google Ads for immigration? bad idea on $1,200

adcraft

Honestly, this is a terrible use of your budget. For spousal sponsorship keywords in Ontario, you're looking at $15-30 per click easily. that $1,200 gets you what, 40-80 clicks a month? And that's before conversion tracking even sees a lead. Month one? You'll be bleeding cash collecting data, not recovering a damn cent.

The freelancer pricing seems fair enough for setup and management, but the numbers don't work. Even if you squeeze out one $170 consultation, you've barely covered the management fee, let alone the ad spend. You need at least 10-15 qualified clicks per conversion in legal-adjacent niches, and you're not getting that volume.

You should ignore Google Ads entirely at that budget. Meta would be a smarter play-target local Ontario audiences, use real images (no AI crap), and watch the hidden settings Meta tries to trick you with. I've seen immigration firms in the US pause ads because they got too many leads. That's the direction you want.

don't waste your money on Google until you've got at least triple that monthly budget. Period.

copycat

YEP. Yep.

I ran some meta (fb+ig) immigration firm ads this past year (Texas) that did so well we had to pause them so their office could catch up with the leads lol

It is absolutely worth testing meta and google but with that starting budget you’ll want to pick just one to start.

Google will likely be more competitive with really high costs for one click, as it usually is for attorney niches.

So I’d start with meta. Make sure your targeting is local only (lots of hidden settings meta turns on to trick people, it’s crazy). And use high quality images. No Ai. People trust real people, not stock images 🙂

Anyways! End rant. Just my two cents as someone who has been running ads for service based businesses for over 8 years now.

Happy to help, feel free to reach out.

weekendhustle

I spotted a fellow member posted something very similar a little while back - there's already some solid advice in that thread that might point you in the right direction 😊

gmbpro

Yes, Google Ads can work well for paid consultations. The rates your freelancer quoted are reasonable.

Key points I'd flag from running these types of accounts:

$400/month minimum is standard for a managed account. Anything less and you're either getting automated reporting or someone who's stretched too thin.
Month one will almost certainly be negative. That's normal. You're paying to gather data and feed leads into a nurture cycle. Some of those leads won't convert until month two or later.
Focus on cost per qualified lead, not cost per click or impression. Track the full funnel.

I'm based in Ontario as well. Happy to chat if you want to dig into the numbers.

communityfirst

The conversion math is where so many people trip up - and it's the most critical piece. For legal services, you're looking at a cost per lead anywhere from £40 to £160 (I've seen it range that wide). On a £1,000 budget, that's maybe 6 to 24 leads. If only half are qualified and you close 20%, you're staring at just 1 or 2 paid consultations in month one. It's easy to get blinded by traffic numbers, but the real win is understanding your funnel from the start.

ctrjunkie

Google Ads for a $2k service with $170 consultations? It can work, but you're playing on hard mode with that budget. Twelve hundred a month sounds decent until you take out four hundred for management - leaves you eight hundred for actual clicks. In the legal space, you're looking at five to ten bucks a pop, so maybe 80 to 160 visits a month. If your landing page is tight, that might get you two to four consultations. But honestly, the first month is basically paying for data while you figure out what sticks.

Don't skip the $150 setup for conversion tracking and CallRail - you need to know which clicks are actually turning into calls. That's non-negotiable.

One thing most immigration lawyers miss: spousal sponsorship searches are super specific. Phrases like "how to sponsor spouse from philippines canada" or "spousal open work permit processing time 2024" are gold. Target those instead of broad terms like "immigration lawyer" - those will burn through your budget with garbage clicks.

Also, run ads only during business hours when you can actually take the calls. No point paying for someone clicking at 2am while you're asleep.

Saw someone mention some autonomous AI tool for marketing automation - honestly, I'd focus on nailing the basics first. Those all-in-one systems rarely deliver.

What's your current site like? Got a dedicated landing page for spousal sponsorship, or are you just sending people to your homepage?

weekendhustle

The math really does check out, and that's the part most people skip. I set up a similar campaign last year and a colleague flagged the same bottleneck before I burned through my budget 😅. Definitely worth getting someone to pressure-test those assumptions if you're not certain on qualification rates.

logan-lifecycle

A $1,200 budget with $400 disappearing into management fees leaves only $800 for actual clicks. In legal, that's barely enough to trigger the learning phase, let alone reach any meaningful conversion node. I've seen a similar setup where the first fix was restructuring the fee model to push more budget into the campaign path itself. Without that, you're optimising a funnel node that can't even fire properly