Methodology
How MTAA's market data is collected, computed, and published. Campaign minimum: $25,000 including all fees, with no fixed spending timeline. This differs from the reporting inclusion threshold below.
Where the numbers come from
MTAA collects advertising spend and conversion events from its connected Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ad accounts. Daily campaign records are retained in D1. Signed outcomes depend on MTAA intake or a connected third-party intake feedback loop; some firms provide no intake feedback, so only lead costs are available. These are MTAA campaign benchmarks, not an industry-wide sample.
What history is retained?
An audit on September 6, 2026 found 15,399 daily campaign records covering September 1, 2024 through September 5, 2026: 735 campaigns and at least one record on each of 735 dates. Coverage differs by campaign and criteria profile. Dates without a row for a particular campaign can reflect inactivity or missing reporting; the audit does not establish complete account-level coverage.
The daily archive contained $26,033,563.48 in source-reported spend, 419,672 lead events and 17,196 signed-event mappings. These are archive totals, not the sample behind any one current cost benchmark. They must not be used as an overall intake conversion rate because feedback coverage varies.
Separate account-level summaries retain aggregate results for a requested API date range. Their date labels do not prove that Meta returned complete daily history for that range. The public archive cards use USD accounts only and can include campaigns outside the classified benchmark dataset. Their purchase-event count is not an independently verified count of retained legal cases. MTAA’s $250M+ lifetime advertising experience is a separate company figure.
Criteria profiles and confidentiality
Law-firm names in labels identify the qualification criteria used, not the advertising client. Multiple campaigns may use the same criteria profile. Differences in criteria, geography, campaign timing and intake reporting affect comparability. Claimant identities are not published.
What does signed case mean?
An applicant meets the campaign intake criteria and signs both the retainer and HIPAA authorization. Outcomes are reported through MTAA intake or a connected third-party intake provider. This is not medical-record verification, a guaranteed viable claim or a guarantee of later case retention.
The reporting pipeline reads Meta conversion events mapped to signing outcomes. Campaign-level and account-level imports use different purchase-event selection rules, so their totals should not be treated as interchangeable. A missing signing count does not establish that no applicants signed.
How are costs calculated?
- Campaign inclusion: At least $5,000 in the rolling 30-day spend calculation. This reporting floor is separate from the $25,000 campaign minimum.
- CPL: Qualifying campaign ad spend divided by reported leads for the same reporting window.
- CPSC: Qualifying campaign ad spend divided by reported signed events, plus a standard $100 intake allowance. Published only with at least 3 reported signings. This excludes the 15% management fee and setup; actual third-party intake charges can differ.
- Feedback coverage: The current CPSC rollup does not independently distinguish a campaign with zero signings from one with no intake feedback. It can therefore include spend whose signed outcomes are not available, overstating cost per reported signing. Confirm the relevant campaign coverage with MTAA before using a benchmark to set a budget.
- Missing values: A dash or “Not reported” means unavailable, withheld or below the publication threshold. It does not mean zero signings or free acquisition.
Reporting windows and refreshes
Cost columns use rolling 30-day reports; detail pages also show 7-day comparisons. Historical volume columns use available stored history for each profile. Do not combine historical volumes with 30-day costs to calculate conversion rates.
True daily Meta records are preferred. Campaigns without daily records can fall back to older seven-day snapshots sampled at seven-day intervals; those fallback windows are approximate. At the September 6 audit, the three snapshot-only campaigns were unclassified and did not contribute to the classified tort table.
The pipeline is scheduled nightly at 08:00 UTC. The displayed computation time identifies the metrics refresh, not confirmation that every campaign has complete data through that instant. Recent conversions may change as feedback arrives. State breakdowns allocate results equally among targeted states when a campaign spans multiple states; they are estimates, not measured state-specific acquisition costs.
How attorneys should use these benchmarks
Compare the same criteria profile, geography, reporting period, fee basis and intake-feedback coverage. The campaign archive supports historical research, while the current table helps frame a campaign discussion. Neither guarantees future cost, case viability or retention. Manually flagged reference profiles should not be assumed to represent current MTAA spend.
Questions
If you have questions about a specific number, methodology, or data point, contact MTAA.