Google Ads is the fastest lever you can pull to fill empty sites. But fast doesn't mean easy, and it definitely doesn't mean cheap — unless you know what you're doing.
I've managed over $2 million in RV park ad spend across dozens of properties, including my own. Here's what I've learned about running PPC campaigns that actually generate profitable bookings, not just clicks.
The Fundamental Problem With How Most Agencies Run RV Park Ads
Most agencies approach RV park PPC the same way they'd approach any local business: broad keywords, geographic targeting, a few ad variations, and a monthly report full of impressions and click-through rates.
Here's what they're missing: your potential guest's buying journey is completely different from someone searching for a plumber or a pizza place.
A plumber search is urgent — the person needs help now. An RV park search is deliberate. The person is researching, comparing, and planning. They might search six different parks, visit four websites, read reviews on all of them, and make a decision over days or weeks.
Your PPC strategy needs to account for this longer decision cycle, or you're paying for first clicks that never convert.
Start With Intent, Not Volume
The biggest waste of ad budget I see is parks bidding on broad, low-intent keywords. "Camping" or "RV travel" might generate thousands of impressions, but those people aren't ready to book your park. They're browsing, not buying.
High-intent keywords convert at 3-5x the rate of broad terms. These include:
- "RV parks near [your city]" — They're actively searching for a place to stay in your area
- "Best RV resort in [your state]" — They're comparing and ready to choose
- "RV park with [specific amenity]" — Pull-through sites, full hookups, dog-friendly, pool. They know what they want
- "[Your park name] reviews" — They've already heard of you and are validating
Start with these high-intent terms. They cost more per click, but they convert so much better that your cost per booking is actually lower. That's the definition of capital efficiency.
Build Campaigns Around Your Competitive Advantages
Generic ads get generic results. "Come visit our RV park!" is not a value proposition. It's background noise.
What makes your park different? Build your campaigns around that. Some examples I've seen work:
- "Big Rig Friendly — Sites Up to 80ft" — If you have pull-throughs that accommodate large rigs, that's a massive differentiator for a specific, high-value segment
- "50 Amp Full Hookups + Fiber Wi-Fi" — Technical specs sell to serious RVers who know what they need
- "Monthly Rates from $XXX — Snowbird Special" — If you're targeting long-term stays, lead with pricing and seasonal value
- "4.8 Stars on Google — 300+ Reviews" — Your reputation is your best ad copy
Each of these speaks to a specific guest segment with a specific need. That specificity drives higher click-through rates and higher conversion rates.
The Landing Page Makes or Breaks Your Campaign
Here's where most agencies leave money on the table: they send all their ad traffic to the homepage.
That's like walking into a car dealership asking about a specific truck and being told "the lot's over there, go look around." You'd leave.
Every ad group should have a dedicated landing page that matches the ad's promise. If someone clicks an ad about your big rig sites, they should land on a page about your big rig sites — with photos, specs, pricing, and a booking CTA. Not your homepage. Not your amenities page. A page built for that specific visitor.
This also improves your Google Ads quality score, which directly reduces your cost per click. Google rewards relevance between ad copy and landing page content.
Track Down to the Booking
Clicks don't pay your mortgage. Bookings do.
Yet I constantly see agencies reporting on clicks, impressions, and click-through rates as if those metrics matter. They don't — at least not in isolation.
The only metric that matters is cost per booking. To track it, you need:
- Conversion tracking on your booking confirmation page
- Call tracking with dynamic phone numbers that attribute calls to specific campaigns
- Form tracking for contact form submissions with source attribution
If your agency can't tell you exactly how many bookings each campaign generated and what each booking cost, they're managing in the dark. And you're paying them to do it.
Budget Allocation That Makes Sense
I recommend a minimum of $1,500/month in ad spend for meaningful results. Below that, you don't have enough data to optimize effectively.
But here's the thing: throwing more money at bad campaigns doesn't fix them. I'd rather spend $1,500 on tightly targeted, high-intent campaigns than $5,000 on broad, unfocused ones.
Start focused. Prove ROI on your core campaigns. Then expand methodically into adjacent keywords and audiences. This is what capital-efficient advertising looks like — reinvesting profits, not gambling with budget.
The Website Performance Multiplier
This is the part most people miss, and it's where the compounding advantage lives.
Google Ads uses a quality score to determine your cost per click. One of the biggest factors in quality score is landing page experience — which includes page speed, mobile-friendliness, and relevance.
Our optimized sites score 95+ on Google Lighthouse. Most RV park sites score 30-50. That performance gap translates directly to lower costs per click. We've documented savings of 15-25% on identical keywords just from site performance improvements.
Over the course of a year, on a $3,000/month ad budget, that's $5,400-$9,000 in savings. Or viewed differently, it's 15-25% more traffic for the same budget. That's the multiplier effect of technical excellence.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Not using negative keywords. If you don't tell Google what you're NOT, you'll pay for irrelevant clicks. "RV park jobs," "free camping," "RV park for sale" — add these to your negative keyword list immediately.
- Running the same ads year-round. Seasonal demand changes. Your campaigns should change with it. Snowbird campaigns in fall, summer vacation campaigns in spring, holiday weekend campaigns before major holidays.
- Ignoring your competition's ads. Search for your own keywords and see what competitors are saying. Then say something better and more specific.
- Setting and forgetting. PPC requires weekly optimization at minimum. Bids change, competition shifts, seasonal trends fluctuate. If your agency checks in once a month, they're leaving money on the table.
The Bottom Line
PPC works for RV parks. But it works dramatically better when your campaigns are targeted to high-intent keywords, your landing pages match your ad promises, your website loads in under 2 seconds, and every conversion is tracked to the booking.
This is not a "set it and forget it" channel. It's an active, ongoing optimization process that compounds over time. The parks that invest in doing it right see returns that widen the gap against their competition every single month.