where total investment = ad spend + management fee. Total investment of $8,314.60 includes $7,314.60 in ad spend and $1,000 in management fees.
- Return on ad spend. The 8.2× / “$8.20 per $1” figure is revenue ÷ ad spend ($60,000 ÷ $7,314.60). Measured against total investment including fees, the return is 7.2×.
- Revenue per lead. Total revenue ÷ total leads ($60,000 ÷ 183 ≈ $328) — an average across all leads, not a per-signed-case figure.
- Privacy. Individual client names and phone numbers from the lead records have been intentionally omitted from this published case study.
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