Google Ads for auto body shops: budgets, campaigns and what wastes money
Realistic clicks, calls and cost per repair for a collision shop on Google Ads, the campaigns worth running, the negatives list, and when not to run ads.
Collision is an expensive keyword set and a high-value job, which means Google Ads either works well for a body shop or bleeds money quietly. There is not much middle ground. The difference is almost never the bid strategy. It is what you let the account buy.
Start with the arithmetic. At a $3,100 average repair order and a 45% close rate on calls, a booked repair can absorb a lot of clicks. At $22 a click and one call per 12 clicks, a call costs about $264 and a booked repair about $587. That is fine on a customer-pay collision job. It is a disaster if the calls are people asking whether you buy scrap panels.
Who you are actually bidding against
Two groups. Consolidator locations, which run national accounts with real budgets and location extensions, and lead resellers who sell your call to three shops. You will not outbid either. You beat them on match type discipline, on landing page relevance and on answering the phone, which is worth more in Google Ads than most owners believe because Quality Score and call conversion both feed the auction.
The three campaigns worth running
1. Collision repair, exact and phrase only. Terms: "collision repair near me", "auto body shop [city]", "body shop near me", "car accident repair [city]", "fender bender repair". Budget $40 to $90 a day in a mid-size metro. This is the money campaign and it should be about 60% of spend.
2. Cosmetic and cash work, its own campaign. Terms: "paintless dent repair", "bumper repair", "bumper scuff repair cost", "hail damage repair", "headlight restoration", "car scratch repair [city]". Clicks here run $6 to $14, far cheaper than collision, and the customer pays cash. Budget $20 to $40 a day. This is the campaign that keeps the lights on when claim volume dips, and it pairs with the Meta offers in the Meta ads guide.
3. Brand defense, if a consolidator is bidding on your name. Your shop name plus common misspellings. It should cost $2 to $5 a day and cost per click under $2. Check it monthly; if nobody is bidding on you, pause it.
That is it. Three campaigns, tight, in one account.
What wastes money
The negative keyword list matters more than the keyword list. Build it before you launch, not after the first invoice:
- free, cheap, cheapest, DIY, how to, tutorial, YouTube
- salvage, junkyard, parts, used parts, buy, sell, for sale, scrap
- job, jobs, hiring, salary, apprentice, technician
- insurance quote, car insurance, cheap car insurance, claim status
- school, training, certification, I-CAR class
- mechanic, oil change, brakes, transmission, tires, alignment
- names of the manufacturers whose parts you do not sell
The insurance cluster is the big one in collision. Untended, a body shop account can spend a third of its budget on people shopping for a policy.
Also turn off, on day one: Display Network expansion inside Search campaigns, Search Partners for the first 60 days until you can judge it, and automatically applied recommendations, which will happily broaden your match types back out on their own.
Match type and bidding
Run exact and phrase. Broad match with a smart bidding strategy can work once you have 30 conversions a month feeding it, and almost no single-location body shop gets there quickly. Start on Maximize Clicks with a cost per click cap, gather 30 days, then move to Maximize Conversions once phone calls are tracked properly.
Track calls as conversions with a minimum call length of 60 seconds. Under 60 seconds is a wrong number or a parts caller and you do not want the algorithm chasing more of those.
Ad schedule and geography
Schedule ads to your answering hours plus one hour on each end, and let missed-call text-back cover the rest rather than paying for 2am clicks you never answer. If you have Saturday hours, bid up 20% on Saturday morning. Only 36.1% of collision shops publish Saturday hours, so the competition there is thin.
Geography: radius targeting from the shop, not city targeting, and set it to Presence, not Presence or Interest. Ten to fifteen miles is right for most metros. A driver with a drivable car will pass two shops to reach a good one, but not fifteen.
The ads and the landing page
Three headline slots that pull in collision:
- "You Choose the Shop, Not the Insurer"
- "I-CAR Gold Class Collision Repair"
- "Free Estimate From Your Photos"
Descriptions should name the carriers you work with, the certifications you hold, and the fact that you handle the rental coordination. Add call extensions, location extensions and a structured snippet for services.
Never point ads at your home page. Point collision ads at a collision repair page and cosmetic ads at a PDR page, each with tap-to-call at the top and the photo estimate form below it. The page layout is in website essentials.
What to expect in the first 90 days
- Days 1 to 14: high cost per call, a messy search terms report. Read that report twice a week and add negatives. This is the work.
- Days 15 to 45: cost per call drops 30% to 50% as the negative list matures. You should be seeing calls at $80 to $180 in a mid-size metro.
- Days 46 to 90: you know your cost per booked repair. If it is under 10% of your average RO, scale the budget 20% a month. If it is over 25%, the problem is usually the phone, not the ads.
Listen to ten recorded calls before you blame the ads. Most shops discover that a third of paid calls were answered on the fourth ring by a tech with a grinder running.
When not to run Google Ads
Do not run ads if your Google profile has fewer than 14 reviews or no website linked. Drivers who click your ad will check your profile before they call, and a thin profile converts the click into a call to your competitor. Roughly 32.9% of collision shops are under 25 reviews. If you are one of them, spend the first 90 days on reviews and the website and then buy traffic. The reviews guide covers the first part.
Frequently asked
How much should I start with? $1,500 to $2,500 a month in a mid-size metro, split roughly 60/35/5 across the three campaigns. Less than $800 a month does not gather enough data to optimize.
Are Local Services Ads available for body shops? The Local Services program covers a limited set of categories and collision has not been broadly included. Check your own market before assuming either way.
Should I use a lead reseller instead? You will pay $40 to $90 for a lead shared with two or three other shops, and you will not own the phone number or the relationship. Owning the account is worth the extra work.
Google Ads management is one of the services in the free 14-day trial. We build it in your account and you keep it. Run the calculator first to see whether the phone or the traffic is your real constraint. Text or call (385) 832-6175.