Google Ads for PPF shops that want more full fronts and full bodies.

Why PPF is harder to advertise than it looks

A partial front and a full body are both “PPF”, but they are different sales. Published price guides put a full front at $1,800 to $3,000 and a full body at $5,500 to $9,000 or more (Capital Wrappers). One campaign with one budget can’t bid correctly for both. Left alone, it spends on whatever is cheapest to click.

The word itself is noisy too. “PPF” is a savings account in India and a graph in economics class. “Clear bra” pulls lingerie shoppers. And plenty of film searches come from people who want a roll, a pre-cut kit or an installer job.

So most of the work is separation and subtraction. Give each package its own budget and its own line in the report. Keep the wrong searches out, every week.

Campaign structure by package

We build around the packages you actually sell and the jobs you want more of. A typical starting point:

Start with two or three ad groups, not six. Put most of the budget behind full front, add full body once you have a page that sells it, and split packages into separate campaigns when you want a hard budget cap for each. If you also sell ceramic coating and tint, they get their own campaigns. Cross-campaign negatives keep “ceramic tint” out of the PPF campaign and “full front ppf” out of the tint campaign.

Location targeting follows how far your customers drive. We target people located in your service area, not people who are merely interested in it (Google’s location options), and exclude areas you don’t serve.

Keyword themes that book installs

• Ready to book. “near me”, your city and neighborhoods, “installer”, “shop”, “quote”. These get the highest bids.
• Price research. “full front ppf cost”, “how much is ppf”. Many of these people buy. They want a number first, so they land on a page with a price range.
• Brand-certified. “xpel installer”, “stek near me”. Strong intent if you’re authorized for that film.
• Comparison. “ppf vs ceramic coating”, “is ppf worth it”. Early research. Lower bids, or skip until the core is profitable.

We launch with exact and phrase match on the core themes. Broad match comes later, if at all, once Google receives booked installs back from your shop and there is enough history for automated bidding. Google explains the match types in About keyword matching options.

Negative keywords we add before launch

Negatives are the cheapest improvement in any PPF account. A sample of what goes in on day one:

• diy
• kit
• kits
• precut
• film roll
• roll
• wholesale
• for sale
• plotter
• xpel dap
• jobs
• training
• certification
• ppf account
• ppf interest
• production possibility
• strapless
• lingerie
• stock
• phone
• screen protector
• vinyl

One detail that trips up a lot of accounts: negative keywords don’t match close variants, so excluding “kit” doesn’t exclude “kits” (Google Ads Help). Our list covers the plurals that matter. The full list of 300+ negatives for PPF, ceramic and tint is free in our PPF Google Ads guide.

Landing page checklist for PPF

• Packages named the way customers search: partial front, full front, track pack, full body.
• Photos or diagrams that show exactly which panels each package covers.
• A price range or “from” price per package, so buyers can qualify themselves before they call.
• The film brand, finish (gloss or matte) and the warranty you actually offer, in your own words.
• Photos of your own installs, your own bay and your own team. No stock cars.
• How long the install takes and how long you keep the car.
• A short quote form: name, phone or email, year/make/model, package, and a notes box.
• Tap-to-call and text on mobile, and a phone number in the header.
• Address, hours and a map, so people see you’re local.
• Google reviews that mention the car and the package.
• Fast on a phone. Test it on cellular data, not shop Wi-Fi.

We review your pages in the teardown and again before launch. Building new pages isn’t part of management. If a page needs a rebuild, we’ll say so and scope it separately.

How we measure: from click to sold job

1. Every call and form is a conversion in Google Ads. Calls count only past a minimum length, so wrong numbers and robocalls don’t inflate the numbers.
2. The quote form stores the Google click ID (GCLID) in a hidden field, so each inquiry can be matched to the click that produced it.
3. Your team marks each PPF inquiry once a week: quoted, booked, sold, lost or unknown. A shared Google Sheet works. So does a CRM export.
4. Booked and sold jobs go back into Google Ads through offline conversion imports or enhanced conversions for leads, so bidding learns from jobs, not form fills.
5. The weekly report shows cost per booked install for each package and service line, next to what’s still unknown.

See what that looks like in the sample report.

Budget and pricing

Budget depends on your market and your tickets. Agency estimates for PPF put clicks at $5 to $12 and leads at $40 to $100 (Detailers Movement; these are agency estimates, not audited data). At $3,000 a month in ad spend, those estimates imply roughly 30 to 75 leads a month. How many become installs depends on your close rate. Run your own numbers in the PPF ad budget calculator, or read how much to spend on Google Ads.

Questions about PPF campaigns