Understand the transition without confusing it with ordinary Performance Max

The official migration guidance describes a specialized Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals. It retains the pay-per-lead model and Search and Maps placements. Rollout is phased; follow the notice for your account rather than assuming all law firms move together.

Historical campaign reports do not transfer, while past lead records, messages, and recordings do. Manual bidding is removed, and weekly budgets become average daily budgets. Business name, address, and hours sync from the Business Profile. These are distinct changes, so assign a separate check to each.

Do not apply an ordinary Performance Max checklist without checking whether each setting exists in this campaign type. Equally, do not assume that a familiar label means the underlying control works exactly as it did before. Open the relevant account screen and record what is actually available.

For the managing partner, the first useful question is not “Will this lower our lead cost?” It is “Who can show us that our settings, records, and response process survived the move?” That question has an answer your team can verify.

Preserve a usable baseline

A screenshot named “LSA before migration” is not enough if nobody can identify its dates or filters later. Save the reporting period, service-area selection, practice-area grouping, and any other active filters alongside the report.

Use the download options available to your account. Where a needed report cannot yet be downloaded, capture a readable copy with its context. Confirm that the saved file opens, and put it in an access-controlled location the firm can find after staff or agency changes.

Distinguish aggregate campaign reporting from client-related records. The marketing team may need monthly spend and inquiry totals; it does not automatically need every recording or message. Have the firm decide the appropriate access, retention, and handling for sensitive material.

Add a short readme to the folder: what each report measures, which dates are complete, and where the corresponding intake outcomes live. This small explanation is more useful than exporting every possible view without a purpose.

Confirm ownership before you need emergency access

List the account administrator, the person who approves spending, the agency operator, and the staff member who responds to inquiries. These may be four different people. Make sure the firm understands which responsibilities stay with it and which are delegated.

Check that notices reach a monitored business address. An email sent to a former employee or a vendor’s abandoned inbox can leave the active team unaware of a change. Review access through the platform’s normal controls; do not circulate shared passwords as a workaround.

Decide who can approve a budget adjustment during the transition. Put a backup in place for planned leave. The backup needs the authority to make the agreed decision, not just access to a dashboard they have never used.

Keep a contact route for platform support and a record of any open case. If a problem occurs, one person should collect the evidence and maintain the timeline. Multiple uncoordinated changes make it harder to determine what resolved an issue.

Audit the details that describe your local practice

Review the real office name, address, hours, practice areas, and service area against the firm’s current operations. An old location or an unsupported category is not a harmless marketing detail when it sends an inquiry to the wrong team.

For a firm serving several jurisdictions, separate geographic reach from professional authorization and practical capacity. Advertising coverage should not imply that every attorney can handle every matter in every place. Have the responsible attorney review the description where the distinction matters.

Check holiday hours with the intake team, including what happens outside staffed hours. An advertisement can generate contact while the person who usually responds is away. Confirm the route rather than assuming a forwarded number or shared inbox will take care of it.

Use a location-by-location checklist if the firm has multiple offices. Identify the receiving number, the monitoring team, and the practice areas accepted at that location. Avoid resolving a mismatch by adding nearby city names to the business name or inventing an office presence.

Translate the budget into a decision the firm understands

Record the old configuration and the new configuration side by side. Have the budget owner review the resulting daily-average setup and its spending implications using the current account documentation. Do not simply compare a weekly figure with a daily figure and describe the difference as a reduction.

Keep discretionary changes separate from migration changes. If you expand service areas, add a practice category, and alter the budget in the same week, you will have several competing explanations for a change in inquiry mix.

Our recommended approach is to document a stable starting point, identify anything that requires an immediate correction, and record subsequent changes with a reason. This is a measurement discipline, not a promise that performance will remain stable.

For example, a hypothetical firm might decide to stop accepting a particular matter type at the same time its account moves. The resulting decline in inquiries could reflect the deliberate service change. Without that note, a monthly report might incorrectly blame the migration.

Give the first month a review rhythm

The first review should establish that people can reach the right team. Test the permitted contact routes without submitting misleading public inquiries or exposing client information. Confirm who sees a new message and how that person knows it needs attention.

Then review the actual inquiries. Separate wrong numbers, duplicates, unsuitable matters, unanswered contacts, completed consultations, and engagements accepted by the firm. A platform’s lead category and the firm’s definition of a suitable case serve different purposes.

Do not compare a partial week with a full month. Account for office closures and the time between inquiry, consultation, and signed engagement. A matter that has not yet completed the intake process should not be silently treated as a failed lead.

Choose a consistent cohort definition. You might group inquiries by the date they first arrived and update outcomes as they mature. Whatever the approach, write it down so the agency and firm are not discussing different sets of people.

Keep lead quality and legal outcomes separate

An engagement is an operational milestone. It is not a prediction of a case result, and it may not yet represent collected revenue. The reporting language should preserve those distinctions.

When the firm rejects an inquiry, record the broad operational reason without putting confidential facts into marketing dashboards. “Outside accepted practice area” may be enough for channel planning. A detailed description of the person’s legal problem is usually unnecessary for that decision.

Review patterns with the intake lead before changing advertising. If suitable inquiries are not receiving a response, a targeting change may not address the immediate problem. If the practice is at capacity, more demand may create a longer queue rather than a better business outcome.

Run a handover rehearsal with the people who answer

Before the transition, ask the intake owner to describe where a new inquiry appears, who notices it, and how it becomes an assigned task. Then ask the account operator to describe the corresponding advertising view. Any mismatch belongs in the handover sheet.

The rehearsal should include an absence: what happens if the primary intake contact is away? It should also include a location mismatch and an inquiry outside the accepted practice area. These are hypothetical checks, not tests involving real prospective clients.

Agree on the evidence required to close a problem. A routing issue is not resolved merely because a setting was changed; the authorized team should confirm the intended path works. A reporting issue is not resolved merely because a file exists; the report needs its dates, filters, and definitions.

Keep the rehearsal short enough that staff can participate. Its value is in exposing a missing handoff while there is time to repair it, rather than creating another document nobody uses.

Prepare one handover sheet

Put the notice date, account owners, baseline folder, budget approval, location checks, response owner, and first review date on one page. Ask each owner to confirm their part. If a field remains unresolved, describe the next action and who will take it.

This keeps the discussion concrete. A partner can review a short list of open decisions without becoming the account operator, and the advertising team can distinguish a platform issue from a staffing or intake issue.