Auto Body & Collision · Meta Ads
Meta Ads for body shops
Search catches people who already know they need a shop. Meta is where you get in front of them before that — storm response, retargeting, and offers that create the visit.
What I audit in the first 30 days
Same order every time — each step depends on the one before it.
Is Meta even the right spend?
Search captures existing demand; Meta generates it. For most shops, Meta earns its budget on three jobs — post-storm surges, retargeting the people search already touched, and customer-pay offers — not as a replacement for Google. I scope it to those before a dollar moves.
Tracking that survives iOS
Pixel plus Conversions API, deduped, with offline events fed back for booked jobs. Without server-side signal, Meta optimizes to form-fills that never show up — and the account quietly trains itself to find tire-kickers.
Creative that survives the feed
A body-shop ad competes with friends and reels, not other shops. Real before/after work, real reviews, and a clear reason to act now — not a logo and a phone number. Creative is the lever here, not bids.
The playbook
The levers that consistently move these accounts, roughly in order of impact.
Storm response is the killer use case
Hail or a major storm rewrites local demand overnight. A geo-fenced, claims-forward campaign live within 48 hours — 'we handle the insurance, you handle nothing' — reaches every affected driver before the national chains blanket the market.
Retarget everyone search already paid for
Site visitors, estimate-page abandoners, and Google Business Profile viewers are the cheapest, highest-intent audience on Meta. This is usually the first campaign I turn on and the last I'd ever turn off.
Offer-led creative, tested weekly
Free detail with any repair, deductible assistance where legal, loaner-car availability — the offer is the hook. Short cycles, kill the losers, scale the winner. Judged on booked estimates, never on likes.
Prospecting and retargeting never share a budget
Cold awareness and warm retargeting have different jobs and different costs. Lumped together, retargeting's cheap conversions flatter the whole account and cold reach silently starves. Separate campaigns, separate budgets.
Lead forms with instant follow-up
Instant-form leads are cheap and plentiful — and worthless without speed. Every form fires an immediate text-back and a task; a lead that waits until Monday is a lead that's already in another shop's bay.
Keep customer-pay separate from collision
Bumper scuffs and dent work fill slow weeks but attract price shoppers. Run them as their own Meta effort so they never dilute the audience or the reporting on real collision demand.
The benchmarks I hold to
| Benchmark | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Retargeting CPM | $6 – $14 |
| Cost per lead-form lead | $8 – $30 |
| Cost per qualified lead | $60 – $180 |
| Storm-response lead volume | 3 – 6× baseline |
| Creative refresh cadence | 1 – 2 wks |
Run this in your shop
If bays are empty while the phone rings, the leak is measurable — and fixable.