Google Ads for garage door companies: budgets, the campaigns that book jobs and the ones that burn money
What a garage door repair call really costs on Google, how to split budget between Local Services Ads and Search, the negative keywords every door shop needs, and realistic cost per booked job.
Google Ads is where the 6:40 a.m. broken-spring call comes from. It is also where a garage door company can spend $2,500 in a month paying for people who want to buy a door at a home center, reprogram a remote they already own, or find out what a garage door technician earns. The difference between those outcomes is a short list of settings and a negative keyword list. This guide is that list.
One condition first. If your phone goes to voicemail during business hours, ads will make that problem more expensive, not smaller. Read the missed calls guide before spending a dollar.
Local Services Ads first
Local Services Ads show above everything else on a garage door search, carry the Google Guaranteed badge, and charge per lead instead of per click. For garage door repair the lead cost in most US metros runs $30 to $90. You can dispute leads that were wrong number, out of area, or a job you do not do, and Google credits a reasonable share.
Approval takes a background check, proof of insurance and, in states that license the trade, your license. Budget two to three weeks. Once live, your LSA rank is driven mostly by review count, rating and how fast you answer. Only 23.9% of garage door companies have passed 100 reviews, and in the LSA auction that number is printed on the ad. The reviews guide is the other half of an LSA strategy.
LSA does not cover everything. It is weak on new door installation and on commercial work, and the lead volume caps out. That is what Search is for.
Search: three campaigns, not one
Run three campaigns so the money and the message match the job:
Emergency repair. Terms like "garage door repair," "garage door spring replacement," "garage door won't open," "garage door off track," "broken garage door spring." Phrase and exact match only. Schedule the campaign for the hours a human answers. Clicks run $8 to $25 in most metros and a tracked call lands between $45 and $140. Ticket behind it: $150 to $650.
Opener install and repair. "Garage door opener installation," "garage door opener repair," "LiftMaster installation," "belt drive opener." Smaller volume, cleaner intent, $35 to $110 per call. Ticket: $400 to $900.
New doors. "New garage door," "garage door installation," "garage door replacement cost," "carriage style garage door." Clicks are cheaper but the sale is slower; these leads often start as a form, not a call. Expect $80 to $250 per lead with a $1,500 to $5,000 ticket and a two to four week sales cycle. Give this campaign its own landing page with a photo gallery and a financing line.
The negative keyword list
Load these on day one and add to them every week from the search terms report:
- parts, part, spring for sale, buy spring, torsion spring kit
- Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, Amazon
- how to, DIY, replace yourself, reprogram, program remote, manual
- salary, jobs, hiring, technician job, training
- rental, apartment (unless you serve property managers), RV, shed
- free, cheap, $29, $39 (unless you want to compete on those terms, which you do not)
- wayne dalton dealer locator, clopay dealer (brand searches often go to the manufacturer)
Without these, broad match on "garage door" buys every one of them at $8 a click.
Settings that stop the bleeding
- Location: target the towns you serve, with "presence" not "interest." Otherwise you pay for someone in another state who searched your town.
- Schedule: match answering hours. A 2 a.m. click to a voicemail is pure waste. 22.7% of listings claim 24 hours; your ads should only claim what your phone does.
- Call tracking: a tracking number on every ad and on the landing page, with recordings. Count a conversion at 45 seconds or more. Without this you are judging the account by clicks, which is like judging a tech by miles driven.
- Landing pages: each campaign to its own page. Emergency terms to a page with the phone number at the top, price range, "same-day" and the towns. Not the home page.
- Ad copy: put the price range in the ad. "Spring replacement from $180, quoted before we start." It filters the $29 shoppers and raises your click-through with everyone else.
Budget and what working looks like
A one to three truck shop needs $1,500 to $3,500 a month across LSA and Search to get enough calls to judge. Under $800 the data is too thin to learn anything in a month. Ad spend goes to Google on your card, whoever manages the account.
After two weeks, working means 15 to 40 tracked calls you can listen to, a search terms report you have pruned twice, and a cost per booked job you can say out loud. Not a lower cost per click. A $12 click that books a $450 spring job is a good click. A $4 click from someone looking for a remote manual is not.
Frequently asked
Should I bid on my competitors' names? Rarely worth it in this trade. Someone searching a specific company by name usually has a reason, and the click costs as much as a repair term. Spend it on "garage door spring replacement [town]" instead.
Why does my cost per call jump in January? Because everyone's springs break in the cold and every company in the metro raises bids. Plan for it. January repair calls cost 20 to 40 percent more and are worth it because the homeowner cannot get the car out.
Do Performance Max campaigns work for garage doors? They can for new door installs with a good photo set, and they often burn money on repair because you lose control of search terms. Start with Search and LSA. Add Performance Max for installs only after you have 30 or more tracked conversions to feed it.
If you want this built and run for two weeks before deciding, Google Ads management is one of the services on the free 14-day trial. No card. Text or call (385) 534-3558. The benchmark report shows where your review count sits before you turn ads on.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, garage door companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor