While the impact of the pandemic increased the need for legal services, radio advertising campaigns for attorneys have brought double-digit growth to legal website traffic, according to Analytic Owl. In the research company's analysis of over 684,000 radio ads for over 200 legal services advertisers in 2020, and over 337,000 during the first half of 2021, campaigns upped website traffic by 13% and 10% respectively.
“As many consumers and businesses across the country were impacted both economically and medically by the pandemic, the need for legal services spiked,” RAB Senior VP/Insights Annette Malave says in the Radio Advertising Bureau's latest “Radio Matters” blog, citing a 30% increase in bankruptcy filings just between April and May 2020 according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. "When Americans needed help, broadcast radio was there to inform them of where to get those legal services."
Strengthening radio's case for effective legal advertising, according to the results of Analytic Owl's study, is a 26% lift in new site visitors when radio campaigns aired during 2021's first six months. While the most new site visitors were seen on Thursdays, Friday's site traffic numbers were also strong. Reflective of states opening up, and given the larger number of workers at home, there were also significant increases in legal services site traffic on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. As the most effective dayparts for legal ads, middays drove the highest number of new visits, followed by afternoons and mornings.
Citing Scarborough research showing that radio reaches 88% of adults 18+ who have used an attorney in the past year, Malave says radio “can serve as the right medium for any legal service firm to communicate that they are tech savvy. Combined with radio’s ability to lift site traffic, this is proof that radio should be part of any legal service firm’s media campaign.”