Running Google Ads for an RV repair shop sounds straightforward. You pick some keywords, set a budget, and wait for the calls. Within a few weeks, you’ve spent several hundred dollars and gotten little to show for it. The ads are ‘running’. But the phone isn’t ringing.
This is one of the most common patterns we see from shops across Canada that try paid advertising without the right setup. It is not bad luck – it is almost always one of a small number of predictable, fixable mistakes made in the first setup session. This article walks through them.
| $66 Average cost per lead for home services businesses on Google Ads (USD, 2024) | 7.26% Average Google Ads conversion rate across all industries | 65%+ Of Canadian searches happen on mobile devices |
Sources: SimplybFound – Average Lead Costs 2025 · Google Ads Benchmarks 2024 · CanadaAds.ca Google Ads Guide 2025
Mistake 1: Targeting the Entire Country (or Province)
Google Ads defaults to broad geographic targeting. If you are not careful during setup, your ads can be shown to people in cities hundreds of kilometres from your shop. You pay for every click including every click from someone who would never drive to your location.
For a service business like an RV repair shop, your realistic customer radius is typically 50 to 100 kilometres in rural areas, and 20 to 40 kilometres in urban centres. Beyond that, you are competing for clicks you cannot convert.
The fix: Set your location targeting to a specific radius around your shop address. In Google Ads, go to Campaign Settings > Locations > Radius targeting. Start tight 30 to 50km and expand only if your campaign data shows you are getting results from further away.
| ⚠ Also Watch For:Under Location Options, make sure you select ‘People in or regularly in your targeted locations’ – NOT ‘People in, or who show interest in, your targeted locations’. The second option can show your ads to people researching Canada from other countries. |
Mistake 2: Using Broad Match Keywords Without Negative Keywords
Google’s default keyword match type is Broad Match. This means if you add the keyword ‘RV repair’, Google will show your ad for searches like ‘how to repair a tent’, ‘RV parking near me’, and ‘RV rental company’. You pay for all of it.
The solution has two parts: switch to more targeted match types, and build a negative keyword list from day one.
Recommended keyword match types for RV repair:
- Phrase Match – e.g. “RV repair” – your ad shows when the search includes that phrase in order, with words before or after it.
- Exact Match – e.g. [RV repair shop Calgary] – your ad shows only when someone searches that exact phrase.
Essential negative keywords to add before your first ad goes live:
- rental, hire, rent (you don’t want RV rental traffic)
- DIY, how to, YouTube, tutorial (information seekers, not buyers)
- parts, buy parts, wholesale (parts shoppers aren’t looking for your labour)
- jobs, careers, hiring (job seekers)
- insurance (different intent entirely)
Review your Search Terms report weekly in the first month. Every irrelevant search that triggered your ad is a negative keyword you should add. This is the single highest-ROI optimisation task in the first 30 days.
Mistake 3: Sending Clicks to Your Homepage
Your homepage is designed to explain who you are. A landing page for a specific service is designed to convert someone who already knows what they want. These are very different jobs.
When someone searches ‘RV roof leak repair Winnipeg’ and clicks your ad, they land on your homepage which talks about your full range of services, your company history, and your team. They have to hunt for the thing they searched for. Most of them won’t bother they’ll hit the back button and click the next result.
The fix: create dedicated landing pages for your highest-value services. At minimum:
- One page for general RV repair (your highest-volume search term)
- One page for RV roof repair / water damage (high-value, seasonal)
- One page for mobile RV repair / on-site service (if you offer it this is a high-intent search with less competition)
Each page should have: one clear headline matching the search intent, a brief description of the service, 2–3 photos, a list of what’s included, and a prominent click-to-call button and/or a short contact form.
| 📌 Canadian ContextOver 65% of Canadian searches happen on mobile devices, according to CanadaAds.ca. Your landing pages must load in under 3 seconds on a mobile connection and have a click-to-call button visible without scrolling. If they don’t, you are paying for clicks that will never convert. |
Source: CanadaAds.ca – Google Ads for Small Business in Canada, 2025
Mistake 4: Setting a Budget Too Low to Learn
Google Ads is a data-driven system. It needs clicks and conversions to learn which searches, times of day, and user types perform best for your business. A budget that generates fewer than 30 to 50 clicks per month gives the algorithm almost nothing to work with.
For Canadian service businesses using Google Local Service Ads (LSAs), the average cost per lead ranges from CA$20 to CA$150+ depending on your city and the competitiveness of the service category. For traditional Google Search Ads, the home services average is around US$66 per lead (approximately CA$90), again varying significantly by market.
Source: TrustedWeb.ca Google Local Service Ads Canada · SimplybFound – Average Lead Costs 2025
A realistic starting budget for an RV repair shop in a mid-size Canadian city (e.g. Kelowna, Lethbridge, Sudbury) is CA$800 to CA$1,500 per month for the first three months. In larger markets like Toronto, Vancouver, or Calgary, expect to start closer to CA$1,500 to CA$3,000 to be competitive.
The key is to treat the first 60 to 90 days as a learning period. You are buying data, not just leads. The campaigns you run in month four informed by real performance data from months one to three will be significantly more efficient.
Mistake 5: Not Tracking Phone Calls as Conversions
For a local service business, the phone call is the conversion. Not the form submission, not the page visit the call. If you are not tracking calls, you cannot measure which keywords, ads, and landing pages are actually producing business.
Google Ads has a built-in call tracking feature (Call from Ads) that gives each ad a forwarding number and records when someone calls from a click. Enable this from day one. Also set up call conversion tracking in your Google Ads account so the algorithm knows which interactions led to a call.
Without this, you are flying blind. You might be pausing a keyword that was generating your best calls, and scaling a keyword that only generates website visits that go nowhere.
A Note on Google Local Service Ads (LSAs) for Canadian Shops
If you are new to Google advertising, LSAs are worth considering before traditional Search Ads. LSAs appear above all other search results, show a ‘Google Guaranteed’ badge, and charge per lead rather than per click.
In Canada, LSAs are available for a growing number of service categories. Businesses that pass Google’s verification and maintain strong review profiles typically see 20 to 40% conversion rates from LSA leads, compared to 5 to 15% from standard search ads though direct comparisons vary by market and category.
Source: TrustedWeb.ca – Google Local Service Ads Canada, 2025
RV repair shops are not currently listed as a direct LSA category in Canada. However, related categories like ‘auto repair’ may qualify depending on your province. Check Google’s current LSA eligibility list for Canada the available categories expand regularly.
The Bottom Line
Google Ads can be one of the most effective marketing channels for a Canadian RV repair shop but only if the fundamentals are right from the start. Tight geographic targeting, relevant match types, dedicated landing pages, an adequate budget, and proper conversion tracking are not advanced tactics. They are the baseline.
Get these five things right in your first setup session and your campaign will start generating useful data within weeks. Skip them, and you will spend the first 30 days burning budget on traffic that was never going to convert.