Case Study - Market Research - SEO - Yandex Direct
Legal services market research: 30% lower CPA and campaign launch in 10 days
Deep demand, competition, and semantic analysis helped a legal firm launch campaigns faster, reduce lead cost, and build a stronger SEO foundation in Yandex.
Context
What was happening before the project
About the client
A legal firm in Yaroslavl served both private and corporate clients, but marketing lacked a unified system: Yandex was used tactically, and there was no clear model to scale paid traffic and SEO.
Business task
The leadership needed a practical decision tool: no long interview cycles and no heavy audit process, but a clear data-backed view of demand, competition, and real market structure.
Challenges
Why the previous approach slowed growth
Budget planning was mostly blind
Without demand and seasonality analysis, it was difficult to decide when to push spend and when to reduce bids.
Semantic core was outdated
Campaigns were generating expensive and often less-qualified leads, while some commercial clusters were missing entirely.
SEO and Yandex Direct were disconnected
There was no shared query architecture that could drive both paid performance and organic growth.
Approach
How we built a system instead of assumptions
36-month demand analysis
We collected search trend history, built seasonal indices, and identified peak demand periods.
Key finding: the strongest months for legal demand were October, November, and December.
Top-20 competitor breakdown
We compared visibility, offers, page structures, ads, and approximate traffic costs.
Key finding: about 60% of attention was captured by three competitors, but niche services still had open growth windows.
Semantic core and clustering
We gathered and clustered 2800+ queries, grouped LSI segments, and prepared a negative-keyword list for Yandex Direct.
Key finding: one unified base was created for SEO, paid search, and RSYA without logic duplication.
Campaign structure matrix
We structured service directions, distributed budget by priority, and prepared a practical launch framework.
Key finding: projected CPL reduction reached 30% at strategy level before full rollout.
Content plan for informational demand
We mapped article, FAQ, and landing-page topics to strengthen expertise and organic traffic.
Key finding: 12 topics covered most upper- and mid-funnel intent clusters.
Deliverables
What the client received
Launch-ready package
- 17-page PDF with market, demand, and competition analytics.
- Excel file with around 2800 clustered keywords by service priorities.
- 200+ negative keywords for immediate ad account upload.
- Mind map and 3-month content calendar for SEO demand warming.
What strengthened Yandex SEO
- Clear separation between commercial and informational clusters.
- Future page architecture without intent cannibalization.
- Semantic reserve for services, blog, FAQ, and local pages.
- Content foundation that answers real audience questions, not only sales prompts.
Numbers
Results after implementation
| Metric | Before | After implementation |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign launch timeline | About 25 days | 10 days |
| Average CPA | 1,350 RUB | 940 RUB |
| Search ad CTR | 4.2% | 6.3% |
| Organic traffic share | 18% | 33% |
Conclusion
Why this case worked
Budget efficiency came from intent precision, not ad-level guesswork. Correct semantic structure, seasonality, and competition insights removed extra spend and shortened launch time.
This was equally critical for SEO: the query architecture became the backbone for services, blog content, and FAQ pages, enabling growth through both paid channels and organic visibility in Yandex.
FAQ
Common questions about legal market research and ad launch
Why should a legal firm run market research before launching Yandex Direct?
Research shows which services are actually searched, how demand shifts by season, and where competitors overheat the auction. This reduces budget waste from day one.
Can one semantic core be used for both SEO and paid campaigns?
Yes, if the core is structured correctly: commercial and informational intents must be separated into clear clusters, and page architecture must match user intent.
What does the client actually get after this project?
Not just a report, but a practical operating system: strategic PDF insights, semantic clusters, negative keywords, campaign structure, SEO content roadmap, and a clear growth path in Yandex.
Client feedback
What the client said after implementation
When we requested analytics, our advertising system was chaotic: spend was going out, but lead volume was low. After implementation, we launched new campaigns in 10 days instead of the usual month. Average CPA dropped by 30% in the first optimization cycle, and CTR for the "lawyer Yaroslavl" query grew from 4.2% to 6.3%.
The report was so clear and action-ready that leadership only needed to pass it into execution. We got transparent numbers instead of assumptions and decided to continue with the same approach.
Need this level of clarity in SEO, Yandex Direct, and analytics?
We can run demand research, find weak points in your ad structure, and build a practical system that can be launched quickly without unnecessary complexity.