Unrestricted
Immigration, residency and corporate legal services. The category is unrestricted on the platforms but regulated by the profession: bar associations set their own rules on what a firm may claim, and those bind the campaign more tightly than any ad policy.
The regulator here is the profession
Ad platforms are relaxed about legal services. The bar association or law society is not. Most
jurisdictions restrict what a practice may say in advertising — comparative superlatives, success
rate claims, testimonials about outcomes, and guarantees are commonly prohibited outright, and the
rules differ by jurisdiction rather than by platform. A campaign that clears Meta review can still
be a disciplinary matter.
So the applicable rules are established per market before the copy is written, and where a firm
practises in several jurisdictions the strictest one usually sets the creative.
Immigration and residency
Demand here is unusually specific and unusually anxious. People search for their exact situation —
a visa type, a nationality, a refusal reason — and they are making a decision that affects where
they live. Broad brand advertising performs poorly against this; pages that answer one precise
question properly perform extraordinarily well, and keep performing for years.
It is also a market with visible fraud, which means credibility signals do more work than
persuasion: the named lawyers, the registration numbers, the office that exists, the fees stated
plainly.
Corporate work
Long cycles, few buyers, very high value. Paid search on precise service terms, and content that
demonstrates competence rather than asserting it. Volume metrics are meaningless at this end; a
handful of enquiries a month can be a complete success.
What we measure
Signed matters, not form fills, with the definition of a qualified enquiry agreed with the
practice before the budget starts.
