How do Local Services Ads work in Google Ads for home inspectors?

Local Services Ads (LSA) are Google's pay-per-lead ads, which charge you for a valid lead, such as a phone call or message, instead of a click. Once your account has moved, Google's transition page says your leads live under Goals > Conversions > Leads. That table replaces the old Local Services Ads lead inbox, so the place you check each morning changes too. For how these ads fit with your other paid channels, see our home inspector paid ads guide.

Google describes the Leads page as the place to check, download or interact with your leads. It includes a lead feedback form and a way to download leads to import into your own CRM, which is the customer database where you track clients and follow-ups. If your account hasn't moved yet, our guide to the Local Services Ads move into Google Ads covers what carries over and what to save first.

A daily routine for working leads

1. Open the Leads page first thing in the morning and again between inspections.
2. Return missed calls and voicemails before you drive to the next job.
3. Answer text and email leads the same way you answer calls, if you've turned those lead types on.
4. Record the source on the booking in Spectora, ISN or your scheduler when it goes on the calendar.
5. Download your leads each week if you keep a separate CRM.

Google points pay-per-lead advertisers to three columns in Google Ads. Each one measures something narrower than its name suggests, so read them with Google's own definitions in mind.

The word conversion is where owners get tripped up. In this campaign type, a conversion is a lead Google charged you for. If Google charges you for a call from a buyer who is only comparing prices, that call counts as a conversion even if the buyer never books.

To see what booked, set Google's numbers beside your own scheduler. Take Cost for the month and divide it by the inspections that came from LSA in that same month. Our guide to cost per booked inspection walks through that math for every channel you run.

Target CPA is a Google bid setting, and CPA stands for cost per action. Google's page on Target CPA bidding calls it an automated bid strategy that sets bids to get as many conversions as possible. With it, you set your desired average cost per conversion. In a pay-per-lead campaign, a conversion is a charged lead, so the target works as an average cost per lead.

The old option to set a maximum cost per lead by hand goes away. Google's transition page says manual bidding is no longer supported in Google Ads. Google Ads doesn't support a separate Target CPA for each category. If you used different targets for different categories in one campaign, Google calculates one campaign-level Target CPA and applies it to all of them. A campaign can hold 1 to 10 business categories, according to Google's page on pay-per-lead goals.

When separate campaigns make sense

Google says that if you want separate bidding rules for different categories, you can set up a separate campaign for each one. That split earns its keep when a lead in one category is worth more to you than a lead in another.

• One category brings in higher-value jobs, so you'd accept a higher average cost for its leads.
• One category serves a different area or runs on a different schedule from the rest.
• You want to read Cost and Conversions for one category on its own line.

If every category brings in similar work, one campaign keeps the budget and the reporting in one place. If one category's numbers start to look different later, you can set up a separate campaign for it at g.co/localservices.

Your daily budget starts from your LSA history. Google takes the weekly budget you averaged before the move, splits it into 7 equal days, and uses that as your daily average. The most your campaign can spend in a month is that daily average multiplied by 30.4, which is close to the number of days in an average month.

You change the budget under Campaigns > Settings, the same place that holds bidding, locations and service types. If you plan to spend more during the spring market, write down the date you raise it. That note lets you compare booked inspections from the weeks before and after the change.

Google's pay-per-lead page lists three lead types. Direct phone calls are required. Text messages or emails are optional. Bookings, where a customer schedules an appointment directly through your ad, are optional and listed as available starting in October 2026.

Google says the required call goal tracks answered calls, voicemails and return calls to missed connections. If calls roll to voicemail while you're on a roof or in a crawlspace, those voicemails are leads to return. If buyers already book online through Spectora or ISN, check how a booking made inside the ad would reach your schedule before you turn bookings on.

Photos, founding year and callouts

• Images: Google says you can add images to supplement the ones pulled from your Google Business Profile, your free Google listing.
• Founding year: Google says it comes from your Business Profile details and is fully editable in Google Ads.
• Callouts: short phrases that highlight what you offer, up to 6 per category. Google no longer supports BBB callouts in these campaigns.
• Asset optimization: a setting that lets Google scan your linked website to create assets. Google says you can turn it off in your campaign settings.

Callouts for an inspection company might name services such as radon testing, sewer scope inspections, pre-listing inspections or wind mitigation reports. List only what you provide in that service area. To edit photos and callouts, go to Assets within the Campaigns menu.

To pause, Google says to open the Settings tab on your Campaigns page, select the campaign and switch its status to Paused. To start receiving leads again, you switch the status back to Enabled. A pause can help when your calendar is already full in the spring or an inspector is out.

Lead email alerts live on the Notifications page under Admin. There you can opt people in or out of emails for both call and message leads. Google says all account users and direct managers are opted in by default, and at least one active user must stay opted in at all times.

• Keep alerts on for the person who calls leads back.
• Turn them off for inspectors who never return lead calls, so alerts go only to the people who act on them.
• Check the list again whenever someone joins or leaves the office.

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type. Google says standard Performance Max campaigns serve across all Google ad networks, including YouTube and Gmail, while campaigns with pay-per-lead goals serve only on Google Search and Google Maps. Google also says keyword targeting is not offered for pay-per-lead campaigns, unlike traditional Search campaigns.

Google recommends running pay-per-lead campaigns alongside Search and Performance Max campaigns, among others, to maximize your local visibility across placements on Search and Maps. That is Google's advice, and it doesn't mean every inspection company needs every campaign type. Our guide to auditing your Google Ads account helps you check what you already run before you add more.

If you want another pay-per-lead campaign, you still start it at g.co/localservices. Google says you can't create new campaigns with pay-per-lead goals directly in Google Ads at this time, and that campaign creation will become available later.

However many campaigns you run, compare them on booked inspections from your scheduler, using the same source rules for each one. Our paid ads service traces booked inspections back to ad spend, so you can see which channel is paying off.