The phone rings on your motor vehicle accident (MVA) campaign, and the caller slipped on a wet floor at a grocery store. The next caller is a body shop asking for an insurance claim number, and a third wants to talk about a surgery that went wrong. These are non-car accident calls on MVA campaigns, and each one costs you a click, an intake slot, and several minutes of a trained specialist’s time. If those calls count as conversions, Smart Bidding can start bidding for more searches like them.
Google keeps a Google Ads help page on unwanted calls for this exact problem. Its examples come from other industries, but the cause it names applies to an injury account. Keywords that run too general put your ad in front of searches your firm never meant to buy. This guide covers the four places where a firm can reduce wrong calls, from the search terms report to the intake desk.
Legal Leads Group builds and runs MVA campaigns on Google Ads and manages Local Services Ads for injury firms across the country. We set up AI Max, import conversions back into Google Ads, and run live intake 24/7. This page leaves aside calls about crashes with no injury or from the at-fault driver, since those raise lead qualification questions. It stays on calls that are not motor vehicle injury cases at all, from store falls to body shops.
If wrong case types keep reaching your MVA campaigns, call Legal Leads Group at (805) 273-8791 for a free consultation. We will walk through your search terms and call data with you.
Which Search Terms Lead to Non-Car Accident Calls on MVA Campaigns
On a search campaign, every wrong call starts with a search term. When a firm asks Legal Leads Group to review its MVA account, we open the search terms report before we change a single bid. That report shows the words people typed or spoke before your ad appeared. Google leaves out terms with too little volume to meet its privacy standards, so the report never shows everything.
Each wrong click carries a price. WordStream by LocaliQ put the average legal click at $9.87 in its 2026 benchmarks. That figure, drawn from blended Google Ads and Microsoft Ads data, topped every other industry in the study. A slip-and-fall caller who tapped your call button cost at least one of those clicks. The monthly cost of non-car accident calls on MVA campaigns depends on your market, your match types and how you build the account.
Why Injury Lawyer Keywords Invite Every Case Type
A keyword such as “personal injury lawyer near me” says nothing about a vehicle. The person searching may have tripped on a broken stair, fallen off a ladder at work or suffered a bite from a neighbor’s dog. Google matches the search to your keyword, and your ad can show. “Accident attorney” carries the same problem, because an accident can happen on a warehouse floor as easily as on a freeway. These general terms often bring real volume, which makes them tempting to keep inside an MVA campaign.
The Vehicle-Word Test for Every MVA Keyword
Read each keyword in your MVA ad groups and look for a vehicle or crash word. Car, auto, truck, motorcycle, rideshare, Uber, crash, collision and wreck all pass. Pedestrian passes too, since a pedestrian injury case usually involves a vehicle. “Injury lawyer” and “accident attorney” fail, because nothing in them names a vehicle. Move the failures into a separate general injury campaign with its own budget, or pause them, so your crash budget buys crash searches.
How Broad Match and AI Max Widen an MVA Keyword List
Even a clean keyword list can reach past car crashes. Broad match lets Google show your ad for searches related to your keyword, and those related searches can include a fall in a store parking lot. Broad, phrase and exact match each set a different limit on that reach. AI Max for Search campaigns adds search term matching, which uses broad match and keywordless technology to find new queries. More reach can mean more wrong calls when the account has short negative lists and search term matching on in every ad group.
Turning Off Search Term Matching in One Ad Group
Google lets you switch search term matching off in the ad group settings while AI Max stays on for the rest of the campaign. A tightly built truck crash ad group can run on exact and phrase keywords alone. A broader car accident ad group can keep the expansion while you watch what it brings in. Google says search term matching will not work with manual CPC, so check the bid strategy before you rely on it.
Reading the Source Column When You Add Negatives
AI Max adds a source column to the search terms report. It tells you whether a match came from broad match expansion or from keywordless matching. A separate view pairs each search term with the headline and URL Google served. When a premises liability search shows up, add the negative and note which source found it. If the same source keeps finding fall searches in one ad group, turn off search term matching there.
Case-Type Negative Keyword Lists for MVA Campaigns
Negative keywords tell Google which searches should not trigger your ad. A single long, mixed list gets hard to audit, and over time the team forgets why it added each term. Splitting negatives into lists by case type makes them easier to read, share, and fix. Google allows up to 20 negative keyword lists per account, with up to 5,000 keywords in each. Four lists match the wrong-call types this guide covers, and each one needs careful testing before it goes live.
Slip, Trip and Premises Liability Negatives
Premises liability covers injuries from a dangerous condition on someone else’s property. Searchers in these cases use phrases such as “slip and fall,” “trip and fall” and “wet floor.” Add those as phrase negatives instead of single words. A negative on “fall” would block a search for “Fall River car accident lawyer.” A negative on “trip” would block “Uber trip accident.” Test each phrase against your recent search terms before you add it. If your firm does want premises cases, give them a campaign of their own with a separate budget.
Workplace Injury Negatives and the On-the-Job Crash
Workers’ compensation searches can send wrong calls to an injury campaign. Searches such as “work injury lawyer” belong on a negative list for most MVA campaigns. Add “hurt at work” only as an exact negative, because a phrase negative would block “hurt at work in a car accident.” A delivery driver hit by another car while working creates a harder case. Depending on state law and the facts, that driver may have a workers’ compensation claim and a separate claim against the other driver. A broad or phrase negative on “workers comp” would block “workers comp car accident,” so use exact negatives such as “workers comp lawyer” here and review what they block.
Medical Malpractice and Nursing Home Negatives
Malpractice searchers often type “injury lawyer” with a hospital, a surgery or a doctor attached. Negatives such as “malpractice,” “misdiagnosis,” “surgical error,” and “nursing home” keep those searches away from your crash ads. Medical terms need care, though. A crash victim may search for a lawyer after surgery for a broken pelvis, so add specific phrases such as “surgery gone wrong” instead of “surgery” on its own. Our guide to getting car accident cases instead of medical malpractice calls covers that split in more depth.
Car Searches That Have Nothing to Do With a Legal Claim
Some wrong calls mention a car accident and still have nothing to do with a legal claim. The caller wants a tow, a rental, a police report or a repair estimate. The search contains the right words, so it passes the vehicle-word test. Watch for these five patterns in your search terms report.
- Report searches such as “car accident report” or “police report number” come from people who need a document rather than a lawyer.
- Repair searches such as “body shop,” “collision repair,” and “repair estimate” pull in drivers whose only loss is a dented bumper.
- Insurance searches such as “claim number” and “adjuster phone number” pull in people trying to reach a carrier, and “insurance quote” pulls in people shopping for coverage.
- Towing and rental searches such as “tow yard” and “rental car after accident” come from people trying to get a tow or a rental.
- Job searches such as “car accident lawyer jobs” and “paralegal salary” bring job seekers who call to ask about openings.
Phrase negatives such as “body shop,” “insurance quote,” “rental car after accident,” and “lawyer jobs” block most of them without touching a real injury search. Single words need more care. A negative on “tow” blocks “tow truck accident,” which is a real crash case. A negative on “rental car” blocks “rental car accident lawyer,” and a negative on “report” can block a crash victim asking about a police report. Check settlement searches separately too, because a person asking about an insurance settlement may still have an injury claim worth a call.
Where Negative Keywords Miss Searches in Google Ads
Negative keywords behave differently from regular keywords. A regular keyword reaches close variants such as plurals and related phrasings, while a negative stays narrow. Google states plainly that negative keywords “won’t match to close variants or other expansions.” That rule means a list that looks complete can still let wrong searches through. Three related limits matter on MVA accounts, and each one changes how you write or place your lists.
Plurals and Synonyms Need Their Own Entries
Google handles casing and misspellings for negative keywords on its own. It leaves plurals and synonyms to you. A broad negative on “dog bite” does nothing to stop “dog bites” or “bitten by a dog.” Write each case-type list with every common form a searcher might use. Your search terms report is the best source for those forms, because it shows how people in your market actually describe the problem.
The 16-Word Limit on Long Voice Searches
Google applies negative keywords to the first 16 words of a search. If the blocked word shows up as the 17th word or later, your ad can still appear. Short typed searches never come close to that limit. Voice searches and long spoken questions can pass 16 words. Watch the search terms report for long questions about falls. When one repeats, add a fall-specific phrase from within its first 16 words, such as “slipped at the store,” and test it against your crash searches first.
Account-Level and Performance Max Negative Keyword Limits
Account-level negative keywords apply to all Search and Shopping inventory in your account, up to a limit of 1,000 terms. Performance Max campaigns carry their own campaign-level negatives, and Google raised that cap from 100 to 10,000 per campaign in 2025. That change matters for injury firms running Performance Max next to search, because the old cap forced hard choices. Add the non-legal terms as account-level negatives, then check them against your other practice-area campaigns, since “police report” may matter to a DUI campaign. Keep the case-type lists at the campaign level, where you can tune them by practice area.
How MVA Ads and Call Assets Screen Callers Before They Dial
Since February 2026, Google Ads no longer lets advertisers create a new call-only ad. Existing call-only ads stop receiving impressions in February 2027. For injury firms, that change retires one of the two ad formats Google ties to unwanted calls. A call-only ad led with a phone number and a call button on a mobile screen. The searcher could tap and dial before reading much about car crashes.
Call assets replace that format inside a responsive search ad. A tap on the call asset still dials without visiting a landing page, so the headlines and description above the button carry the screening. Those lines can say “car crash” in plain words. A person who fell at a grocery store can read them and skip the ad. Firms running Local Services Ads have a separate set of controls, covered at the end of this section.
Why Call-Only Ads Let Wrong Callers Through
A call-only ad carried a business name, a phone number, and description text, with two optional headlines. If the advertiser skipped the final URL, the ad had no tappable headline, and a tap simply placed the call. So a person searching “injury lawyer” after a fall saw a law firm, tapped and called. Google’s unwanted calls page names call-only ads and call assets as the formats behind these calls. It also suggests pausing them when the keywords behind them run too general.
The February 2026 and February 2027 Call-Only Deadlines
Google published the change in October 2025 and removed the option to create new call-only ads in February 2026. It strongly recommends replacing the remaining ones before the February 2027 cutoff. If your MVA account still runs them, use the switch to rewrite their copy around crash language. Copying the old text forward into a responsive search ad repeats the same screening gap in a new format.
Moving the Call Button Under a Car Crash Responsive Search Ad
Google’s transition steps run in a set order. Add your business name in the account or campaign settings, then add every relevant phone number as a call asset. Next, create or edit a car crash responsive search ad in the target ad group and attach the call asset. Remove the old call-only ad only after the new ad wins approval and starts serving. Clicks on a call asset cost the same as a headline click. On desktop, the asset shows a “Call us” button with a QR code that opens the dialer on a phone.
Ad Text That Names the Vehicle and the Crash
Your headlines now do the screening that call-only ads skipped. A headline such as “Hurt in a Car Crash” tells a fall victim this ad is for someone else. A description that names rear-end collisions, rideshare crashes, and truck wrecks does the same. General injury language does the opposite. A headline offering help with any injury invites any injury to call, and your MVA budget pays for the clicks that follow.
How Many Headlines Should Name a Crash
Write at least half of your 15 headlines around a vehicle or crash word. “Car Accident Lawyer,” “Injured in a Truck Crash,” and “Rideshare Crash Claims” all qualify. Keep a few general lines such as “Free Consultation” in the mix, because they still earn clicks. Google assembles the ad from your headlines in different combinations. More crash headlines leave Google fewer combinations without a crash word in them.
Pinned Headlines and the Final URL Expansion Conflict
Pinning a crash headline to position one keeps a vehicle word in every version of the ad. Google’s AI Max documentation adds a limit. When final URL expansion is on, Google does not respect pinned assets. Final URL expansion lets Google send the click to a different page on your site, and it requires text customization as well. If your site has slip-and-fall or workers’ compensation pages, turn final URL expansion off in MVA campaigns, or add those pages as URL exclusions in the campaign settings.
One-Crash-Type Landing Pages for MVA Ads
A landing page is the page a searcher reaches after clicking your ad. When that page lists every injury the firm handles, it confirms a fall victim’s guess that they found the right firm. A page built only around motor vehicle crashes does the opposite. It tells the visitor what the firm handles before the phone button ever comes into view. It also keeps the search, the ad, and the page on one subject.
Separate Pages for Car, Truck and Rideshare Crashes
Each MVA ad group should point to a page about its own crash type. A truck crash page can talk about commercial carriers and federal trucking rules. The rideshare page can cover the insurance a rideshare company carries during a trip. Someone who fell at a store finds nothing on any of these pages that matches their problem. A person who does belong there sees right away that the firm handles their kind of crash.
Call Tracking Numbers on the Landing Page
Calls that start on your landing page need their own tracking. Google counts them through a website call conversion, which shows a Google forwarding number on the page through a short code snippet. Without a tracking number on the page, a call from that page reaches your phone log with no keyword attached. With one, you can tie a wrong call to the keyword and ad group behind it. That connection lets the intake work in the fourth section of this page reach the ad account.
Local Services Ads No Longer Credit Wrong Job Types
If your MVA program includes Local Services Ads, your negative keyword lists do nothing there. Local Services Ads give you no keyword controls. Google decides which leads to send from your profile’s category, job types, and service areas. Google’s help page now says it has stopped crediting leads marked as “job type not serviced” or “geo not serviced.” A slip-and-fall lead on a crash-focused profile can stay on the bill unless Google flags it as invalid or credits it later.
Job Type and Service Area Settings for Personal Injury Profiles
The job types on your profile are the main control you have. Turn off the job types your firm does not want, and keep the ones closest to motor vehicle crashes. Google warns that narrowing job types and service areas can also reduce lead volume. Fewer total leads can still mean fewer charged wrong-case leads, though results depend on your market and your profile. Recheck the settings whenever Google adds or renames job types for lawyers.
What Google Still Credits Automatically
Google still skips the charge for leads it flags as invalid or low quality at first contact. It also reassesses charged leads over time and can issue credits automatically. In most cases, those credits reach your account balance within 30 days, though the original charge still appears on the invoice. Rating each lead through the lead feedback survey can earn a bonus credit as well. None of this promises a credit for a real caller with the wrong case type, so the job type settings carry more weight than they used to.
Why Google Ads Counts a Slip-and-Fall Call as an MVA Conversion
Google’s help page on call reporting sets a default for counting calls by length. Whenever Google counts a call by duration, a call from an ad becomes a conversion once it lasts 60 seconds. A slip-and-fall caller who spends four minutes explaining the fall passes that threshold. A body shop manager asking for a claim number can pass it as well. Google records each one as a conversion. When those calls count as a primary conversion, Smart Bidding treats the searches behind them as worth more spend.
Wrong calls that count as conversions push bidding toward more searches like them. The share of wrong calls can grow while the conversion count keeps rising. Negative keywords and better ads reduce non-car accident calls on MVA campaigns, but only the conversion setup tells Google which calls you actually wanted. How fast the mix improves depends on your call volume and on how long your bidding strategy takes to relearn.
What the 60-Second Default Counts
Google lets you raise the 60-second default to a longer call length. Setting it to three or five minutes filters out hang-ups and quick wrong numbers. It does nothing about a long call from the wrong case type. An intake conversation with a fall victim can run longer than a short call from a crash victim who needs a callback. Duration measures how long the line stayed open, and that is all it measures.
What AI-Qualified Call Leads Catch and What They Miss
In April 2026, Google introduced AI-qualified call leads in Google Ads. The system evaluates call recordings and counts only the calls it judges qualified. Call duration becomes a fallback for calls Google cannot record. Google turned call recording on by default for most advertisers to allow this AI-powered lead qualification. For an MVA campaign, the real question is what qualified means to Google.
Spam, Robocalls and Misdials Drop Out of the Count
Google’s help page says the system filters robocalls, spam calls, and misdials, even when they run past the duration threshold. That removes a class of junk that a timer alone could never catch. Recording works only when both phone numbers sit in the United States or Canada. Google does not record calls from location assets at all, so those calls still fall back to duration or ad interaction.
A Real Slip-and-Fall Caller Can Still Sound Qualified
The same help page lists the signals of intent Google looks for. A caller asking about specific services, trying to schedule a consultation, or showing readiness to buy reads as qualified. A woman who fell in a parking garage and wants to book a consultation shows every one of those signals. Google’s documentation does not say whether the system checks the caller’s problem against the campaign that paid for the call. Plan as if a real caller with the wrong case type can still count as qualified.
Call Recording and the Prospective Client Question
Callers hear a short automated notice that Google will record the conversation for quality purposes. On an injury line, a caller may share medical details and accident facts in the first minute. A caller who shares those details may count as a prospective client under ABA Model Rule 1.18, covered later in this guide. Google’s pages name healthcare and financial services as the categories where recording stays off by default, and they do not name legal services. Check the setting under Admin, then Account settings, then Call ads, then Call recording. Whether recording fits the firm’s confidentiality duties is a question for your ethics counsel, and turning it off sends Google back to call duration.
Importing Confirmed Crash Calls and Signed Cases Into Google Ads
The only conversion signal that knows the case type comes from your own intake data. Google Ads accepts imported call conversions, which match a call in your records to a call Google tracked. Your intake team already knows which calls involved a car crash and which crash callers signed. Sending that answer back to Google turns your conversion count from phone calls into car accident calls and cases. This setup gives bidding a conversion that separates crash calls from every other call.
The Fields Your Intake Log Needs for a Call Import
Each imported call needs the caller’s phone number in E.164 format, which means a plus sign, the country code, and the number. It also needs the call start date and time with a time zone. Your upload names the conversion action and the time the conversion happened. Google’s developer documentation adds that each upload must fill in a consent field, and that imported results can take up to 3 hours to appear. Call import also requires Google forwarding numbers, so the call has to come through call reporting in the first place.
Moving Calls From Ads to a Secondary Conversion
Google sorts conversion actions into primary and secondary. Primary actions feed bidding and show in the Conversions column. Google describes secondary actions as observation only, and they show only in All conversions unless you add them to a custom goal. Set an imported action for confirmed crash calls as primary, and move “Calls from ads” to secondary. Google’s guidance allows one to two conversion cycles for Smart Bidding to adjust after a goal change, and accounts with low call volume can take longer.
Why a Confirmed Crash Call Can Bid Before a Signed Case Can
Signed cases make the cleanest goal, but a firm that signs a handful of cases a month gives the bidding system little to learn from. A confirmed crash call happens far more often, and intake can mark it the same day. An account can start with that action as primary and add the signed case as a second import later. Your call volume and signing rate decide which one should lead, so revisit the choice each quarter.
Keeping Raw Call Counts Visible for Intake Staffing
Moving “Calls from ads” to secondary does not delete any data. All conversions still count every call that met your conversion setting, including wrong case types. Intake managers need that count to staff the phones, and ad managers need it to spot a spike in wrong calls early. Each week, divide the counted calls that intake confirmed as crashes by all counted calls. The result shows what share of your counted calls actually involved a crash.
Call Details Summaries That Point to the Ad Group Behind Each Call
With recording on, the Call Details report gives each call an AI-generated summary and hashtags such as #HighIntent. Those summaries let a manager scan a week of calls without listening to each one. A summary that mentions a fall, a job site, or a surgery flags a wrong call right away. Line it up with the campaign and ad group behind that call, then check the search terms for that ad group. The review goes quickly once intake and the ads team read the same report.
How Intake Teams Turn Wrong Calls Into Cleaner MVA Campaign Data
What does your intake team do in the first 30 seconds of an MVA call? If the script opens with a greeting, a name, and the caller’s story, the specialist may not learn about the vehicle for minutes. That order spends time on wrong calls and loses the data that could prevent the next one. Intake sits at the only point where a person hears the caller’s actual problem in the caller’s own words.
Every wrong call that reaches a person also carries useful data for the ad account. The caller’s words hint at the search that brought them, and a disposition code records the case type. A firm that captures that code feeds both the negative keyword lists from the first section and the conversion import from the third. Our live intake team answers around the clock, but the method below works for any trained team.
The First Question Intake Asks on an MVA Line
Lead with the vehicle. Asking whether a car, truck, or other motor vehicle played a part in the injury sorts the call in a few seconds. A yes moves the call into the normal MVA intake, while a no tells the specialist to switch to a short script for other matters. The full screening for injuries, fault, and insurance comes after this sort, and our page on qualifying and disqualifying motor vehicle accident leads covers those questions in detail.
Asking About the Vehicle Before Asking About the Injury
Injury questions invite long answers. A caller who fell at a store may describe the fall, the pain, and the doctor visits before the specialist can redirect. Asking about the vehicle first keeps the wrong call short and polite. It also keeps the specialist from hearing details the firm does not need about a matter it will not take. That last point ties into the firm’s confidentiality duties, covered below.
Calls That Sound Off-Topic but Belong on an MVA Campaign
Some callers describe a motor vehicle crash without ever saying “car.” A pedestrian hit in a crosswalk may open with “I was walking” and never mention the driver. Cyclists struck by a delivery van may say “bike accident” first. Workers rear-ended in a company truck may lead with “workers’ comp” before anything else. Each of these involves a motor vehicle, so intake should keep them in the MVA flow. Your negative lists should leave pedestrian searches alone, and bicycle searches deserve a close look before you exclude them.
Disposition Codes That Feed the Negative Keyword List
A disposition code is a short label intake attaches to every call when it ends. Call tracking tools and CRMs commonly support them. For wrong calls on an MVA line, four codes cover the wrong-call types this guide describes.
- “Other injury” marks a real injury that did not involve a motor vehicle, such as a fall, a dog bite, or a work injury.
- “Medical” marks a malpractice, nursing home, or other health care matter.
- “Not legal” marks a caller who wanted a tow yard, a body shop, an insurance carrier, or a police report.
- “Solicitation” marks vendors, job seekers, and sales calls.
Keep the codes this short. Specialists skip a long menu on a busy night, and a skipped code leaves a gap in the data. Add a free-text field for the caller’s own words, because those words may echo the search term they typed.
Matching a Disposition Back to the Keyword
A disposition helps the ad account only when you can tie it to a keyword. Import the “Other injury” code as its own secondary conversion action, using the same caller number and call start time. Google then reports it by campaign, ad group, ad, and keyword, the same way it reports any imported call conversion. Keywords that collect “Other injury” conversions show you where the next negative belongs. Because the action is secondary, it stays out of bidding as long as you keep it out of any custom goal.
A Weekly Review Between Intake and the Ads Manager
Set a fixed weekly slot where the intake lead and the person running the ads read the same numbers. Start with the share of calls coded as wrong, then the keywords behind them, then the search terms. Each meeting should end with the ads manager adding specific negatives and changing specific ads or pages. Without that meeting, the codes sit unread in the CRM, and the campaign keeps paying for the same wrong calls.
What the Firm Owes a Caller It Will Not Sign
A caller with a fall, a work injury, or a malpractice question may still count as a prospective client under ABA Model Rule 1.18. The rule covers a person who consults a lawyer about possibly forming a client-lawyer relationship. Even when no representation follows, the lawyer may not use or reveal what that person shared, except as Rule 1.9 would permit for information from a former client. Your state’s version of the rule controls. Ask your ethics counsel how your wrong-call script should handle what callers share.
Referral Arrangements Under ABA Model Rule 1.5(e)
Some firms refer a wrong-call caller to another lawyer who handles that case type. When a referral includes a share of the fee, ABA Model Rule 1.5(e) limits how lawyers in different firms can divide it. The split must track the work each lawyer does, or each lawyer must take joint responsibility for the case. Clients must agree to the arrangement and each lawyer’s share, and that agreement needs written confirmation. The total fee must also be reasonable. State versions of the rule vary, so confirm any referral arrangement with your ethics counsel before intake offers it.
Closing a Call the Firm Will Not Take
A caller the firm turns away may assume the firm will keep track of their deadline. Some firms send a short written note declining the matter, which tells the caller to look elsewhere. Your ethics counsel can tell you what your state expects that note to say, including how it should address filing deadlines. Intake can log the date each note goes out, which gives the firm a record of the declined call.
Reduce Non-Car Accident Calls on MVA Campaigns With Legal Leads Group
A firm can reduce non-car accident calls on MVA campaigns in four places, and each one needs its own fix. Search terms set which searches show the ad, and ad text sets who taps. The conversion setup sets what Google rewards, and intake sets what data goes back to the account. A fix in one area leaves the other three unchanged. Weeding out these calls means working all four at the same time.
Legal Leads Group manages MVA campaigns on Google Ads, runs Local Services Ads for injury firms, sets up AI Max, and imports conversions back into Google Ads. Our live intake team answers 24/7. That combination covers the search side and the call side of an MVA campaign under one agency.
Results depend on your market, your budget, and the case mix you want, and no agency can promise a fixed drop in wrong calls. What we can do is show you where the wrong calls on your MVA campaigns come from before you spend another month paying for them.
Call Legal Leads Group at (805) 273-8791 or use our contact page to book a free consultation about your MVA campaigns.