Google is beginning to move Local Services Ads into Google Ads, and the first phase starts in August 2026 for select U.S. home and storefront service advertisers. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving businesses are among the categories named for the initial phase.
The most important point is simple: Local Services Ads are not disappearing. The pay-per-lead model, keywordless targeting, Google Search and Maps placements, and valid-lead billing remain. What changes is where owners manage the campaign, how budgets and bidding are expressed, and which historical reports remain available.
That makes preparation less about rebuilding the campaign and more about preserving data, checking the transferred settings, and establishing a new performance baseline.
What Is Changing With the Local Services Ads Migration?
Existing campaigns will be migrated automatically into a specialized Performance Max campaign type with pay-per-lead goals. This is not the same as a standard Performance Max campaign: these campaigns remain keywordless, serve only on Google Search and Maps, and charge for valid leads rather than clicks.
After migration, owners will manage budgets, targeting, lead responses, and campaign status in Google Ads. The old Local Services Ads dashboard will redirect to the new campaign view. Google says past customer lead history, including messages and older call recordings, will transfer into Lead Manager, but historical campaign performance reports will not carry over.
The campaign’s weekly budget will also become a daily average. Google calculates that figure by dividing the historical weekly amount by seven, while monthly spend remains capped at the daily average multiplied by 30.4. Manual maximum cost-per-lead bidding and vertical-level Target CPA controls are being deprecated.
What Is Not Changing?
Four fundamentals remain intact:
- You still pay for valid leads such as calls, messages, and bookings, not ordinary ad clicks.
- Ads continue to appear in the familiar Local Services placements on Google Search and Google Maps.
- Targeting remains keywordless and is based on services, categories, areas, and other campaign settings.
- Existing verification status and the Google Verified badge carry over.
This distinction matters. Owners do not need to rebuild a conventional Search campaign or create videos and display assets. The migration changes the management layer, not the core lead product.
The Pre-Migration Checklist for Home Service Businesses
- Export historical performance reports. Save weekly or monthly spend, charged leads, cost per lead, lead types, service categories, service areas, and disputed-lead trends before access to the old reporting view ends.
- Record your current settings. Capture budgets, schedules, categories, service areas, photos, phone routing, message settings, and bidding controls. This becomes the audit sheet for the transferred campaign.
- Clean up your Google Business Profile. Business name, address, and standard hours sync from the profile. Confirm they are accurate before migration, especially if your crews serve multiple areas or operate outside standard office hours.
- Verify the account administrator. Google plans to send advance notices to the administrator, including an alert about 14 days before migration. Make sure that person is active and monitoring the right inbox.
- Establish a real business baseline. Record charged leads, qualified leads, booked jobs, close rate, average job value, and revenue. The new interface should be judged by business outcomes, not by whether the dashboard looks different.
What to Check on Migration Day
Start with transferred settings. Confirm the correct phone number, active message options, service areas, categories, hours, photos, daily budget, and campaign status. If multiple business categories previously used different Target CPA values, determine whether they now need separate campaigns to preserve different bidding rules.
Next, test the handoff. Place a controlled call or message, verify that it reaches the right person, and confirm that the interaction appears in Lead Manager. A campaign can be technically active while operational routing is broken.
Finally, avoid overreacting to the first few days. Google advises allowing up to two weeks for migration and performance to stabilize. Monitor closely, but compare rolling trends rather than making several major changes at once.
How to Measure Performance After the Move
Google Ads will surface conversions, cost, and cost per conversion for the pay-per-lead campaign. Those are useful platform metrics, but an owner still needs a second layer: qualified lead rate, booking rate, cost per booked job, revenue, and gross profit.
For example, a lower reported cost per lead is not a win if the calls are outside the service area or the jobs are too small to meet margin targets. Build a simple weekly scorecard that connects the new campaign data with dispatch or CRM outcomes.
If you need to forecast how spend could translate into inbound calls before setting a new daily budget, use White Shark Media’s
Prepare Now for a Smoother LSA Migration
The 2026 Local Services Ads migration is a management and measurement change, not the end of pay-per-lead local advertising. Home service businesses that export their history, validate transferred settings, test lead routing, and measure booked jobs will be in the best position to judge performance without losing context.
book a growth session with White Shark Media to review your migration checklist, daily budget, and post-move measurement plan with a growth specialist
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Local Services Ads going away?
No. Google is moving them into Google Ads as specialized Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The pay-per-lead model and Search and Maps placements remain.
When does the migration start?
Google says the first phase begins in August 2026 for select U.S. home and storefront service advertisers, with broader U.S. expansion later in 2026 and remaining categories and non-U.S. accounts in 2027.
Will historical LSA reports transfer?
No. Previous campaign performance reports will not migrate, so advertisers should export them before the transition. Past customer lead history is expected to transfer to Lead Manager.
Will my weekly budget change?
The weekly amount will be converted to a daily average by dividing it by seven. Google states that monthly spend remains capped at the daily average multiplied by 30.4.
