Online websites are a cost effective way to get found by new customers – that’s why most small businesses, including repair shops, have websites. But how about online advertising?
Online advertising is different than a website or search engine optimization. When you pay for online advertising, the advertising company gets paid every time a customer clicks on the ad. If you search for popular terms in Google, the links at the very top with the word “Ad” to the left fall into this category.
Google’s ads are called AdWords. Purchasing AdWords definitely gets you to the top of Google, but how much does it cost? According to Wordstream, auto repair advertising costs an average of $1.43 per click. A little over 2% of these clicks turn into shop visits – meaning the cost is $63 for each customer you gain through online advertising! Unless you’re replacing engines or transmissions for all of these customers, $63 is a lot of money to pay for a single customer.
The bad news is that this $63 is only the money that goes directly to Google. Unless you want to set up your own AdWords campaign and manage it on a weekly basis, you’re going to need to pay a professional marketing company to manage it for you. This can easily cost upwards of $150 per month – more if you’re managing multiple campaigns of AdWords. Before you’re done, you can easily spend upwards of $100 per shop visit – thousands of dollars each month!
That’s why we don’t recommend AdWords for most small and mid-size auto maintenance and repair shops. You can spend a fraction of that money each month to maintain a great web website that attracts customers the old fashioned way – by giving them the information they need to make an informed decision. An added bonus – you’ll get all types of customers, not just the ones who forgot to skip over the ads.
To learn more about how Repair Shop Websites can help your repair shop gain more business, call us at 866.665.1605 or email Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.