Google Local Services Ads vs Google Ads in 2026: What Changes for Contractors When LSA Moves Into Performance Max
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This guide reflects Google Local Services Ads vs Google Ads as of October 2026. Platform rules change; check back if Google publishes phase 2 dates or changes the migration help page. It is general marketing guidance, not legal advice.
Google Local Services Ads vs Google Ads in 2026: What Changes for Contractors When LSA Moves Into Performance Max
Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals, starting in August 2026 with select US home and storefront providers such as plumbing, HVAC, electrical and roofing. You still pay only for valid leads, but manual bidding ends and old LSA reports do not carry over. Google Local Services Ads vs Google Ads is becoming a choice of campaign types inside one account. [1] [2]
- Local Services Ads are becoming a Performance Max campaign type with pay-per-lead goals. You still pay only for valid leads, but manual bidding ends and old LSA performance reports do not transition to Google Ads. [1]
- The move is phased: select US home and storefront providers in August 2026, service-area businesses without storefronts in late 2026, and non-US accounts and remaining categories in 2027. [2]
- The name misleads. Standard Performance Max reaches YouTube, Display and Gmail, but pay-per-lead campaigns serve only on Google Search and Google Maps and stay keywordless. [3] [1]
- Some rules have already changed: Google Verified replaced the Google Guaranteed and Google Screened badges, and lead credits are now automated. [4] [5]
- Most Ambrose clients invest roughly $1,200 to $4,000 a month in marketing, often across more than one channel. Book a free consultation to plan your migration and decide whether search ads belong next to your LSA campaign.
If you run Local Services Ads today, your account is moving whether you act or not. Google migrates existing campaigns automatically and emails the account administrator 14 days before the migration date. [1] The question for an HVAC, plumbing or roofing owner is not whether to switch platforms. It is what to save before the old dashboard disappears, and whether a Search campaign should run next to the pay-per-lead one.
The stakes are practical. In a Scorpion and Dynata survey, 83% of homeowners said they begin their search online, and 67% of home service operators said they cannot connect marketing spend to revenue. [6] Losing your old reports makes that second problem harder to fix.
Local Services Ads Are Becoming a Performance Max Campaign Type
Local Services Ads are being rebuilt inside Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The billing model stays: you pay for valid leads such as calls, messages and booking requests, not clicks. What changes is the dashboard, the bidding options, the budget format and the reporting. The ads keep showing on Google Search and Google Maps only. [1] [8]
What I call pay-per-lead Performance Max is Google's new home for Local Services Ads: a specialized Performance Max campaign type, managed in Google Ads, that charges per valid lead, targets by service category and area instead of keywords, and serves only on Google Search and Google Maps. [1] Google's own wording on billing is direct: "You still only pay for valid leads (such as phone calls and messages) rather than ad clicks." [1]
A valid lead means what it meant before: a customer text or email, a voicemail, an answered call, a missed call you return, or a booking request, priced by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode. [8]
The phrase "Performance Max" is where owners get confused. Standard Performance Max reaches all Google Ads inventory, including YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps, from one campaign. [3] The pay-per-lead version does not: it serves only on Google Search and Google Maps, in the same ad positions as before. [1]
| Feature | Standard Performance Max | Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals (former LSA) |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | Clicks (cost per click) [1] | Valid leads: calls, messages, booking requests [1] [8] |
| Where ads show | All Google Ads inventory, including YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps [3] | Google Search and Google Maps only [1] |
| Targeting | Goal-based, across channels [3] | Keywordless: service categories, areas and settings you choose [1] |
| Headlines, videos, sitelinks | Supported [1] | Not applicable to pay-per-lead campaigns [1] |
| New campaign creation in Google Ads | Yes | Not yet: new pay-per-lead campaigns still start at Local Services [1] |
The honest reading: the same lead product, in a new building. That building is Google Ads, where your Search campaigns already live, so pay-per-lead and pay-per-click now sit in one account.
The Migration Timeline by Business Type
Google is migrating Local Services Ads in three phases. Phase 1 began in August 2026 for select US home and storefront service providers, including plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing and pest control. Phase 2, in late 2026, covers service-area businesses without storefronts and professional services. Phase 3, in 2027, covers non-US accounts, healthcare services and the remaining categories. [2]
| Phase and timing | Who moves | Examples Google names |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: August 2026 | Select US home and storefront service providers | Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, moving [2] |
| Phase 2: late 2026 | Broader advertiser cohorts | Service-area businesses without physical storefronts, professional services, accounts with custom bidding or booking configurations [2] |
| Phase 3: 2027 | Non-US accounts and all remaining supported categories | Healthcare services; advanced verification categories such as locksmiths and garage door pros [2] |
One gap deserves a straight answer. Plumbing and HVAC are named in phase 1 and service-area businesses without storefronts in phase 2, but Google's page does not say which phase applies to a plumber or HVAC contractor with no storefront. [2] Only Google's notification email settles it for your account.
That email has a fixed schedule. The account administrator on your profile receives an advance notice 14 days before the migration date, banners appear in the dashboard, and a final reminder follows 7 days later. [1] Make sure someone reads that inbox.
On migration day, the old dashboard closes and logging in redirects you to Google Ads. [1] Google asks advertisers to allow up to two weeks for the migration to complete and for performance to return to stable levels. [1]
For a seasonal trade, that two-week window is a planning issue, not a footnote. An HVAC company that migrates in late 2026 migrates into heating season. Plan staffing and any Search budget around it.
What carries over is on the record: targeted locations, service types, business categories, budget limits, ad schedule, business photos, and a completed verification with its Google Verified badge. [1]
Your migration email is a 14-day countdown. Book a 15-minute consult before your LSA account moves, and we will walk through what to save, how your bids and budget convert, and whether a Search campaign belongs next to it.
Book Your Free Consultation →What You Lose in the Move and What to Save First
Your Local Services Ads performance reports do not move to Google Ads. Past impressions, clicks, weekly spend and ad-level reports stay behind, and the old dashboard closes on migration day. Your lead history does move. Save your reports and record your bids and budget before the 14-day email expires, then replace your BBB callout. [1]
Google's migration page is blunt: "Your Local Services Ads performance reports will not transition to Google Ads." [1] A download page is coming, and Google says to take screenshots if you need the reports now. [1] The checklist below is built line by line from that page.
Save your performance reports
Download or screenshot impressions, clicks, weekly spend and ad-level reports by month and job type; none of these migrate. [1] They are your baseline for judging the new campaign.
Write down every bid
Manual bidding ends, and per-vertical Target CPA becomes one campaign-level Target CPA for all categories. [1] If plumbing and HVAC need different targets, Google's answer is separate campaigns per vertical. [1]
Convert your budget on paper first
Google divides your average weekly budget by 7 to set a daily average, and caps monthly spend at that daily average multiplied by 30.4. [1]
Replace the BBB callout
BBB callouts are no longer supported; Google recommends at least 6 other structured callouts, such as specialties or accepted payment methods. [1]
Fix your Google Business Profile first
Name, address and hours sync one way from your Business Profile to Google Ads, and a significant change to the name, address or primary category triggers a review of 24 to 48 hours during which the campaign can pause. [1] Make corrections before migration day.
Export your leads anyway
Past lead history, including contact details, messages and older call recordings, transfers to the new Leads page, which offers a download for your CRM. [1] A copy you own costs nothing.
Here is step 3 with round numbers. A $700 weekly budget becomes a $100 daily average, and $100 multiplied by 30.4 gives a $3,040 monthly cap. Daily spend can run above the average on busy days, but monthly billing stays under the cap. [1] That arithmetic is ours, from Google's formula, and illustrative.
Check the conversion before the move. A wrong number is cheap to fix early.
Lead Credits, Google Verified and the Rules That Already Changed
Three Local Services Ads rules already work differently from what many owners remember. Lead credits are automated: Google reassesses charged leads with models and usually applies credits within 30 days. Google Verified replaced the Google Guaranteed and Google Screened badges. The money-back guarantee is gone. Your verified status transfers to Google Ads automatically when your account migrates. [5] [4] [1]
Start with credits, because they decide what a bad lead costs you. Google reassesses charged leads with its models, and in most cases credits reach your balance within 30 days. [5] Two categories of credit no longer exist at all: "Google no longer supports credits for 'job type not serviced' and 'geo not serviced' leads." [5] Lead credits are also not available for health care verticals. [5]
That changes setup. A roofer called for a service it does not offer, or a plumber reached from outside its area, gets no credit on those grounds. The fix is upstream: service types and areas that match exactly what you do, which after migration you adjust in Google Ads. [1]
Flagging a lead still has a place: the new Leads page keeps a lead feedback form and shows each lead's charged status. [1]
The badge change is older and still misunderstood. In August 2025, Google wrote that "Google Verified will replace other LSA badges and programs, like Google Guaranteed, Google Screened, License Verified by Google and the Money Back Guarantee." [4] A pitch that still promises Google Guaranteed predates that change.
| Rule | What owners still hear | What Google says now |
|---|---|---|
| Trust badge | Google Guaranteed or Google Screened | Google Verified replaced both [4] |
| Money-back guarantee | Customers are covered by Google | Discontinued [4] |
| Bad lead refunds | File a dispute for each lead | Charged leads reassessed by models; credits usually within 30 days [5] |
| Wrong job type or area | Disputable | No credit for "job type not serviced" or "geo not serviced" [5] |
| Verification after migration | Re-verify in Google Ads | Verified status and badge transfer; insurance and license reverification no longer required [1] |
The checks exist for a reason. Google reports it blocked or removed over 8.3 billion ads and suspended 24.9 million accounts in 2025, including 602 million ads associated with scams. [9] Against that backdrop, the Google Verified badge marks a business that passed Google's required business registration and representative checks. [1]
Local Services Ads vs Search Ads: Cost, Control and Lead Quality Compared
Local Services Ads, now pay-per-lead Performance Max, charge per valid lead and give you little control: no keywords, no manual bids, Search and Maps only. [1] Search ads charge per click and give you full control over keywords, ad copy and landing pages. Home services search ads ran a median cost per lead of $90.92 in LocaliQ's data. [7]
Pay-per-lead buys a lead, usually a call or message, with no keyword list to manage. A Search campaign buys a click on a query you chose and sends it to a page you built. Here is how they compare in October 2026.
| Attribute | Local Services Ads (pay-per-lead Performance Max) | Google Search ads |
|---|---|---|
| You pay for | Valid leads: messages, voicemails, answered calls, returned missed calls, booking requests [8] | Clicks; invalid clicks filtered or credited where appropriate and possible [10] |
| Price drivers | Location, job type, lead type and bidding mode [8] | Auction for each keyword; median home services CPC $7.85 (LocaliQ) [7] |
| Targeting control | Keywordless: categories and service areas [1] | Your keywords, with AI Max on by default for new Search campaigns [11] |
| Bidding | Campaign-level Target CPA; manual bidding ended [1] | Full range of Google Ads bid strategies |
| Where ads show | Google Search and Google Maps only [1] | Google Search; Search campaigns are eligible for ads inside AI Overviews [12] |
| Bad lead handling | Automated credits, usually within 30 days [5] | Invalid clicks column; "Invalid activity" credits [10] |
| Trust badge | Google Verified for eligible businesses [4] | None |
| Landing page | None needed: the lead comes to you | Your website, which you control and must convert |
On cost, the best public data covers Search ads, not Local Services Ads. LocaliQ's benchmark of 3,211 US home services search campaigns, running April 2024 to March 2025, found a median cost per lead of $90.92 and a median cost per click of $7.85. [7] By trade, the median cost per lead looked like this [7]:
| Trade (LocaliQ category) | Median search ads cost per lead, April 2024 to March 2025 |
|---|---|
| Pools and spas | $45.15 |
| Electricians | $93.69 |
| Landscaping | $117.92 |
| Air conditioning | $127.74 |
| Heating and furnaces | $129.02 |
| Plumbing | $129.02 |
| Roofing and gutters | $228.15 |
Two cautions travel with that table. LocaliQ is a vendor reporting on campaigns it runs, and heating and plumbing show an identical $129.02 on its page. [7] WordStream reported a $90.92 cost per lead for Home and Home Improvement, with an $8.33 cost per click and an 8.05% conversion rate, from more than 13,000 search campaigns across industries, April 2025 to March 2026. [13] WordStream and LocaliQ share a parent company, so read them as one family of data, not independent confirmation.
For Local Services Ads, no comparable benchmark sits in this guide's verified sources; Google says only that lead prices vary by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode. [8] Your saved LSA reports are the benchmark.
One piece of arithmetic helps. At LocaliQ's medians, $90.92 per lead divided by $7.85 per click is roughly 11.6 paid clicks per lead. [7] That figure is ours, built from two medians, and illustrative. If your Local Services Ads lead costs well below a dozen search clicks, pay-per-lead is the cheaper door.
One question stays open. Google lists Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns as eligible for ads inside AI Overviews [12], while pay-per-lead campaigns serve only on Search and Maps in the same positions as before. [1] Neither page says whether pay-per-lead ads appear inside AI Overviews.
When to Run Both, and When One Is Enough
Run Local Services Ads alone when your trade is an eligible category, your service area is tight and calls are what you want. Add Search ads when you need jobs Local Services Ads does not target, a landing page that sells a higher-ticket service, or more volume than leads alone supply. Judge both by cost per booked job, not by cost per lead. [14] [8]
The decision starts with eligibility. Google's US Local Services Ads categories include HVAC, plumbers, roofers, pool cleaners and pool contractors. [14] If your trade is listed, pay-per-lead is the lowest-effort way onto Search and Maps. If not, Search ads are the option in this comparison that reaches those queries.
| Your situation | Pay-per-lead (LSA) | Search ads | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eligible trade, one service area, phone-first business | Run it | Optional | Pay only for valid leads; no keywords or landing page [1] [8] |
| Several trades with different lead values, such as plumbing and HVAC | Run it, one campaign per trade | Optional | Separate campaigns keep separate targets after migration [1] |
| Higher-ticket jobs you want to pre-sell, such as a full system replacement | Run it | Add it | Search sends the click to a page you control |
| Peak season, lead volume capped by the pay-per-lead budget | Run it | Add it | Search reaches keywords you choose; pay-per-lead is keywordless [1] |
| Health care category | Check eligibility first | Plan for it | No lead credits for health care; healthcare services migrate in 2027 [5] [2] |
The case for running both rests on one fact: after migration, both campaigns live in the same Google Ads account, with the same cost and conversion columns. [1] That only pays off if someone measures past the lead. A business that cannot connect spend to revenue, like the 67% of operators in the Scorpion and Dynata survey, cannot tell which is cheaper per booked job. [6]
The case for one is simpler. If your saved reports show leads at a price your close rate can carry, and you cannot staff more calls, a second campaign adds cost without adding jobs. Paid search also sits inside a larger picture: ads, Business Profile and website work together, the idea behind treating paid and organic search as one system.
Google is still adding formats. At Google Marketing Live 2026, it said it is testing Conversational Discovery ads and Highlighted Answers in AI Mode, and that Business Agent for Leads is coming to Search in the coming months. [15] Those are tests and announcements, not general availability.
My view is plain. Pay-per-lead is the floor for an eligible trade, and Search is the lever. Pull the lever when you can measure what it returns. For trade-specific planning, see how we approach HVAC marketing and plumbing marketing.
LSA or Search Ads: Decision Check
Does not estimate cost and is not a guarantee of placement, lead volume or citation. Source: the migration timeline table, the save-first checklist, the credits table and the run-both decision table in this guide (Google Ads Help and Google LSA Help pages read October 2026).
Choose your situation, from a single-trade storefront to a service-area contractor or a health care practice. The tool shows your likely migration phase, what to save first, how credits work for you, and whether a Search campaign belongs next to your pay-per-lead campaign, using only the rules in this guide. It does not estimate cost and is not a guarantee of placement or citation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Local Services Ads and Performance Max
Is Google Local Services Ads being replaced by Performance Max?
When will my Local Services Ads account move to Performance Max?
Can I still dispute bad Local Services Ads leads?
Is Google Guaranteed still available?
Is Local Services Ads cheaper than Google search ads?
Can med spas run Local Services Ads?
References
- Google Ads Help. Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max (17213585). no page date shown; read 2026-10-05. support.google.com
- Google Ads Help. LSA to Performance Max timeline (17326460). no page date. support.google.com
- Google Ads Help. About Performance Max campaigns (10724817). no page date. support.google.com
- Google LSA Help. Google Verified (16498018, 7549288). blog 2025-08-20. blog.google support.google.com
- Google LSA Help. Lead credits (15100654). no page date. support.google.com
- Scorpion with Dynata. 2026 State of Home Services Marketing Report. 2026-02-19. prnewswire.com
- LocaliQ. 2025 Search Ad Benchmarks for Home Services. updated 2026-07-15. localiq.com
- Google LSA Help. How Local Services Ads pricing works (7195435). no page date. support.google.com
- Google. 2025 Ads Safety Report. 2026-04-16. blog.google
- Google Ads Help. About invalid traffic (11182074). no page date. support.google.com
- Google Ads Help. About AI Max for Search campaigns (15909989). no page date shown; read 2026-10-05. support.google.com
- Google Ads Help. About ads in AI Overviews (16297775). no page date; read 2026-10-04. support.google.com
- WordStream. Google Ads Benchmarks 2026. updated 2026-05-19. wordstream.com
- Google LSA Help. Business categories (6224841). no page date. support.google.com
- Google. Google Marketing Live 2026 search ads. 2026-05-20. blog.google
The Migration Is Automatic. The Decision Is Not.
Google will move your Local Services Ads account into Google Ads on its own schedule. [2] It will keep charging you per valid lead and keep your ads on Search and Maps. [1] What it will not do is save your old reports, preserve your manual bids or tell you whether a Search campaign belongs next to the pay-per-lead one.
That part is yours. Save the reports and bids before your 14-day email runs out. Set service types and areas tightly, because credits for wrong-job and wrong-area leads no longer exist. [5] Then compare both campaigns, now in one account, on the number that matters: cost per booked job.
Ready to plan your migration and your Search budget together?
We will go through what to save, how your bids and budget convert, and where Search ads earn a place next to your pay-per-lead campaign. You can also explore our paid advertising services.
Book Your Free Consultation →This article is general marketing information as of its last-updated date, not legal or financial advice. Google's migration schedule and Local Services Ads policies change; confirm current rules on Google's help pages before changing your campaigns.