You'll still pay per lead, not per click. What you lose is the ability to set a maximum cost per lead, though you can still give Google an average to aim for with Target CPA. Under Google's current rules, some calls nobody answered can also count as billable leads.
The settings worth a fresh look are your service area and job types, the hours your ads run, your budget and bidding target, and the lead statuses Google uses to optimize. Below, we walk through what changes in your account, what Google charges for after the move, and what we'd review before your migration date if you run a home service business on LSAs.
Your ads, before and after
Google moves the campaign automatically.
Where you manage it
Budget
Bidding
Lead records
- Missed calls and voicemail inside your business hours and ad schedule can be charged.
- Google says accurate Booked and Completed statuses help its automated systems optimize the campaign.
What are Google Local Services Ads?
Local Services Ads let someone searching on Google call, message or, in the U.S. and Canada, request a booking with your business right from the results. Google describes the appeal as the chance to "appear prominently in Searches and connect with customers in your area, and only pay when a customer gets in touch from your ad." Standard Google Search campaigns bill per click instead.
If you've already earned the Google Verified badge, you keep it. Google carries your verification and the badge over to Google Ads automatically.
What moves in the Local Services Ads migration, and when
Google's migration notice says existing campaigns move automatically, by advertiser type:
- August 2026: selected home and storefront service advertisers in the United States, including plumbing, HVAC, electrical and roofing.
- Late 2026: broader groups, including service-area businesses without physical storefronts and accounts with custom bidding or booking setups.
- 2027: accounts outside the U.S. and the remaining categories.
Your exact date comes from Google directly. The account administrator gets an email 14 days before the move, a reminder seven days later, and a banner in the current dashboard. Those two weeks are when we'd review your settings and save your current reports.
Google says many ads start running right away, but it asks advertisers to allow up to two weeks for everything to finish and for performance to settle. We wouldn't read too much into the first few days.
How bidding and budgets change
Google no longer supports manual bidding, "such as setting a maximum cost-per-lead," for these campaigns. The default strategy, per Google's campaign settings guidance, is Maximize conversions, which bids for as many leads as the daily budget allows.
Your other option is Target CPA, where you give Google an average cost per lead to aim for. Separate category targets within one campaign become a single campaign-level target at migration. A target is an average, so individual leads can still come in above it.
Your weekly budget becomes an average daily budget, and Google says that doesn't change what you spend in a month. Daily spend can run higher on busy days, but the month's charges are capped at the average daily budget multiplied by 30.4. A mid-month budget change resets that cap under Google's budget rules: spend already incurred stays, and the rest of the month is limited to the new daily budget times the calendar days left, counting the day of the change.
What Google charges for, including missed calls
You're billed for valid leads, not clicks. Its current lead rules count an answered call, a callback in which you speak with the customer, texts, emails and voicemails, and booking requests in the U.S. and Canada, provided the inquiry relates to your business. Of course, a charged lead isn't always a booked job, so we'd track billing and bookings separately.
An unanswered call becomes a charged lead when it arrives within both your active ad schedule and the business hours on your Google Business Profile, and the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds. Behind a phone menu, that clock starts at the first key press, and a caller who hangs up before pressing a key isn't charged. Voicemail during business hours is treated as a connected call and billed on the same threshold, whether or not a message is left.
That turns your ad schedule into a billing setting as much as an advertising one. If your schedule and profile hours both run later than someone's actually there to pick up, missed calls in that gap can end up on your bill. It's one of the first things we'd line up before the move.
Phone calls are a required lead type, according to Google's guidance on goals and leads. Messages and booking requests are optional, though Google turns messages on by default, and bookings too for eligible businesses with an active booking integration on their Google Business Profile. We'd confirm which ones are switched on before the move, since each can bring in a billable lead.
Once a lead is charged, follow-up calls or messages from the same phone number or email aren't charged again while there's contact within 15 days. After 15 days with no activity, Google treats a new call or message from that customer as a new lead, charged if it meets the valid-lead rules.
Charge status and booking status
The Leads page carries a Charge Status column with four values: Charged, Not charged, In review and Credited. For U.S. home service accounts, Google says it assesses lead quality over 30 days, and if it determines a lead was poor quality, a duplicate or invalid, it applies a credit automatically. Advertisers can also submit feedback on individual leads through a survey on the same page.
Charge status tells you what Google billed. Booked and Completed tell Google what actually happened, so we'd check those against your job records before updating them.
Settings that carry over
Targeted locations, service types, business categories, budget limits, ad schedule and business photos all transfer automatically. That saves re-entering them, but it also means anything out of date comes along for the ride, which makes the move a good time to review them.
Service area is defined by cities, counties or ZIP codes. Business categories and selected services determine which local searches the ad is eligible for, as Google's settings page explains, so a service you no longer offer, or a new one you haven't added, affects which leads you pay for. The ad schedule can run continuously, on set days and hours, or follow your Business Profile hours, and, as described above, it decides which missed calls can be billed.
Your lead history comes across, your reports don't
Past leads move into Google Ads and stay available on the new Leads page, which replaces the Local Services Ads lead inbox and sits under Goals, then Conversions, then Leads. Your performance reports are a different story. Google's migration notice says they "will not transition to Google Ads."
Once your account moves, you can't get back into the old dashboard; logging in takes you to Google Ads. Google says a dedicated download page for historical reports is coming. Until it arrives, we'd capture what the current dashboard shows, even as screenshots, and export the full reports once downloads open.
The Leads page lists the contact date, customer name, phone number, requested job type and source campaign, though the name can be blank when customer details weren't captured. We'd use those details and the conversation history to match each inquiry to your job records. Call recordings, available for select verticals in the U.S. and Canada, and sensitive conversation history are kept for up to 30 days, so we'd note the outcome and any matching details in your own records during the weekly review.
Lead email alerts also reset when you move. Google opts every account user and direct manager in to call and message lead emails, regardless of earlier preferences, and requires at least one person to stay opted in. Each user manages lead-email notifications under Admin, then Notifications, and we'd confirm who is subscribed in the first days after the move.
Booked and Completed lead statuses
Any lead can be marked Booked or Completed by hand, and Google says those updates help its automated systems optimize the campaign. The statuses are covered in Google's lead management guidance. With manual bids gone, keeping those statuses accurate is part of managing the campaign well.
A lead is Booked when the customer books and Completed when the work is done; anything still in progress stays open in your records until it settles. In comparing spend to jobs, we'd match each booking to the lead that produced it, so a booking from an older inquiry stays with that inquiry and a customer who called twice about one job counts once.
Example: a company spends $1,800 in a month and receives 24 charged leads. Nine of those 24 leads become booked jobs. That's $200 in ad spend per booked job so far, with 15 leads still to be recorded as open or closed without a booking.
The figure moves as those outcomes and any credits settle. It's ad spend only, not the full cost of winning a customer, so we'd compare it with what those jobs leave after labor and materials.
Local Services Ads vs Google Search ads
The difference comes down to what you pay for. Local Services Ads charge for valid leads, and ordinary clicks on the ad aren't billed. Standard Google Search campaigns charge for each valid click, whether or not it produces a call or a job.
For accounts running both, we'd report the two separately, since one bills per lead and the other per click. Booked jobs are the common measure between them. For Search campaigns, the page the ad sends people to belongs in that review as well.
What affects the cost of Google Local Services Ads?
Google names four factors: "Lead prices may vary depending on your location, job type, lead type, or bidding strategy." Location and job type come from the settings above, lead type from the channels you enable, and bidding strategy from the choice between Maximize conversions and Target CPA.
When costs go up, we'd look first at whether the leads match the services and areas you actually want, then at the spend per booked job from the example above.
A Local Services Ads migration checklist
The When column shows which checks we'd do before the move, right after it, and every week after that.
| Area | When | What to confirm | Why it matters now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | Before | Supported business category, and no outstanding steps in Google's business verification | Google requires business verification for these campaigns |
| Service area | Before | Cities, counties and ZIP codes match where you accept jobs | Location settings carry over automatically, outdated or not |
| Job types | Before | Selected services match the work you want | The ad only shows for the category and services selected |
| Ad schedule and business hours | Before | The ad schedule reflects the hours calls can be answered; Business Profile hours reflect when you're open | An unanswered call inside both windows is charged when the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds |
| Voicemail and routing | Before | Where unanswered calls go, how voicemail and phone menus behave during business hours, and who returns missed calls | Voicemail during business hours counts as a connected call under the same rule |
| Messages and bookings | Before and right after | Which are turned on, and who responds | Messages are on by default; phone calls stay required |
| Lead records | Before (capture), after (export) | Current reports captured, historical reports exported when available, transferred leads located | Performance reports don't transfer; past leads do |
| Lead alerts | Right after | Who receives call and message lead emails under Admin, then Notifications | Google resets these and opts in every user and direct manager |
| Booked-job tracking | Weekly | Leads matched to job records weekly, Booked or Completed applied accurately | It shows which inquiries became jobs, and Google says accurate statuses help its systems optimize |
| Budget | Before and right after | The converted daily budget equals the previous average weekly budget divided by seven, and the bidding strategy and any target match your plan | There's no maximum cost per lead after the move |
| Lead feedback | Weekly | Charge Status reviewed and survey feedback sent for poor-quality, duplicate or invalid leads | For U.S. home service accounts, Google assesses quality over 30 days and applies credits automatically |
Working with JAWC on your Google Ads
JAWC manages Google Ads and Microsoft Ads through our PPC management service. If you already have an account, we work inside it, and it stays yours. Tracking is in place before your ads run, and we track what each campaign brings in and what it costs you.
We pace the budget to last the whole month and agree recommended changes with you first. Any change to the budget is your call.
If your account has a migration notice, we can review your existing Google Ads campaigns and recommend next steps.
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We’ll look at your site and where you show up, then talk you through what we’d do and what it costs.
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