Google is moving Local Services Ads (LSA) out of its standalone dashboard and into Google Ads as a specialized Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals.
The name is potentially misleading. This is not a conversion of LSA into the standard Performance Max campaign that can buy clicks across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. According to Google’s official migration guide, migrated LSA campaigns will still:
- Charge for valid leads rather than clicks.
- Show only in the existing Local Services placements on Google Search and Google Maps.
- Use service categories, service areas, and business information instead of keywords.
- Focus on calls, messages, and bookings from local prospects.
The customer-facing product remains largely familiar. The management system, budget format, bidding controls, reporting history, and relationship with Google Business Profile are where the important changes happen.
The change in one table
| Area | Before migration | After migration |
|---|---|---|
| Management interface | Standalone Local Services Ads dashboard | Google Ads |
| Campaign classification | Local Services Ads campaign | Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals |
| Billing event | Valid lead | Valid lead |
| Placements | Search and Maps LSA positions | The same Search and Maps LSA positions |
| Targeting | Keywordless; services and areas | Keywordless; services and areas |
| Budget format | Weekly budget | Average daily budget |
| Manual maximum cost per lead | Available for some accounts | Deprecated |
| Target CPA by vertical | Available for some multi-category setups | One campaign-level target; separate campaigns needed for separate targets |
| Historical performance reports | Available in the LSA dashboard | Do not transfer to Google Ads |
| Historical lead conversations | Available in the LSA dashboard | Transfer to Google Ads Lead Manager |
| Lead ratings and feedback | Submitted through LSA workflows or the Google Ads API | Continue through Google Ads Lead Manager and the Google Ads API |
| Core business data | Managed across LSA and business profile workflows | Key fields sync from Google Business Profile |
The most accurate mental model is LSA inside the Google Ads operating system, not standard Performance Max replacing the LSA product.
When will LSA accounts migrate?
Google is using a phased rollout rather than moving every advertiser at once:
- August 2026: The first phase begins for select U.S. home and storefront service advertisers. Google’s examples include plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving.
- Late 2026: The rollout expands to broader advertiser groups, including service-area businesses without storefronts and accounts with custom bidding or booking configurations.
- 2027: Non-U.S. advertisers and remaining business categories move to Google Ads.
This is a general schedule, not an exact migration date for an individual account. Google says the account administrator will receive an email approximately 14 days before migration, and a banner will appear in the current LSA dashboard. A follow-up reminder is expected a week later.
Do not plan from the industry-wide date alone. Confirm that the administrator email address is monitored and treat the account-specific notice as the trigger for the final backup and QA process.
What Google transfers automatically
Google says the migration will carry over the existing campaign setup, including:
- Target locations
- Service types and business categories
- Budget settings
- Ad schedule
- Business photos
- Existing verification status and eligible badge
Past customer leads, contact details, message history, and older call recordings will also move into Google Ads Lead Manager.
After migration, visiting the old LSA dashboard will redirect the advertiser to the campaign overview in Google Ads. Google advises allowing up to two weeks for the migration and campaign performance to settle.
Automatic transfer reduces setup work, but it does not eliminate the need for validation. A setting can transfer correctly and still be wrong for the business today. Use the migration as a reason to compare the migrated account with the business’s actual services, coverage, hours, and economics.
The biggest risk: performance history does not transfer
Google explicitly says previous campaign performance reports will not carry over to Google Ads. Historical impressions, spend, lead volume, and other campaign-level reporting can become inaccessible when the old dashboard closes.
Before the migration date, export enough information to answer these questions later:
- Did lead volume materially change after migration?
- Did average cost per lead change?
- Did qualified-lead and booked-job rates change?
- Did the mix of services, locations, lead types, or hours change?
- Did credits and net lead cost change?
At minimum, preserve monthly and weekly data for the previous 12 months where available:
| Data to preserve | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Spend, charged leads, and average cost per lead | Establishes the media baseline |
| Calls, messages, and bookings by lead type | Detects a channel-mix change |
| Leads by service category and area | Identifies where volume moved |
| Credited and not-charged leads | Prevents gross cost from being confused with net cost |
| Qualified leads and booked jobs | Shows whether business value changed, not just platform volume |
| Budget, bid strategy, schedule, services, and areas | Documents the conditions that produced the baseline |
| Major account changes and dates | Separates migration effects from advertiser changes |
A PDF screenshot is useful evidence, but a spreadsheet or warehouse export is better for comparison. Keep the export date, account ID, time zone, currency, metric definitions, and reporting window with the data.
Budget and bidding will need a real audit
Weekly budgets become daily budgets
Google will divide the historical average weekly budget by seven to set an average daily budget. Monthly spend remains capped at the daily average multiplied by 30.4, although spend can vary from one day to another.
For example, a $2,100 average weekly budget becomes a $300 average daily budget. The corresponding monthly limit is approximately $9,120:
$2,100 / 7 = $300 per day
$300 x 30.4 = $9,120 per month
Do not compare the new daily number with an old monthly or weekly number and conclude that Google raised or cut the budget. Normalize both settings to the same time period first, then compare the intended spend with the migrated value.
Manual bidding is going away
Manual bidding, including a manually set maximum cost per lead, will no longer be supported after migration. Accounts will use Google Ads-compatible automated bidding.
That makes stable downstream feedback more important. A cheap lead is not necessarily a good lead, and an automated bidding system cannot infer the business’s booked-job economics from a raw contact count alone. Continue measuring qualified opportunities, bookings, and revenue outside the top-line platform conversion.
One target may hide different service economics
Google is also deprecating vertical-level Target CPA settings within one campaign. If a campaign currently has different targets for different business categories, Google will calculate one unified campaign-level target.
That can be a poor economic fit when categories behave differently. A plumbing company may tolerate a different acquisition cost for drain clearing than for a sewer replacement; a multi-trade operator may value an HVAC replacement lead differently from an appliance repair lead.
Google’s recommended control is separate campaigns for categories that need separate bidding rules. Before restructuring, verify that each segment has enough volume to support useful decisions. Fragmenting a low-volume account into many campaigns can make measurement noisier.
Google Business Profile becomes more operationally important
Google Ads will use Google Business Profile to pre-populate and sync core business information. Google says the business name, address, and hours sync from the profile to Google Ads. Photos and service areas may be pre-populated but can be customized for the ad campaign.
This creates a clearer source of truth, but it also raises the cost of casual profile edits:
- Incorrect hours can flow into advertising.
- A significant business-name or address change can trigger a verification review.
- Google says that review typically takes 24 to 48 hours and may temporarily pause the campaign.
- Phone routing for call and message leads can be edited in Google Ads after migration.
Assign ownership for the Business Profile before the transition. The person updating public business data should understand that a change can now affect both organic local presence and paid lead delivery.
Google is also discontinuing Better Business Bureau callouts in the migrated campaign type. Its migration guide recommends selecting at least six other structured callouts, such as specialties, hours, or accepted payment methods, from the campaign’s assets area.
A practical pre-migration checklist
As soon as possible
- Confirm the account administrator and notification email.
- Export historical performance and lead-credit reporting.
- Record current budget, bidding, schedule, services, areas, photos, phone routing, and contact methods.
- Save the definitions used for a lead, qualified lead, booked job, and credit.
- Document the current Google Business Profile name, address, hours, categories, and phone number.
- Resolve stale users, unmonitored inboxes, and ownership gaps.
When the 14-day notice arrives
- Repeat the historical export so the backup is current.
- Save a dated account-settings snapshot.
- Avoid optional, high-impact account changes that would contaminate the before-and-after comparison.
- Brief the person answering calls and messages; the interface will change even if the customer experience does not.
- Verify access to the destination Google Ads account and Business Profile.
- Define who will validate the migrated campaign on day one.
On migration day
- Confirm the campaign is active and billing is healthy.
- Compare service categories, service areas, schedule, photos, and lead channels with the saved snapshot.
- Check the average daily budget and campaign-level bidding target.
- Test call and message routing end to end.
- Confirm historical conversations are visible in Lead Manager.
- Check that the badge and verification state transferred as expected.
- Record discrepancies with screenshots and timestamps before changing them.
During the following two weeks
- Monitor delivery daily for hard failures, but avoid reacting to every daily fluctuation.
- Compare spend, charged leads, cost per lead, qualified leads, and booked jobs with a seasonally reasonable baseline.
- Segment results by service, area, channel, and hour where the data permits.
- Keep a change log for every correction.
- Escalate missing data, routing failures, or material setting mismatches through Google support.
Google says performance may take up to two weeks to stabilize. That is a reason to maintain close operational monitoring, not a reason to ignore obvious defects for 14 days.
What agencies and technical teams should know
Moving LSA into Google Ads should eventually simplify cross-account administration, but early support is not identical to standard Performance Max.
Google’s current Google Ads API documentation says Local Services Performance Max settings are supported beginning in version 24.2. The API can identify campaigns with Local Services enabled and update supported settings on existing campaigns. Campaign creation through the API is not yet available.
Google also says advertisers cannot currently create a new pay-per-lead campaign directly in Google Ads. Until that changes, new campaign setup continues through Google Local Services.
Agencies should therefore inventory every workflow that assumes the old dashboard, campaign type, budget period, report schema, or login URL. Check reporting connectors, internal SOPs, automated alerts, client dashboards, permissions, and lead-routing integrations before declaring the migration complete.
Will advertisers still need to rate LSA leads?
Lead feedback is not disappearing with the standalone dashboard. Google’s current API documentation still provides the ProvideLeadFeedback() method for submitting a rating and reason, plus the lead_feedback_submitted field for confirming whether feedback has already been sent. Google documents those lead resources on the same page as the new Local Services Performance Max campaign settings.
Google does not say that every lead must be rated for a campaign to remain eligible, and it does not confirm that submitting ratings directly raises ad rank. The practical reason to keep rating leads is to give Google structured, accurate feedback while preserving a consistent quality record for the business.
That distinction matters more as manual bidding goes away. The platform can count a charged call as a lead, but the business still needs to determine whether it was a qualified opportunity, an existing customer, spam, a wrong-service request, or a real prospect that intake failed to book.
Use lead ratings as part of a larger outcome workflow:
- Review the call recording, transcript, or message conversation.
- Apply a consistent internal definition of lead quality.
- Submit the matching Google satisfaction rating and reason.
- Track whether feedback was submitted successfully.
- Monitor Google’s actual charge or credit status separately.
- Connect the lead to qualified, booked, and revenue outcomes in the CRM.
A dissatisfied rating is feedback, not a guaranteed credit request. The current LSA lead-credit process remains subject to Google’s eligibility rules and final decision.
What not to do
- Do not pause LSA because you fear standard PMax inventory. Google says these campaigns will remain on Search and Maps rather than expanding to YouTube, Display, or Gmail.
- Do not wait for the migration notice to design the historical backup. Two weeks is enough to execute a prepared export, not to discover missing definitions across dozens of accounts.
- Do not judge the change on raw lead count alone. Track qualified leads, booked jobs, net spend, and cost per qualified lead.
- Do not change budget, campaign structure, service areas, routing, and intake scripts at the same time. You will lose the ability to explain the result.
- Do not assume automatic transfer means accurate strategy. Validate what moved against current business reality.
LeadUp will continue supporting ratings and the full LSA workflow
LeadUp’s Google LSA integration already connects through the Google Ads API rather than depending on the standalone LSA dashboard. Google is retaining the Local Services lead, conversation, feedback, and credit resources in that API for the specialized Performance Max campaign type. The interface migration therefore does not remove the underlying workflow LeadUp uses.
LeadUp will continue to provide its supported LSA capabilities for migrated campaigns:
- Import calls and message conversations across connected accounts.
- Transcribe and summarize supported calls.
- Respond to and follow up with supported message leads when automation is enabled.
- Apply one consistent qualification framework to calls and messages.
- Generate a lead rating and the corresponding Google feedback reason.
- Let a team review, edit, and submit eligible feedback—or submit it automatically with complete automation.
- Track feedback state, Google credits, qualified opportunities, and cost per qualified lead.
- Send useful lead and conversation context to supported CRM and webhook workflows.
That outcome history gives agencies and local businesses a comparison layer beyond the platform dashboard. It helps distinguish a change in raw lead delivery from a change in lead quality or intake performance. Historical Google reports should still be exported before migration; no third-party workflow should be treated as a substitute for preserving source data.
For the operational side of the funnel, use the LSA response-time measurement guide and the booked-job tracking framework to establish definitions before the interface changes.
Frequently asked questions
Are Local Services Ads going away?
No. Google is moving their management into Google Ads and classifying them as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The local placements and core pay-per-lead model remain.
Will migrated LSA campaigns run on YouTube or the Display Network?
No. Google says this specialized campaign type serves only in Local Services positions on Search and Maps. It does not behave like a standard Performance Max campaign across all Google inventory.
Will businesses start paying for clicks?
No. Migrated campaigns continue to charge for valid leads such as calls, messages, and bookings, not ordinary ad clicks.
Do advertisers need to rebuild their campaigns?
Google says it will migrate eligible campaigns and their main settings automatically. Advertisers should validate the result rather than rebuild it preemptively.
Will historical LSA data appear in Google Ads?
Historical lead conversations and call recordings should transfer to Lead Manager. Previous campaign performance reports will not, so advertisers should export them from the old dashboard before migration.
Can advertisers create the new campaign type in Google Ads now?
Not yet. Google’s current instructions direct advertisers to the Local Services setup flow for new campaigns. Direct creation in Google Ads is planned for later.
Will LeadUp still rate and submit feedback for migrated leads?
Yes. Google is keeping Local Services lead feedback available through the Google Ads API, which is the integration path LeadUp already uses. LeadUp will continue generating ratings for supported calls and messages and will let teams review and submit eligible feedback or automate submission. Its transcription, summaries, qualification, message automation, credit tracking, reporting, and supported CRM workflows will also remain available.
Bottom line
Google is changing where LSA is managed, not abandoning the product’s local, keywordless, pay-per-lead model.
The businesses best prepared for the move will preserve their historical reports, document current settings, audit the new daily budget and bidding target, treat Google Business Profile as critical campaign infrastructure, and compare performance using qualified leads and booked jobs—not just Google’s top-line lead count.
Export first. Validate the transferred setup. Then give the migrated campaign enough stable time to produce evidence before making strategic changes.