Law Firm Agents
Google AdsProposed workflow

Match ad spend with recorded intake stages

Compare spend with inquiries, consultations, and staff-confirmed retained matters, while keeping unmatched records visible.

Tools for the documented steps

These products support separate steps. Their presence does not imply a tested connection or endorsement.

Practice relevance

Cross-practice idea · A general operational method. Review the stated tool and jurisdiction limits before use.

The problem

Compare spend with inquiries, consultations, and staff-confirmed retained matters, while keeping unmatched records visible.

Why it matters: Click and call totals do not show whether inquiries reached consultation or retention. Comparing recorded stages with spend makes attribution gaps visible without claiming that an ad caused a matter or a financial return.

Sources & evidence

Proposed / not tested. The public source describes the problem. Documentation supports only the stated method components; no result from this recipe has been verified.

What’s been verified

Source methods and reported problems have been reviewed. We have not run the adapted workflow. The sample below describes expected behavior on synthetic data, not a customer result.

What to measure: In a synthetic pilot, count correctly found exceptions, false alarms, and unresolved inputs. No time or cost saving is assumed.

Source checked: October 15, 2026. Pain accounts are self-reported. Documentation supports components; this adapted recipe and prompt have not been tested. We wrote these prompts. The adapted workflow hasn’t been tested.

Suggested approach

Start when: Weekly Ads export plus approved anonymized intake-stage export

  1. join using existing firm-internal attribution IDs, preserve unmatched records and distinguish inquiry/consult/retained
  2. Keep source references and report unknowns instead of filling gaps.
  3. The responsible reviewer checks the report before any separately approved action.

Limits and review

The assistant drafts or reports only. Check source records and review the output before a human performs any separately approved send or change. No automatic legal decision, money movement, account connection or publication is included.

Who reviews it: No client narratives or identities to ad platforms. Any conversion upload requires separate firm privacy/ethics approval and supported data-sharing permission; hashed identifiers remain personal data. Revenue may not be available or comparable across matters.

What you need

Your firm-approved AI assistant · prepared files

  • Existing authorized access to the correct source account and records; no new login, credentials, installation or permission grant is included.
  • Responsible lawyer/operations reviewer approves scope, definitions and any later action.
  • AI optional; use only approved minimized data and retain originals separately.
  • Use synthetic inputs first. Keep real data in firm-approved accounts and processing, with appropriate access, confidentiality and retention controls. Aliases alone do not anonymize records. Never paste credentials, API keys or unnecessary client details.

How to use

Documentation-checked component path; proposed workflow, not tested

Before you start
  • Aggregate spend alone cannot establish individual attribution. Existing CRM IDs/source capture and historical stage events may be absent.
Check access and setup
  • The live account, entitlement, exact headers, records and field coverage have not been observed.

  1. Download scoped ad-spend data

    Google Ads · Correct customer account > Campaigns statistics table > date/columns/segments > Download > Excel CSV or XLSX

    Display campaign identity, period, cost and selected measurement columns. Download the visible table after checking account, currency, timezone, dates and filters. Preserve native headers, totals and the source file.

    Expected output
    Native campaign-period statistics export.
    Next step
    Open locally; capture all report settings in Scope.
    Check before continuing
    The download is aggregate advertising data, not a click-to-client ledger. Do not multiply each campaign spend by its number of lead rows.
    Step documentation 1 ↗

  2. Ask the in-app assistant for the source report

    Lawmatics Merlin Copilot, optional · Left navigation > Merlin > Copilot

    With an already approved seat and firm-wide reporting access, paste the prompt. Open the returned report/export or inspect its preview; if unavailable or incomplete, use the native report route below. Do not accept mutation previews, routines or feature-request sending.

    Expected output
    A report/one-time export or explicit unsupported/missing-field result; exact custom query coverage is not promised.
    Next step
    Check actual fields and records, then use the native CSV path where a report is returned. Prose alone does not certify completeness.
    Check before continuing
    Existing firm-approved AI entitlement and data handling approval are prerequisites. Lawmatics Merlin reporting can operate at firm scope; do not use it across ethical walls or assume matter-level permissions protect aggregate/search output. The detailed Copilot article and September 2026 release notes describe availability; the suite overview still contains a stale Coming Soon heading. Verify actual account access, with no purchase or permission changes.
    Step documentation 1 ↗Step documentation 2 ↗Step documentation 3 ↗

  3. Get the actual Lawmatics rows

    Lawmatics · Reports > Custom Reports > existing matter report > eye/view icon > Export

    Use an existing authorized report, or have its owner prepare a targeted report with Source, Campaign, Created At, Converted At, Status, Stage and the exact existing attribution identifier if available. Record the agreed review period and matter scope, including which date field sets the range. Export the viewed report to CSV; large exports may arrive by email. Preserve headers and file unchanged. A report creation/save is a separate account write, not performed here. If no suitable report exists, use the documented Settings > Export > Export Matters route only in restricted storage, then minimize locally.

    Expected output
    Native matter/contact-field rows; no promise of task history, audit history, destination IDs or custom fields that the firm never recorded.
    Next step
    Open in restricted Excel; compare rows to matter records before preparing aliases.
    Check before continuing
    A matter report may contain contact and matter fields. A contacts-only export omits matter fields. Date-created and date-converted scopes differ; exported grouping is not preserved.
    Step documentation 1 ↗Step documentation 2 ↗Step documentation 3 ↗Step documentation 4 ↗

  4. Make the checked, minimized handoff

    Excel / source-record reviewer · Restricted original workbook > separate analysis workbook > Scope worksheet

    Staff verifies existing campaign/source identifiers and approved stage definitions. Aggregate distinct lead aliases by the approved attribution key and cohort first, then join to one Spend row per campaign/period/currency. Keep current-stage/as-of reporting separate from event-in-period counts; earlier stages require their real timestamped records. Never fuzzy-match names or reconstruct absent click IDs. Keep untouched original exports/screenshots and the identifying source map in restricted firm storage. Build a separate minimized analysis file; do not hide raw client data on another tab. Include the complete Scope/coverage note in the AI-visible workbook or prompt. Use aliases and administrative metadata only. Unknown is not zero, false, completed or absent.

    Expected output
    Spend(campaign_alias,period,currency,spend,source_ref); Intake(lead_alias,campaign_alias,created_at,recorded_stage,stage_at,as_of,source_ref); Scope(cohort,attribution_window,stage_dictionary,matching_coverage)
    Next step
    Format each approved range as a named table. Carry source-row references and coverage into the analysis workbook.
    Check before continuing
    Every field has an observed source or an explicit missing reason; staff assignments are marked editorial, not native.
    Step documentation 1 ↗Step documentation 2 ↗Step documentation 3 ↗

  5. Ask AI to inspect the checked inputs

    Excel Copilot, optional · Analysis workbook > Copilot icon at lower right > Chat only

    Open the minimized workbook containing the named tables and Scope. Paste the exact prompt; if unavailable, perform the same rule checks manually.

    Expected output
    A source-linked campaign/cohort table and missing-measurement list.
    Next step
    Copy checked results into a new Review sheet, retaining source references and unresolved blockers.
    Check before continuing
    Reconcile aggregate cost back to Ads once, check stage evidence and show unmapped proportion.
    Step documentation 1 ↗

  6. Human review and final action

    Final human review

    Responsible firm reviewer · Internal Review worksheet / review document

    Marketing and intake owners approve mapping, cohort, stage meaning and arithmetic. Save a provisional report if capture is partial.

    Expected output
    Reviewed recorded-attribution report; no causal or profitability claim.
    Next step
    Any tracking implementation or conversion upload is a separate privacy-reviewed project.
    Check before continuing
    No personal data, legal circumstances or client outcomes are uploaded to any ad platform.
    Step documentation 1 ↗Step documentation 2 ↗

What you’ll get

attribution-review.csv: source_id, spend, unique_inquiries, booked_consults, confirmed_retained, unmatched_count, denominator, coverage_warning

Inputs and a sample test Synthetic example · not a measured result

Input files

  • ads.csv: source_id, campaign_id, period, spend, currency, attribution_token
  • intake.csv: intake_alias, attribution_token, source_id, stage, stage_at; stage-dictionary.csv: stage, approved_definition; scope.txt: timezone, window, coverage

Synthetic example

R1: exact attribution token and staff-confirmed retained stage
R2: inquiry has no matching token
R3: recorded consultation without retention confirmation

Expected output

R1: observed attributed retention, not causal ROI
R2: unmatched
R3: consultation only

Test a failure

No client narratives or identities to ad platforms. Any conversion upload requires separate firm privacy/ethics approval and supported data-sharing permission; hashed identifiers remain personal data. Revenue may not be available or comparable across matters.

Try with the sample files

Follow the tool steps above and use the inputs named in each step. Where provided, native-* files are blank scaffolds and NATIVE-INPUT-MAPPING explains their fields. Original examples and the optional full review prompt use a separate prepared-input schema. Keep them separate unless the mapping explicitly connects them. Downloading a kit does not connect accounts or prove the workflow works.

Download inputs and checklist 19 files

Instructions, blank templates and separate synthetic examples; these files do not install an automation. Blank templates still need verified source data.

Optional full review prompt for prepared inputs

Prepared-input review prompt with Your firm-approved AI assistant · prepared files

Proposed / not tested · editorial prompt. This prompt uses the original prepared-input schema shown in the sample test. Step prompts may use different tables. Follow NATIVE-INPUT-MAPPING where supplied; do not mix the original examples with native-step inputs without mapping and checking every field.

Read original method Read pain evidence

Published by Law Firm Agents. These are source-linked editorial adaptations; no end-to-end execution is claimed. Read the plain-text version.