The biggest search on this entire hub is in your trade. It is also the one that tells you the least.
What your clicks actually cost, which searches are wasting money, and what your cost per booked job looks like. Fifteen minutes, and you keep it either way.
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Dearer per click, and the only search in the trade where the customer has to book something by a date.
Mechanic near me gets 135,000 searches a month, the largest search anywhere on this hub, at $2.72 a click. That sounds like the whole answer until you notice you cannot service 135,000 cars and the search does not tell you whether the person needs a log book service or a new clutch. Roadworthy certificate is $4.25 with 9,900 searches, a fixed price, and a date the customer cannot move.
Average cost per click across Australia, from Google Keyword Planner. What your account pays will differ with location, competition and quality score. The gap between these rows is the argument, not the exact figures.
Nothing on this chart breaks six dollars, which makes automotive one of the cheapest markets on the hub to buy attention in. The whole game here is which of these cheap clicks arrives with something you can act on.
The rows worth having are the ones with a fixed scope. Roadworthy and safety certificates, log book services and air conditioning regas all have a known price and a known duration. You can quote them on the phone, book them into a slot, and know what the bay is earning that hour.
Three numbers, and only the last one decides anything. It is the same chain our Brisbane digital marketing agency works through in every industry, only the dollar figures change.
We work it right to left. What a job is worth sets what a lead can cost, which sets what a click is worth bidding.
Cost per click is the easiest number to improve and the least useful one. Bid on cheaper searches and it drops immediately, whether or not those searches ever turn into work. That is why we will sometimes tell you to pay more per click rather than less.
Google Ads is the fastest of the three and the only one you pay for by the click. Here is what the other two do, and where the expensive clicks eventually stop.
THE SLOW ASSET
A real page per service instead of a Services list, a Google Business Profile built properly with your hours and your bay availability, and a review process after every booking. Slow to arrive, and the thing that eventually stops you paying for the local searches at all.
THE FAST LEVER
Campaigns split by service so certificates never compete with major repairs for the same budget. Negative keywords so you stop paying for mechanic courses, mechanic wages, apprenticeships, parts, DIY repair guides and people diagnosing a noise on a forum. Call tracking, because a workshop is booked by phone.
THE ONE MOST WORKSHOPS SKIP
The cheapest reach available, and the right channel for staying in mind between services. People change mechanics rarely and reluctantly, usually after one bad experience, and the workshop they switch to is one they already recognise.
We start from what a booking is worth, not what a click costs. A workshop chasing certificates and one chasing major repairs cannot afford the same cost per click. Google Ads does the fast work, SEO eventually takes the paid clicks off your bill, and Meta Ads keeps you familiar between visits. We will tell you if one is not worth running.
Not a strategy document. These are the three campaigns we would build first for a Brisbane workshop, and what each one is actually for.
Built around “roadworthy certificate”
9,900 searches a month at $4.25 a click, and a customer who is selling a car and cannot complete without one. Fixed price, known duration, and they are ringing until somebody can fit them in this week. Put your price and your next available slot on the page and most of them stop ringing around.
Built around “logbook service”
$4.37 a click on 1,600 searches, and the single best value customer in this trade. Somebody looking for log book servicing is leaving the dealership, which means they are choosing a workshop for the next several years rather than booking one job. The page has to say plainly that it does not void the warranty.
Built around the searches we exclude
Mechanic courses, mechanic wages, apprenticeships, parts and accessories, DIY repair guides, and the very large number of people trying to diagnose a noise before they pay anyone to look at it. On broad match you buy all of it.
Send us access to your Google Ads account and we will come back with what it is wasting, which searches are costing you the most for the least, and what we would change first. Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you keep it either way.
Two clicks can cost the same and be worth completely different amounts. That gap, not the click price, is what decides whether an account works.
Four dollars and change for the click, a fixed price, and a customer who cannot sell the car without you. Certificates fill the quiet hours in the bay, they take a known amount of time, and a fair share of those people come back for the servicing once they know where you are.
Your Google Business Profile, suburb pages, and local listings optimised so customers in your area find you first.
Technical fixes and service-focused SEO that make your site easy for Google to understand and trust.
Build your reputation through reviews, with monthly reports tracking rankings and leads from organic search.
Under three dollars for the click and the largest search on this hub by a distance. It is also completely undifferentiated. A log book service, a brake job and somebody chasing a warning light all type the same three words, and the account has no way of telling which ones filled the bay.
Site speed, crawlability, schema markup, and Core Web Vitals sorted so Google can index and trust your site.
Service pages and suburb landing pages written to rank and convert, not just fill space.
Backlink building and on-page optimisation that compounds month over month.
Three things come up in nearly every Google Ads account we audit for a workshop.
Mechanic near me and car service near me have 157,200 searches a month between them and cost under four dollars, so they take the whole budget and the enquiry count looks superb. Nothing in the account can tell you which of those calls filled a bay and which was a quote for a job you never got.
Roadworthy certificate at $4.25, log book service at $4.37, air conditioning regas at $3.03. Slightly dearer clicks, fixed prices, known durations, and a booking rather than an enquiry. You can fill a specific gap in a specific bay with them.
Air conditioning regas ran at 1,600 searches a month last July and 18,100 last December. A workshop spending the same amount every month is invisible in the six weeks that demand actually exists and paying full price in the months it does not.
We push budget into the seasonal services when the searches appear and pull it back when they vanish. Air conditioning in the heat, batteries in the cold, certificates through the used car season. Simple, and almost nobody does it.
A call count in this trade is close to meaningless. A certificate booking and a price shopper asking what a timing belt costs are the same event on that report, and one of them fills a bay while the other ties up the front counter.
Cost per click, then cost per booking, then what each service earns the bay per hour. That last number is the one that tells you which campaign to fund, and it is the reason we would rather buy a $4.25 certificate click than a $2.72 unknown.
We start with what a booking is worth to the bay and work backwards to what a click can cost.
A certificate and a major repair cannot carry the same cost per click, and the right comparison is not job value but what the bay earns per hour. A short fixed price job that fills a gap can beat a large one that ties up a hoist all day. Most accounts have never had this conversation.
Certificates, log book servicing, air conditioning, brakes and general repair each get their own campaign, budget and landing page, so the seasonal work can be turned up and down without touching everything else.
Search terms reviewed weekly and negatives added, because automotive attracts an enormous volume of parts, DIY and diagnosis searches. Then monthly reporting on cost per booking by service, not clicks and impressions.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
If your bays are booked three weeks out, this buys you a longer wait list and a lot of people who go elsewhere. And if nobody can answer the phone while the workshop is running, do not start, because in this trade people ring three numbers and book with whoever picks up first.
Fast answers, clear decisions.
Spend, leads and trends at a glance.
Your data, your accounts.
Budget goes to what converts.
4+ years average client retention.
Specialists across each platform.
Buy some of it. The problem is not the price, it is that the search contains no information. A log book service, a brake job and somebody chasing a warning light all type those three words, so you cannot fill a specific gap in a specific bay with it, and nothing in the account can tell you which calls were worth having.
Fixed price, known duration, and a deadline the customer cannot move. It fills the quiet hours in the bay, it takes exactly as long as you think it will, and a good share of those people come back for servicing once they know where you are. At $4.25 it costs more than the generic search and it is worth more per hour.
Agency fees usually work one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold. Percentage models get expensive as you scale and quietly reward the agency for spending more of your money. Ask which model an agency uses and why before you ask for a number.
More than most owners allow for. Air conditioning regas ran at 1,600 searches a month last July and 18,100 last December. If your spend is flat you are absent in the weeks the work exists and paying full price in the months it does not. It is the cheapest fix available in this trade.
Less than most trades on this hub, because clicks here are cheap. The real constraint is bay capacity, not budget. There is no point buying more bookings than you can fit, which is why we would rather aim a modest budget at the services that fill specific gaps.
It varies by service, and cost per booking is only half the question. The number we care about is what the bay earns per hour, because a short fixed price job that fills a gap can be worth more than a large repair that ties up a hoist all day.
Three places, in this order. The whole budget on the undifferentiated near me searches. Parts, DIY and diagnosis traffic, which automotive attracts an enormous amount of. And flat spending through a year where several of your services are plainly seasonal.
Split the fixed price services out into their own campaigns with their own pages and prices. In most workshop accounts everything sits behind the near me searches, which means you are buying the least informative clicks in the trade and hoping.
Yes, and they are simple. A certificate page needs a price and your next available slot. A log book page needs the plain statement that it does not void the warranty, because that is the only question that customer has. A Services list answers neither.
We look at what it is wasting, how much sits on the near me searches, whether the seasonal services are managed seasonally, and what your cost per booking looks like by service. You get it in writing and you keep it whether or not you hire us.
