Local Services Ads are moving into Google Ads: what to do first

If you run Local Services Ads yourself, the dashboard you log into is going away. Google is moving every Local Services account into Google Ads, where it becomes a Performance Max campaign “with pay-per-lead goals.” You don’t opt in. Google’s help page says existing campaigns “will be automatically migrated.”

Most of what you care about survives the move. A few things don’t, and one of them, your old reports, is gone for good if you don’t save it first.

When your account moves

Google is doing this in waves:

• August 2026: selected US home and storefront service advertisers, including plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control and moving.
• Late 2026: wider groups, including service-area businesses without a storefront and accounts with custom bidding or booking setups.
• 2027: accounts outside the US and the remaining categories.

The account administrator gets an email 14 days before the move and another 7 days before. If you don’t know who the administrator on your account is, find out now, because that inbox is where the warning goes.

What carries over

• Lead history: contact details, message history and older call recordings move into Google Ads.
• Verification and your Google Verified badge, automatically. Google says insurance and license reverification is no longer required for the move.
• Settings: locations, service types, business categories, budget limits, ad schedule and business photos.
• How it runs and how you pay: it stays keywordless, shows on Search and Maps, and you still pay only for valid leads (calls, messages and bookings), not clicks.

What doesn’t

• Your performance reports. Google says plainly that “previous performance reports won’t carry over.” It says a download page is coming. Until then, screenshots are the fallback.
• The old dashboard. After the move you can’t log into it.
• Manual bidding. Setting a maximum cost per lead is “no longer supported.” Instead Google calculates one Target CPA for the whole campaign, across every service category.
• BBB callouts. Google says they’re no longer supported.
• Weekly budgets. They become daily averages: your weekly budget divided by 7. Monthly spend is capped at that daily average times 30.4, and any single day can run higher or lower.

The single Target CPA is the change I’d watch most. Say you run a roofing company that gets both repair calls and full replacement leads through Local Services, and you’ve been willing to pay more for a replacement lead than a repair lead. After the move, both share one target unless you split them. Google’s answer is separate campaigns per category, set up through Local Services before the move.

Before your account switches

1. Save your reports. Lead volume and cost by month and by service category, for as far back as you can get. Screenshot them if the download page isn’t there yet. This is your baseline for judging the new campaign.
2. Write down what each service category costs you per lead today. You’ll need it to judge whether the new single Target CPA makes sense.
3. Decide whether any category needs its own campaign. If two services are worth very different amounts to you, ask Google support about splitting them before the move. Google lists a dedicated support line for migrating advertisers on its help page.
4. Check the phone number leads go to. Make sure it rings someone who answers during the hours your ads run.
5. Clean up your Google Business Profile. Name, address and hours now sync one way from the profile into the campaign, so fix them at the source.
6. Confirm who gets the 14-day email.

The first two weeks after

Google says ads can start right away but performance may take up to two weeks to settle. Don’t judge the move on the first few days. Do check these:

1. Budget: confirm the daily average matches what you meant to spend per week.
2. Target CPA: see what Google set, and compare it with the per-category costs you wrote down.
3. Categories, service areas and schedule: all present, nothing added you don’t offer.
4. Lead routing number: in Google Ads you can change it in real time, so test it with a call.
5. The Leads table: this replaces your Local Services inbox. Make sure leads show up and someone is responding to them.
6. After two weeks: compare lead count and, more important, booked jobs against your saved baseline. A campaign that gets more leads but fewer jobs isn’t an improvement.

What to do about it this week

Find out who the administrator on your Local Services account is, save your reports, and write down your cost per lead by service category. That takes half an hour and covers everything you can’t get back later.

If you also run regular Google Ads, it’s worth reading how bid strategies work when conversions are few, because your Local Services campaign is about to live next to them. And if you’d rather have someone watch the switch for you, that’s part of our digital advertising work.

Sources

1. Google Ads Help · Oct 27, 2026Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals
2. Search Engine Journal · Jul 20, 2026Google Is Bringing Local Services Ads Into Google Ads