How Local Services Ads Work Inside Google Ads

Once your account has moved, Local Services Ads (LSA) run inside Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals. Billing is still by valid lead, such as a call or a message, rather than by click, and placement is still limited to Google Search and Google Maps. The weekly work now happens in Google Ads, and some controls work differently there.

ASP is a growth-systems marketing agency for home service operators. This guide covers the day-to-day side of running these campaigns: where leads land, which columns to read, how bidding and budgets behave, and which settings you control. If you still need to know what moves and how to prepare for it, read what changes when Local Services Ads move to Google Ads first. Everything here follows Google's help pages as we checked them on October 16, 2026.

Where Your Leads Show Up and How to Work Them

In Google Ads, your leads sit in a table on the Leads page. To get there, open the Goals menu, click Conversions and then choose Leads. Google says this table replaces the old Local Services Ads lead inbox, so it is where you keep talking with customers after they reach out. Each row shows the lead type, such as a call or a message, and whether you were charged for it.

The Leads page also has a lead feedback form and a way to download your leads so you can import them into your own CRM. The Google Ads help pages we checked mention the feedback form but do not explain how feedback connects to credits or disputes after the move. If a charge looks wrong, ask Google's support team how it is handled for your account.

Google's best-practices page for pay-per-lead goals calls phone calls mandatory because they are the main channel for reaching local customers right away. Treat the Leads page like a job board you check at set times every day. Mark each lead in your own system once someone has called the customer back.

Who gets the lead emails

Lead alerts go out by email, and you manage them on the Notifications page under Admin. Google says all account users and direct managers are opted in to these alerts by default. Google also requires at least one active user to stay opted in at all times. Review that list after any staff change, so alerts keep reaching someone who will pick up the phone and call the customer back.

The Three Columns to Read Each Week

Google Ads can show a lot of numbers, but Google points pay-per-lead advertisers to three columns on the campaign dashboard. Here is what each one means, in Google's terms:

• Conversions: the total number of leads you were charged for.
• Cost: your total ad spend.
• Cost / conv.: your average cost per lead.

The word "Conversions" trips people up. It is easy to read it as booked work, but here it counts charged leads. A charged lead is a lead you paid for, such as a call or message, and it is not the same thing as a booked job.

Judge results by booked jobs

At ASP, every channel is judged on cost per booked job, and a pay-per-lead campaign gets the same test. Google can tell you what each lead cost. Only your own job records can tell you which of those leads became paid work.

The lead download makes that check practical. Once a week, export the leads, match them against the jobs in your field software, and divide the campaign's Cost by the number of leads that booked. Our guide to marketing attribution for home service businesses explains how to connect each booked job back to the channel that produced it.

Key Takeaway: Conversions counts the leads you paid for. Check the downloaded lead list against booked jobs before you decide whether the campaign is earning its spend.

How Bidding Works With One Campaign-Level Target

Target CPA is a bid strategy where you set the average cost per conversion you want, according to Google's Target CPA page. In a pay-per-lead campaign, a conversion is a charged lead, so the target works as a goal for your average lead cost.

The old dashboard allowed a target for each business category. Google Ads doesn't support that. In its place, a single target is worked out for the whole campaign, and every category in it shares that target.

Google's campaign settings page lists Maximize Conversions as the default bid strategy, which uses Google AI to set bids as conditions change. The best-practices page adds a caution: changing to Target CPA may restrict your ad delivery and limit your local reach and lead volume. In plain terms, a target can mean fewer leads. Google's transition page covers accounts that had a target for each category, but it doesn't say which strategy every moved account starts on, so check the bidding line in your campaign settings after the move.

Google's best-practices page says to set a Target CPA only if the campaign is consistently getting more than 15 leads a month and your cost per lead is higher than you'd like. If you set one, watch Conversions and Cost / conv. side by side before you change it again.

When separate campaigns per category make sense

One target works well when your categories bring in jobs of similar value. It works less well when they don't. A small repair and a full system replacement can be worth very different amounts, yet one shared target aims for the same lead cost on both.

Google's fix is a separate campaign for each category, set up in Local Services at g.co/localservices, and the examples it gives are plumbing and HVAC. A company that runs HVAC advertising and plumbing advertising can give each campaign its own target that way. Roofers who list more than one category can weigh the same split, and our page on roofing advertising covers how LSA fits with the other roofing channels.

Splitting has a tradeoff. Each campaign needs its own budget, and each one gets a share of the leads instead of all of them, which makes trends slower to read. Split when job values are far apart, and keep categories together when they are close.

How the Daily Budget and Monthly Cap Behave

In Google Ads, you set an average daily budget, and you change it by selecting Budget in the campaign settings. Because you pay per lead and not per click, Google says your daily spend may rise and fall with market demand. A high-demand day can cost more than the daily figure. Google also says your monthly billing will not go past a cap equal to your average daily budget times 30.4.

Here is how that math works. A $50 average daily budget sets a monthly cap of $1,520, because $50 times 30.4 is $1,520. That example only shows how the cap is figured, and it is not a recommended spend.

Read the budget by the month, not by the day. A day that costs more than the daily figure fits how Google says the budget works. The better question is whether the monthly total and the number of booked jobs match your plan. The right budget starts from what a booked job is worth to you, so set it from your job values rather than from last month's spend.

Ad schedule

The ad schedule controls the days and hours your ads can run. You can run ads all the time, set a custom schedule or match your Google Business Profile hours. If no one can take calls during certain hours, leaving those hours off the schedule means the ad isn't running when calls can't be answered.

Key Takeaway: Spend can swing from day to day, but monthly billing never goes past 30.4 times your daily average. Judge the budget against a full month of booked jobs.

Lead Types, Callouts and the Settings You Control

Lead types

Phone calls are the one lead type you can't switch off. Google says call leads are required to keep your ads serving, and that you're charged only for valid, qualified phone leads that meet minimum call duration requirements. Google's page on pay-per-lead goals lists two optional lead types:

• Text messages and emails: a customer sends a message straight through your ad.
• Bookings: a customer schedules an appointment straight through your ad. Google lists bookings as optional and available starting in October 2026.

Google says you can opt in or out of message and booking leads at any time, and you can edit where call and message leads are routed. Before you turn either one on, decide who will answer them. Google asks advertisers who receive message leads to respond in a timely manner.

Callouts and assets

Google says you can select up to 6 callouts per business category to highlight unique and popular aspects of your business. Google also says you don't need to write headlines, descriptions, videos or sitelinks yourself. Keep each callout specific and true, and review your callouts when you add or drop a category.

Service area, categories and service types

You set your service area by city, county or ZIP code. Google's best-practices page suggests limiting it to regions you can reasonably serve within a two-hour drive. Business categories come from your Google Business Profile, and you can opt out of any category at any time. Each category needs at least one service type selected to stay active, and your ad only appears in local searches for the categories and services you choose.

Pausing and resuming

You can stop leads for a while without deleting anything. Set the campaign to Paused to stop the ads and the leads, and set it back to Enabled when you want them again. Pausing works on the whole campaign, so every category in it stops at once. To stop a single category instead, opt out of that category in your settings.

Starting a brand-new campaign

For now, Google Ads has no way to build a pay-per-lead campaign from scratch. To set up a new campaign or a new account, Google tells advertisers to keep using g.co/localservices.

How Pay-Per-Lead Campaigns Fit Next to Search and Performance Max

Google's advice is to pair pay-per-lead campaigns with Search, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns rather than run them alone. Each type reaches people in a different way. Google says keyword targeting is not offered for pay-per-lead campaigns, unlike traditional Search campaigns. A pay-per-lead campaign relies on your categories, service types and service area, while a Search campaign is built on the keywords you choose.

That difference shapes how the two work together. A Search campaign can be pointed at the specific services you want more of. The pay-per-lead campaign covers the categories and services you selected in its settings.

When several campaigns run at once, compare them by cost per booked job. Each campaign reports its results in its own way, so your job records give you one measure to compare them by. Our overview of PPC advertising for home service businesses explains how these channels can work together for a home service company.

Key Takeaway: Google recommends pairing pay-per-lead campaigns with Search and other campaign types. Compare all of them by cost per booked job, not by each campaign's own lead count.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Conversions column count in a pay-per-lead campaign?

It counts the leads you were charged for. Google defines Conversions in these campaigns as the total number of charged leads, Cost as your total ad spend and Cost / conv. as your average cost per lead. None of the three tells you how many of those leads booked. To see that, download your leads from the Leads page and match them against the jobs in your own records.

Do I have to accept text, email and booking leads?

No. Phone calls are the only required lead type, and Google says call leads are needed to keep your ads serving. Texts and emails are optional, and so are bookings, which Google lists as available starting in October 2026. Google says you can opt in or out of message and booking leads at any time, so you can turn them on once someone is ready to answer them.

Can I give feedback on a lead in Google Ads?

Yes. Google says the Leads page in Google Ads includes a lead feedback form, along with each lead's type, its charged status and a way to download your leads. The Google Ads help pages we checked don't explain how that feedback ties to credits or disputes after the move. If a charge looks wrong, ask Google's support team how it is handled for your account.

How do I pause my ads for a slow or overbooked week?

Change the campaign status to Paused. Google says that stops your ads and stops new leads. To turn leads back on, set the campaign to Enabled again. Pausing applies to the whole campaign. If you only want to stop one service category, Google says you can opt out of a category at any time in your campaign settings.

Who receives the lead email alerts?

By default, Google opts in every account user and direct manager to lead email alerts. You manage the alerts on the Notifications page under Admin in Google Ads. Google requires at least one active user to stay opted in at all times. Check the list whenever someone joins or leaves, so the alerts reach whoever calls customers back.

Should I keep running Search and Performance Max campaigns too?

Google's advice is to pair pay-per-lead campaigns with Search, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns rather than run them alone. Pay-per-lead campaigns have no keyword targeting, while Search campaigns are built on keywords you choose, so the two can cover different searches. Whether that fits your company depends on your budget and the jobs you want more of. Compare every campaign by cost per booked job.

Running the Campaign Week to Week

Once your account has moved, most of the weekly work happens in a few places. Work new leads on the Leads page, keep lead emails pointed at the right person, and read Conversions, Cost and Cost / conv. against the jobs you booked. Set a Target CPA only when your lead volume meets Google's guideline, judge budgets by the month, and turn on messages or bookings only when someone is ready to answer them.

Paid media management, which covers pay-per-lead campaigns, is included in ASP plans from Growth up. If you want help reading your new campaign against your booked jobs, talk with our team.