$5 Cost-Per-Lead Google Ads Campaign for a US Auto Auction Sourcing Company

AutoBid Direct helps buyers who can't attend US auto auctions in person — Copart, IAAI, and similar platforms — source vehicles, place winning bids on their behalf, and handle export logistics. It's a high-ticket, trust-dependent service, and the keywords around it are brutally mixed intent: someone searching "how to buy a car from Copart" might want to hire a sourcing service, or might just want a free tutorial to do it themselves.

The account we inherited was spending the full $100/day budget on a handful of broad-match campaigns with almost no negative keyword coverage. The result: a cost per lead north of $14, a landing page with no clear differentiation from a DIY guide, and zero call tracking — so nobody could say which keywords were actually producing paying customers versus tire-kickers.

We rebuilt the account around one principle: intent precision beats volume. That meant splitting the single broad-match campaign into tightly themed ad groups — one per auction platform, one per vehicle category (sedans, SUVs, trucks, salvage/rebuildable titles) — each with its own landing page section and call-to-action.

Just as important was what we excluded. We built an aggressive, continuously updated negative keyword list to filter out "how to," "for free," "DIY," and "auction license" searches — people looking to bid themselves, not hire someone to do it. That single change removed a large share of unqualified clicks before we touched a single bid.

Finally, we wired up call tracking and a CRM-integrated lead form so every dollar of spend could be traced to a real, sales-qualified conversation — not just a form submission.