This page is for estate planning and probate attorneys who want a steady flow of signed plans from paid advertising: older clients ready to put a plan in place, the adult children nudging them, and families who need help with an estate after a death. Ogus Marketing Group is a Google Ads Partner agency that runs Google Ads and Facebook Ads for law firms in the US and Canada.
Request your free Google Ads audit or call 365-366-2524.
It is part of our PPC for lawyers service. Keyword-level detail is in our guide to estate planning attorney Google Ads; this page covers who you’re talking to, which channels reach them, and what you’re selling.
The estate planning marketing problem: everyone needs it, few act
Estate planning is one of the cheaper legal practice areas to advertise. LocaliQ’s legal benchmark data (US campaigns, April 2022 to March 2023) put Estate & Probate Law at a $7.92 cost per click, a 9.65% conversion rate and a $72.24 cost per lead, the lowest cost per lead of any practice area in the report (LocaliQ, Legal Search Advertising Benchmarks).
Cheap leads don’t make it easy. Caring.com’s 2025 survey found only 24% of Americans have a will, down from 33% in 2022, and 43% of those without one said they “just haven’t gotten around to it” (Caring.com, 2025 Wills and Estate Planning Study). That’s the real competitor: not the firm down the street, but “next month.” Three things follow:
- Demand has to be created, not just captured. Search ads catch the people ready now. Facebook, seminars and webinars reach the much larger group who know they should and haven’t.
- Two audiences make the decision. The client is usually older; the person searching or pushing is often an adult son or daughter.
- Price comes up early. People who’ve put this off for years want to know what it costs before they book anything, and online will tools set a low reference point.
Two audiences: older clients and their adult children
Clients 55 and older
They sign, often with a spouse, and respond to clarity: what’s in the plan, what it costs, how many meetings. They’re also the natural audience for a daytime, in-person seminar.
On Google Search, age bid adjustments are possible but blunt, because Google can’t identify everyone’s age and the “Unknown” group is large (Google Ads Help, About demographic targeting). Search keywords do most of the targeting: someone typing “living trust attorney near me” has already told you enough.
On Facebook, age targeting is where the platform helps, with two caveats:
- Estate planning is not a special ad category on its own. Meta’s special ad categories cover housing, employment, credit (now “financial products and services”) and social issues, elections or politics (Meta for Developers, Special ad categories; Jon Loomer, Special ad categories). The housing, employment and financial categories fix age at 18 to 65+ with no narrowing. A pure legal-services ad isn’t in them, so age targeting is available. An ad that also promotes insurance, annuities or investments alongside the plan can pull the campaign into the financial products category and lose age targeting, so keep it to legal services.
- With Advantage+ audience, only the minimum age is a hard limit. Meta “won’t show your ads to people who are younger than the age minimum” you set, but a maximum age is only a suggestion (Jon Loomer, Advantage+ audience guide). For estate planning that’s usually fine: a 55 minimum is the control that matters.
What the ad says matters as much as who sees it. Meta’s ad standards bar ads that assert or imply personal attributes, including age; “Meet seniors” is one of Meta’s own examples of a prohibited ad (Meta, Personal attributes). “Are you over 65?” or “Seniors: protect your estate” breaks the rule. “Free estate planning workshop in [Town], Thursday at 10 a.m.” doesn’t, and the age targeting does the rest.
Adult children
Adult children search differently. They search about a parent: “power of attorney for elderly parent,” “parent with dementia power of attorney,” “how to help mom with her will,” “probate lawyer for my father’s estate.” These belong in their own ad groups, with ads written to them (“Helping a parent with their estate plan? Here’s how the first meeting works”) and a landing page that says up front that the attorney will meet and represent the parent, not the child. That builds trust and avoids awkward first calls.
Adult children are also a natural Facebook audience for a webinar on “what to do before a parent needs care,” targeted by age range and location rather than by anything that implies a family situation.
Seminars and webinars as lead generation
Seminars are the classic estate planning funnel, and paid social ads are a practical way to fill them.
In-person seminars suit retirees in a defined area: a library room or a community center, a weekday morning, 45 minutes of plain explanation and a sign-up sheet for a one-on-one meeting. Facebook event-registration or lead-form ads targeted 55+ within driving distance can fill the room. Webinars reach adult children and working-age clients who won’t attend a daytime event, and they can be replayed.
What makes a seminar campaign work:
- Measure the whole chain: cost per registration, attendance, consultations booked and plans signed. A cheap registration that never shows up isn’t cheap.
- Remind people the day before and the morning of; that’s where attendance is won or lost.
- Book the consultation in the room, or on the webinar’s last slide, while interest is high.
- Teach, don’t pitch. The attorney’s clarity is the sales pitch.
- Check your state’s rules on invitations, refreshments or gifts, and follow-up. The Google Ads for lawyers page covers the ABA Model Rules most states follow.
Selling flat-fee packages
Many estate planning firms sell plans at a flat fee, and if yours does, the ads should say so. Clear packages answer the price question before the call and make it easier to compare you with an online will tool on value, not price:
| Package | What it typically includes (example) | How to advertise it |
|---|---|---|
| Will-based plan | Will, financial power of attorney, health care directive | Lead offer for younger families and simpler estates; state the starting price |
| Trust-based plan | Revocable living trust, pour-over will, powers of attorney, directives, help funding the trust | Core offer for homeowners and people avoiding probate; explain what “funding” means and whether it’s included |
| Plan review or update | Review of an existing plan after a move, marriage, death or new law | Good for Facebook and past-client email; low cost to the client |
Be accurate about exclusions (recording fees, deed transfers, complex assets): the rule against misleading communications applies to fees as much as to results. And name what the client gets beyond documents, such as a signing meeting or a funding checklist, because an online form can’t offer it.
Probate is a different buyer
Probate searchers aren’t planning ahead. Someone has died, they’ve been named executor or they’re next of kin, and they need to know what happens next: “probate lawyer [county],” “executor of estate lawyer,” “do I need a lawyer for probate,” “small estate affidavit lawyer.” Ads should be calm and practical, the landing page should explain the probate steps in your state and how fees work, and phone coverage matters more than for planning work.
Probate also carries a targeting limit. Google lists “bereavement products or services” as an example of its “relationship hardships” sensitive category, which can’t use customer match, your own data segments, lookalikes or audience expansion (Google Ads policy, Relationship hardships). Probate campaigns may fall under it, so build them on search keywords, not remarketing lists. And someone who just watched a parent’s estate go through probate is a motivated planning prospect.
Google Ads setup, briefly
A well-run estate planning account separates wills and trusts, probate and trust administration, elder law or Medicaid planning (if you do it) and your brand name into their own campaigns, starts on exact and phrase match, and blocks the many meanings of “estate” that aren’t yours. The main negative themes are:
- Wrong estate: “estate sale,” “real estate,” “estate jewelry,” “estate agent”
- DIY and free: “free will,” “free will template,” “will form,” “will kit,” “online will,” “how to write a will,” “last will and testament pdf”
- Records: “probate records,” “find a will,” “obituaries”
- Careers: “estate planning jobs,” “estate planning certification,” paralegal
The full list is in our estate planning Google Ads guide. Negative keywords don’t match close variants, so plurals and variants have to be added by hand (Google Ads Help, About negative keywords).
We build or brief a landing page for each campaign: the trust page doesn’t double as the probate page. Your firm approves every ad before it runs. We import signed clients back into Google Ads, so bidding learns which searches turn into plans rather than just form fills. And where estate law is eligible in your market, we run Local Services Ads alongside search; our Local Services Ads vs. search ads guide explains the trade-offs. That format is changing in 2027: Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, and categories not migrated in 2026 move in 2027 (Google Ads Help, LSA transition).
Budget: a worked example with search and a seminar
For the general method, see how much a law firm should spend on Google Ads.
Scenario (assumptions, for illustration): a solo estate planning attorney in a mid-sized city spends $3,500 a month: $2,500 on Google search for wills and trusts and $1,000 on Facebook ads for one in-person seminar. The search budget is about 82aday(2,500 ÷ 30.4; Google caps monthly charges at 30.4 times the average daily budget, per Google Ads Help). The firm’s average plan fee is assumed to be $2,500.
Google search, using LocaliQ’s estate and probate averages:
- $2,500 ÷ $7.92 ≈ 316 clicks
- 316 × 9.65% ≈ 30 leads, about $82 per lead
- Assume 70% of leads book and show for a consultation and 40% of those sign: 30 × 70% × 40% ≈ 8.4 plans, about $300 in ad spend per plan
Facebook seminar (every rate here is an assumption, not a benchmark):
- $1,000 at an assumed $25 per registration ≈ 40 registrations
- Assume half attend: 20 attendees
- Assume a quarter book a consultation: 5 consultations
- Assume half sign: 2.5 plans, about $400 in ad spend per plan
Here search is cheaper per plan; the seminar’s value is reaching people who weren’t searching yet. If its real cost per plan stays well above search’s after two or three events, move the money or try a webinar. Either way, $300 to $400 in ad spend for a $2,500 plan leaves room for profit. Our sister program Law Firm PPC Pros works from a $1,000 USD/month minimum ad spend; running search and seminars together needs more.
Proof: Brown Law
We don’t have a published estate planning case study yet. Our closest proof is Brown Law (Lorie Brown), a nursing law practice with a narrow audience. Over 10 months of Google Ads, the firm got 141 leads, including 86 phone calls, at an $8.13 average CPC, a 10.32% conversion rate and $81.39 per lead, with more than 20% of leads becoming clients. Lorie Brown said she was “thrilled with the results.” Estate planning needs the same discipline: a landing page per offer, tight negatives, and tracking that follows each lead to a signed plan. See the Brown Law case study and our other case studies.
What the first 90 days look like
Month 1: Audit and launch search. Start with a free audit of your current account, looking for spend on estate sales, real estate and DIY searches. Then agree on packages and prices to advertise, set up call, form and booking tracking, and launch search campaigns for planning and probate. Your firm approves every ad before launch, and your firm owns the Google Ads account.
Month 2: Add the first seminar or webinar. Search terms reviewed and negatives added; a Facebook campaign built for one event, with registration, reminders and consult booking tracked end to end.
Month 3: Compare channels by cost per signed plan. With 60 to 90 days of search data and at least one event, cost per signed plan by channel shows where the next dollar should go: more search, another seminar, a webinar for adult children, or more probate coverage.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to market an estate planning practice?
Combine search ads, which catch people ready to plan now, with Facebook ads for seminars or webinars, which reach the larger group who keep putting it off. Advertise clear flat-fee packages, give probate its own campaign, and judge every channel by cost per signed plan rather than cost per lead.
Do estate planning seminars still work for lead generation?
They can, especially for retirees in a defined area, while webinars reach adult children and working clients. Judge them by plans signed, not registrations, and send reminders before the event.
Is estate planning a special ad category on Facebook?
Not on its own. Meta’s special ad categories cover housing, employment, financial products and services, and social issues, elections or politics; the first three lock age targeting to 18 to 65+. A legal-services ad isn’t in them, so you can set a minimum age. Ads mixing in insurance or investment products can fall into the financial category. Ad copy still can’t assert or imply the viewer’s age.
Should estate planning attorneys advertise their flat fees?
Usually, yes. Price is one of the first questions people ask, and a clear starting price filters out people who wanted a free form. Say what the package includes and what it doesn’t, such as recording fees or deed transfers, so the ad isn’t misleading.
How do you market estate planning to adult children?
Give them their own ad groups for searches about a parent (“power of attorney for elderly parent,” “parent with dementia”), write ads to them, and explain up front that the attorney will meet and represent the parent. Webinars on planning before a parent needs care also work well for this audience.
How is probate lawyer marketing different from estate planning marketing?
Probate clients are dealing with a death, not planning ahead, so ads need a calm, practical tone and a landing page that explains the probate steps and fees. Google may treat probate as part of a sensitive bereavement category, which rules out remarketing lists, so probate campaigns rely on search keywords.
Get a free Google Ads audit for your estate planning firm
If you’re already running Google Ads, we’ll review your account for free and show you where the budget is going: which search terms are wasting money, whether calls are being tracked, and what your real cost per lead is. If you’re not running ads yet, we’ll build a budget and campaign plan from your own numbers.
Call 365-366-2524 or fill in the form below to request your free Google Ads audit.
Ogus Marketing Group is a Google Partner agency based in Hamilton, Ontario, running Google Ads and Facebook Ads for law firms and accounting firms across the US and Canada.