What happens when your Local Services Ads account moves into Google Ads?

Google's transition page describes Local Services Ads moving to "Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals" inside Google Ads. The way you pay holds steady. Google says, "You still only pay for valid leads (such as phone calls and messages) rather than ad clicks." Your ads "will continue to show exclusively on Google Search and Google Maps," and Google says, "Your campaign remains keywordless."

For an inspection company, the move changes where the account lives and how you control spend. In a multi-inspector firm, whoever works the LSA inbox today will be working inside Google Ads after the move. We run paid ads for home inspection companies, and this page walks through the move step by step.

Google is moving accounts in three phases, based on Google's help pages as of October 16, 2026:

• August 2026: "select home and storefront service advertisers" in the US.
• Late 2026: broader groups, including service-area businesses without storefronts, professional services and accounts with custom bidding or booking setups, per Google's supported verticals page.
• 2027: non-US accounts and the remaining categories that didn't move in 2026.

Google's first phase covers only "select" advertisers, and one late-2026 group is service-area businesses without storefronts. So don't assume your phase from your category. Your account's own date comes in an email from Google.

Google sends that email to admins on the account 14 days before the migration date. A final reminder arrives 7 days later, and a confirmation follows once the move is complete. In a firm with several inspectors, check that the owner or office manager is an admin, not only the person who first set up the account years ago.

Google says these transfer automatically:

• Targeted locations, service types and business categories
• Budget limits and your ad schedule
• Business photos
• Past leads, including customer contact details, message threads and older call recordings, which land on the new Leads page

Performance reports stay behind. Google says your earlier campaign-level metrics won't carry over, and it suggests screenshots before migrating if you need the reports now. It says historical reports will be available for download later.

If you weigh LSA against Search ads or other lead sources, those screenshots are your "before" picture. For the wider ad plan, see our home inspector paid ads guide.

Bidding. Google says, "Manual bidding (such as setting a maximum cost-per-lead) is no longer supported in Google Ads." It calculates one Target CPA for the campaign and applies it to every category in that campaign. If one category needs its own rule, Google says to run it as a separate campaign.

Budget. Google takes your historical average weekly budget and divides it by 7 to set a daily average. Monthly spend is capped at that daily figure times 30.4. As a worked example, a $420 weekly average becomes $60 a day, with a monthly cap of $1,824. That is only the math, not a budget recommendation.

Callouts. Google says BBB callouts are no longer supported and suggests adding at least 6 other structured callouts. Google's pay-per-lead goals page says you can add images, your founding year and up to 6 callouts per category. If your firm has been inspecting for a long time, the founding year is an easy way to show it.

Business details. Your business name, address and hours sync one way from your Google Business Profile into Google Ads, and you can't edit them in Google Ads. Our Google Business Profile guide for home inspectors covers that profile.

Where things live. Budgets, bidding, locations and service types are under Campaigns > Settings. Photos and callouts are under Campaigns > Assets. Leads are under Goals > Conversions > Leads, and lead email alerts are under Admin > Notifications.

Google says the original LSA dashboard redirects to Google Ads after migration. If you ever need a new pay-per-lead campaign, that still starts at g.co/localservices, because Google says you can't create one directly in Google Ads at this time.

• Make sure the person who should get Google's emails is an admin on the account.
• Screenshot the reports you use, so you have a baseline.
• Note your current bid mode and any maximum cost per lead.
• Decide whether any category needs its own campaign and target.
• If your ad shows a BBB callout, write at least 6 replacements.
• Confirm your name, address and hours in your Business Profile.

Once Google confirms the move, open Goals > Conversions > Leads and check that your past leads and recordings are there. Then go to Admin > Notifications. Google says at least one user must stay opted in to lead emails, so make sure it's the person who calls clients back. Check the daily budget under Campaigns > Settings and your photos and callouts under Campaigns > Assets.

Give it time before you judge results. Google says to allow up to two weeks for the migration to complete and for performance to stabilize. After that, the numbers to watch are Conversions, Cost and Cost / conv.

Google's pay-per-lead page says direct phone calls are a required lead type, and texts or emails are optional. It lists bookings as "Optional, available starting in October 2026." For help during the move, Google's migration support number is +1-844-205-0011, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM EST.

Google also says eligible existing advertisers who've completed verification requirements will automatically earn the new Google Verified badge, and that the badge change won't affect LSA ranking.