5 PPC Mistakes That Are Costing Car Dealers Money and How to Fix Them
Spending money on PPC campaigns is an investment that quickly becomes a drain on your budget if you’re not setting them up correctly.
Dealers often tell us they get high CTRs and impressions, but they don’t feel they’re getting the results they expected. PPC is often advertised as the ultimate marketing tool that will boost your sales, but it’ll end up costing you more money than it’s worth if you’re flying blind.
The average Google Ads cost-per-click increased by 12% year-on-year in Q1 2026, the steepest annual rise since 2021, making it more urgent than ever to ensure PPC campaigns run properly so you don’t waste any money.
At WeAdvertiseAnyCar, as Google Vehicle Ads specialists, we’ve collated the top 5 PPC mistakes that we see, so you can avoid them and get real leads.
You Don’t Have a Negative Keywords List
You’re probably already familiar with how, when running a PPC campaign, you tell Google which search terms you want your ads to appear for. Negative keywords do the opposite; they’re the terms you tell Google to specifically exclude.
Without negative keywords, Google decides on its own what searches are relevant to your ads, which doesn’t always match what you know is relevant. It’s quite common that an ad for “used Ford Focus for sale” might show up for people searching for Ford recalls, Ford mechanics, Ford parts or Ford job vacancies. As you can probably guess, none of those searches is relevant to your ad, but you’re still paying for the clicks.
If you don’t have a solid negative keyword list in place, you’re almost certainly paying for searches that have nothing to do with buying a car.
The next issue within this category that we often see is dealers bidding on model keywords when they haven’t stocked that specific model for six months. This is why keeping your keyword list up to date is important when running PPC campaigns.
To avoid this mistake, go into your Search Terms Report regularly, which shows exactly what people typed before clicking your ad. If you work through it regularly, you’ll soon have a very solid, tailored campaign that will deliver the results you’re looking for.
Your Broad Match is Left Unchecked
As we’ve discussed above, Google uses broad match to find “relevant” variations of your keywords, which don’t always share your priorities.
Broad match is a very useful tool when used with monitoring. It can work well with smart bidding when there’s a strong volume of conversion flow through the account; however, for smaller dealerships with tight budgets, the cost can get too high before you even notice.
Phrase or exact match gives you tighter control over which searches trigger your ads. This is often the better starting point if you’re just starting out and running a focused budget.
If you want to use broad match, make sure you check your Search Terms report every week and aggressively build your negative keyword list to avoid wasting money.
You Don’t Have Geo-Targeting, or You’re Using the Wrong Settings
Most people buying a car aren’t driving two hours to get it, unless your dealership sells something specific, like prestige cars. Most people search and buy locally, which makes geo-targeting very important.
The default Google Ads geo-targeting is broader than you’d think. Without a sensible radius set around your forecourt, you can end up serving ads to users well outside your realistic catchment area. These users might click on your ad, but upon realising the distance, they’ll never convert into leads, which will in turn drain your budget.
Setting a tight, realistic radius is a good starting point, as you’ll then be able to use bid adjustments to push harder in areas where you've historically seen conversions and pull back in areas that consistently come up empty.
We also want to touch on a setting that catches a lot of dealers out: “Presence or Interest,” or “Presence,” in Google’s location targeting options. “Presence or Interest” means your ads show to people searching about your area, even if they’re nowhere near it. For example, someone in Manchester looking for “used cars in Bristol” will still see your ad even though they’re not physically in Bristol. We always suggest changing your settings to “Presence” only, especially if you have a tight budget, as this will help you generate more leads.
Your Landing Pages are Weak
Your landing pages are important for both paid search and for Google Vehicle Ads, so let’s take a look at the common mistakes when it comes to landing pages.
Sending paid traffic to your homepage is one of the most common and most costly mistakes we see when running paid search campaigns. The customers searched for a specific model; your ad referenced that model, but they then landed on a generic homepage. 9/10 times, people will click off, you’ll still get charged, and you lose a lead.
The right landing page for a PPC click is either a filtered model page showing relevant stock or a Vehicle Detail Page (VDP) for a specific car.
Mobile load speed is non-negotiable here, as over 71% of all Google searches now happen on mobile devices. We mention this because if your VDP takes 3 seconds to load on a phone, a significant chunk of those clicks are gone before the page even finishes rendering. Every extra second of load time costs your conversions.
Your page should also feature the next step you want the user to take: a click-to-call button, an enquiry form, or a finance CTA. If your ad promised a specific price or deal that isn't visible on the landing page, expect your bounce rate to reflect that.
Landing pages are even more important in Google Vehicle Ads, as the ad itself will pull all the information through the landing page linked to it. Taking extra time to ensure your landing page is fully optimised with all the right information will improve your ad performance.
You’re Chasing Vanity Metrics
We know that impressions look good in a presentation, and a strong click-through rate feels like progress, but if those numbers aren’t tied to actual enquiries, calls or vehicle sales, they don’t mean anything.
We see dealers running campaigns where everything looks healthy on paper, but the account isn't tracking a single meaningful conversion. Without that data, optimisation is guesswork, and the budget is being managed on metrics that feel good but don't reflect commercial reality.
The easiest way to fix this is to set up conversion tracking for every enquiry form on your site, and implement call tracking so you can attribute phone enquiries back to specific campaigns and keywords.
This simple switch will provide you with reports based on cost per lead rather than impressions. A campaign with lower clicks but a strong enquiry rate is outperforming one with a 10% CTR and no tracked outcomes every single time.
Stop Wasting Your Budget
PPC, when done properly, is one of the highest-performing channels available to UK dealers, especially when you’re running Google Vehicle Ads. But it requires active management, the right structure, and a focus on the metrics that actually connect to sales.
At WeAdvertiseAnyCar, we audit and manage Google Vehicle Ads for dealers across the UK. If you'd like us to take a look at where your current spend is going and what it's actually delivering, get in touch today, and we’ll help you find the right tier of support that will fit your budget and needs.