What happened to Google local service ads?

Google Local Service Ads Are Migrating to Google Ads — Here’s What Changed

Google didn't kill Local Service Ads — it moved them. If you've been running LSAs and suddenly noticed dashboard changes, badge differences, or emails about "migration," here's what's actually happening behind the scenes.

According to official Google Ads documentation, LSAs are being phased into the Google Ads platform as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The rollout is staged: Phase 1 began in August 2026 for select U.S. home and storefront verticals — plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving. Phase 2 expands to service-area businesses in late 2026, and Phase 3 covers non-U.S. accounts and remaining categories in 2027.

The good news is that most of what advertisers care about is preserved. Ads keep the same placements on Search and Maps, the pay-per-lead billing model survives, keywordless vertical targeting continues, and lead management lives under Goals > Conversions > Leads. As one agency analysis puts it, "your ads will show in the same place, cost the same, and bill the same way." Google's Ads liaison also confirmed Performance Max was the only campaign type serving both Search and Maps, which is why LSA landed there.

What is changing at the platform level:

• Budget model shift: the "Average Weekly Budget" becomes a daily budget — weekly average ÷ 7 — with monthly spend capped at daily average × 30.4, matching standard Google Ads campaigns.
• Badge consolidation: Google Guaranteed and Google Screened badges were retired on October 20, 2025, replaced by a unified "Google Verified" blue checkmark.
• Manual bidding and vertical-level Target CPA are deprecated in favor of a single campaign-level Target CPA.
• BBB callouts are no longer supported; advertisers need at least six other structured callouts to stand out.

Two practical warnings matter here. First, historical LSA reviews migrated to Google Business Profile on July 11, 2025, and your GBP is now the backbone of your LSA presence. Second, historical performance reports will not migrate — download them before your account moves over.

Google estimates up to two weeks for the migration to complete and performance to ramp back to previous levels, and advertisers get email notifications 14 days and 7 days before their account switches. If you're evaluating lead vendors rather than managing campaigns in-house, this consolidation matters: platforms like GrowthPros deliver qualified, consent-recorded leads directly into your CRM — no dashboard migration, no lost reports, no two-week ramp. Either way, the lesson is the same: know exactly where your leads come from and who owns the data trail behind them.

How the Migration Impacts Lead Quality, Billing, and Follow-Up Tracking

If you buy leads from Google Local Service Ads, the rules that decide what you pay — and what you get credited back — have quietly changed. Between August 2024 and the platform migration rolling out through 2027, Google reworked its dispute process, billing thresholds, and call tracking in ways that directly hit your cost per lead.

The biggest shift hit in August 2024, when Google removed the manual "Report a Problem" button and replaced it with an AI-driven credit system that issues automatic refunds within 72 hours for invalid leads like spam, robocalls, and wrong numbers. That sounds convenient, but it means less human judgment on your behalf. The "Rate This Lead" tool with a "Dissatisfied" rating is now the only manual trigger for a refund review, and disputes must be filed within 30 days with specific reasons — spam, solicitation, or wrong number.

Billing got stricter, too. Under the current enforcement, any call lasting 30 seconds or more is automatically billed as a lead with no exceptions. If your team lets a bad-faith caller stay on the line past the half-minute mark, you pay for it. Fast, disciplined call qualification has become a genuine cost-control strategy, not just good sales practice.

Then there's the callback change that most advertisers don't know about. Google is replacing consumers' direct phone numbers with Google forwarding numbers plus unique extension codes for message-lead callbacks in the US and Canada. Your team has to dial the forwarding number and enter the extension to reach the consumer — calling the raw number directly means Google can't see the follow-up at all. Google has confirmed this tracks connection and call duration only, not call content, but the scoring consequence is real: it can look like you never responded even when you did, which harms your lead responsiveness score and potentially your future lead flow.

A few operational rules worth locking in now:

• Dispute any invalid lead within 30 days, with a specific reason attached — vague complaints don't qualify.
• Train your team to qualify or end calls before the 30-second billing threshold when a lead looks worthless.
• Always use the Google forwarding number and extension code for message-lead callbacks so follow-ups count toward responsiveness.
• Download your historical LSA reports before your account migrates — past performance data won't transfer to Google Ads.

This is also why speed and documentation matter so much in lead follow-up generally. Contacting a lead within five minutes makes contact roughly 100x more likely than at thirty minutes, and about 78% of buyers choose whoever responds first. At GrowthPros, every lead we deliver gets AI voice, SMS, and email follow-up inside that five-minute window, with a consent record and timestamp attached — so you always know what happened, and when.

If you're weighing LSA against other lead sources, or you have a dormant opted-in list worth reviving, book the 15-minute qualification call. It's free, honest about fit, and commits you to nothing.

Action Steps to Prepare Your Campaigns and Protect Performance Data

The migration to Google Ads is rolling out in phases through 2027, but the operational changes take effect the moment your account moves. Google's official documentation confirms that historical performance reports will not transfer — you must download or screenshot them via the redirection page before migration to preserve years of benchmarking data.

• Download pre-migration reports from the LSA dashboard before your scheduled move date
• Convert weekly budgets to daily averages (weekly ÷ 7) and plan for monthly caps at daily × 30.4
• Verify your Google Business Profile remains linked, verified, and in good standing — a suspended GBP stops LSA ads entirely
• Train teams to use Google forwarding numbers with extension codes for all message-lead callbacks
• Update dispute workflows: AI issues automatic credits within 72 hours for invalid leads; "Rate This Lead" with "Dissatisfied" is now the only manual trigger, and disputes must be filed within 30 days

The budget shift alone catches many advertisers off guard. Agency analysis notes the weekly-to-daily conversion changes cash-flow planning, while manual bidding and vertical-level Target CPA are deprecated in favor of a single campaign-level Target CPA. Meanwhile, Google's callback tracking update means calling a consumer's raw number directly makes the follow-up invisible to Google's responsiveness scoring — potentially degrading future lead quality.

At GrowthPros, we see this migration as a reminder that platform-dependent lead channels can change overnight. Businesses that diversify with owned, consent-recorded lead pipelines — whether fresh exclusive leads by niche or reactivated dormant databases — maintain control regardless of platform shifts. Every lead we deliver carries a full consent trail and lands in your CRM with AI follow-up already completed inside the five-minute window that makes contact roughly 100x more likely than at thirty minutes.

ctaText: Get exclusive leads by niche, followed up in minutes — including the leads you already paid for. Book a 15-minute qualification call.

socialProofText: 8–15% of dormant, opted-in databases typically re-engage through our AI reactivation sequence — leads you already own, revived at 60–80% below new-lead cost.