Hiring a marketing agency for a body shop, or doing it yourself

By Steve Meitler · 2026-09-03 · 5 min read

What marketing help costs a collision shop, the red flags, what to keep in house, the questions to ask, and why a trial beats a twelve month contract.

Body shops get pitched constantly. Directory salespeople, lead resellers, SEO firms, the paint jobber's marketing arm, and a call every week from someone promising the map pack. Most of it is sold on a twelve month agreement signed before a single lead arrives.

Here is how to judge it, what it should cost, and what you should never hand to anyone outside the building.

What you should never outsource

Three things belong to the shop permanently.

The review ask at handover. No vendor can stand in your lot and say the sentence. Software sends the text; the writer creates the review. This is covered in the reviews guide.

The Tuesday and Friday update text. Your customers' experience of the repair is the update cadence. Nobody outside the shop knows where the Highlander is.

Answering the phone. An outside service cannot say whether you are certified for aluminum-body trucks or whether the carrier has approved the supplement. Outsource overflow, never the primary.

Everything else is fair game to hire out: ads, the website, local SEO, review software, social, follow-up automation, bookkeeping.

What it actually costs

Rough US ranges for a single-location collision shop:

• Google Ads management: $500 to $1,500 a month, plus ad spend of $1,500 to $3,000
• Meta ads management: $400 to $1,000 a month, plus $600 to $1,200 in spend
• Local SEO and Google profile management: $400 to $1,200 a month
• Website build: $1,500 to $8,000 once, then $15 to $40 a month for hosting
• Review generation software plus management: $150 to $500 a month
• Full service, everything: $2,000 to $4,500 a month plus spend

If someone quotes $199 a month for "SEO", you are buying a directory submission bot. If someone quotes $6,000 a month for a single-location shop with 12 bays, ask exactly what the hours go to and expect a straight answer.

Judge the total against a repair order. At a $3,100 average RO, a $1,200 a month program needs to produce roughly one extra repair a month with parts and labor covered before it breaks even, and three or four before it is clearly working. That is the arithmetic to run in the first meeting, out loud.

Red flags

• A twelve month contract before any results. Common, and there is no operational reason for it in this business.
• They own the accounts. If the Google Ads account, the Meta pixel, the domain or the website files are in the vendor's name, you are renting your own marketing. Ask directly: "If I leave, do I keep the account and the domain?" Get the answer in writing.
• Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed lead counts. Nobody controls Google's ranking. A guaranteed lead count usually means shared resold leads.
• Shared leads. You pay $40 to $90 for a lead that went to three shops. You are bidding against strangers on price for a customer who does not know you.
• They cannot name a single collision shop they have worked with. Trade knowledge matters here. A vendor who does not know what a supplement, a blend or a DRP is will write ads about "auto repair" and buy oil change traffic.
• Reporting that shows impressions and clicks but no calls. Impressions are not a business outcome. Calls, leads, booked repairs.
• A recommendation to advertise collision repair on Instagram. It tells you they did not think about the trade for five minutes.
• Review gating. Any vendor offering to survey customers first and only send the link to the happy ones is proposing something that violates Google's policy and can get your reviews removed.

The questions to ask in the first call

1. Whose name is on the ad account, the pixel, the domain and the website files?
2. What is the notice period, and is there a cancellation fee?
3. What will you report, and how often, and does it include booked jobs or only leads?
4. Who actually does the work, and are they in the country where you say they are?
5. What do you need from me every month? Any honest answer includes photos and access to your numbers.
6. Have you worked with a collision shop, and what did you learn that surprised you?
7. What would you not do for a shop my size?

Question seven is the useful one. A vendor who says "everything, we do it all" is selling. A vendor who says "I would not run Google Ads until your review count is above the median, which for collision is 54" is thinking.

Doing it yourself

Entirely viable for a single-location shop, and roughly six hours a month once it is built:

• 90 minutes: Google profile posts, photos, questions, and replying to reviews
• 60 minutes: reading the Google Ads search terms report and adding negatives
• 60 minutes: shooting before-and-after photos and process clips
• 90 minutes: the reactivation text to past customers
• 60 minutes: reading your own numbers, answer rate and cost per booked repair

The parts that genuinely reward outside help are the ones with a learning curve you only climb once: the initial Google Ads build and negative list, the website, and the tracking setup. The parts that reward you doing it are the ones that need your face and your voice.

The realistic middle path is to hire the build and keep the maintenance.

Why a trial should be the default

A body shop can tell within two weeks whether a campaign is producing calls. The estimating cycle is fast, the ticket is large, and the phone is either ringing more or it is not. There is no operational reason a vendor needs twelve months of your money before you can judge it.

That is the reasoning behind the offer on this site. Pick a service, we build it in your accounts, it runs 14 days at no cost, no card. At the end you keep it at a quoted price, switch, or stop, and whatever was built stays yours. If a vendor will not do something in the same shape, ask them what they are worried about.

Frequently asked

Should I use the marketing service my management system offers? It is convenient and usually mediocre, and it locks the data inside the platform. Fine for review requests, weak for ads.

What about the vendor my paint jobber recommends? Ask whether the jobber is paid for the referral. Sometimes it is a genuine recommendation and sometimes it is a commission.

How long before I judge a new vendor? Two weeks for phone volume, 90 days for cost per booked repair. Anyone asking for longer than 90 days to show a direction is asking for patience with your money.

Every service on this site is offered as a free 14-day trial, in your own accounts, no card. Look at the benchmark report and the FAQ before you talk to anyone, including us. Text or call (385) 832-6175.