If Local Services Ads bring your company phone calls, August is not the month to ignore emails from Google.

Google has started moving select U.S. Local Services Ads accounts into Google Ads. The campaigns will become a specialized type of Performance Max campaign built around pay-per-lead goals. The first wave includes plumbers, HVAC contractors, electricians, appliance repair companies, house cleaners, lawn care companies, roofers, pest control businesses, and movers, according to Google’s official migration timeline.

This is not a cosmetic dashboard update. Your old reports will not move. Weekly budgets will become daily budgets. Some bidding controls will disappear. Business Profile information will feed directly into the new campaign.

The good news is that you don’t need to rebuild everything. Google says it will transfer most campaign settings automatically. You do need to protect your data and check the new setup before an unnoticed setting costs you good leads.

Here is the practical plan.

What is actually changing?

Local Services Ads have lived in their own dashboard, separate from normal Search, Display, and Performance Max campaigns. Google is consolidating that management inside Google Ads.

Existing campaigns will become Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. Despite the name, these are not regular Performance Max campaigns. Google says these migrated campaigns will continue to run only on Search and Maps, not YouTube, Gmail, or the Display Network. They will also remain keywordless and use service categories, service areas, and other business settings for targeting.

Three things stay the same:

  • You pay for valid leads, not every click.
  • Ads keep appearing in the same Local Services placements on Search and Maps.
  • Your existing verification status and Google Verified badge transfer automatically.

The management layer changes. Budgets, targeting, lead replies, reporting, and phone routing will sit inside Google Ads. The old Local Services Ads dashboard becomes unavailable after migration and redirects you to the new campaign overview.

Google plans to notify the account administrator by email 14 days before the assigned migration date, send another reminder seven days later, and send a completion email after the move. The rollout begins with select U.S. home and storefront service advertisers in August 2026, expands to broader advertiser groups in late 2026, then reaches non-U.S. accounts and remaining categories in 2027, based on Google’s phased schedule.

The biggest risk: losing your historical reports

Start here. Your prior campaign-level performance reports will not carry into Google Ads.

Google is clear that past impressions, clicks, weekly spend, and ad-level performance reports will no longer be accessible after migration. Your customer lead history, including contact details, messages, and older call recordings, will transfer to the new Lead Manager. The reporting history will not.

Download it before your deadline.

At a minimum, save monthly data for the last 12 months and a full-account export. Capture total spend, charged leads, cost per charged lead, lead type, service category, service area, and booking or revenue outcome if you track it. Google points advertisers to its existing instructions for how to view and save Local Services Ads reports.

A data dump sitting in a spreadsheet is better than nothing, but add context while the numbers are familiar. Mark seasonality, price changes, staffing gaps, storms, promotions, and any period when you paused ads. Six months from now, you will want to know whether a cost-per-lead jump came from the platform move or the slow season.

Your budget will look different

Local Services Ads have traditionally shown an average weekly budget. Google Ads will show an average daily budget.

During migration, Google will divide your weekly budget by seven. A $1,400 weekly budget becomes a $200 average daily budget. Monthly spending is capped at the daily average multiplied by 30.4, so that example creates a $6,080 monthly limit. Google explains that daily spend may fluctuate on high-demand days, even though billing should remain within the monthly cap.

Do not compare one busy Tuesday with your old weekly average and assume something is broken. Compare rolling seven-day and 30-day spending. More importantly, compare cost per qualified lead and cost per booked job.

Manual bidding is going away. If you currently set a maximum cost per lead, that control will not exist in the migrated campaign. Industry-level target CPA settings are also being retired. A company advertising both plumbing and HVAC under one campaign may receive one calculated campaign-level target CPA across both categories.

That can hide a real business difference. A $140 HVAC replacement lead may be profitable while a $140 drain-cleaning lead is not. Google recommends separate campaigns when businesses need separate bidding rules for different verticals. Do not split campaigns just to make the dashboard tidy. Split them when job value, close rate, geography, or capacity makes the economics meaningfully different.

Your Google Business Profile becomes campaign infrastructure

The migration ties Local Services campaigns more closely to Google Business Profile.

Business name, physical address, and business hours will sync in one direction from the profile into Google Ads. To change those fields, you must edit the Business Profile. Google says a significant name or address change can trigger a verification review that typically takes 24 to 48 hours and may temporarily pause the campaign.

Check the profile before migration, not during your busiest week. Confirm the legal business name, address, normal hours, holiday hours, primary category, phone number, website, and profile ownership. Make sure the person responsible for advertising has the right account access.

Photos and service areas are initially pulled into the campaign but can be adjusted independently afterward. That separation is useful. Your organic Business Profile service area may describe the full territory you cover, while paid targeting may need to focus on towns where drive time and job value make the lead profitable.

Google says service areas and selected job types influence where ads can show and which searches can trigger them. Its Local Services documentation recommends choosing services that directly match the work you perform and regularly reviewing geographic targeting.

Run this pre-migration checklist

Do these checks as soon as the 14-day notice arrives. Better yet, do them now.

  1. Export historical reports and store a copy outside Google’s platform.
  2. Record your current weekly budget, bidding setting, service categories, job types, service areas, ad schedule, photos, and lead-routing number.
  3. Confirm which email address is the account administrator and who will monitor migration notices.
  4. Audit your Google Business Profile’s name, address, hours, ownership, categories, phone number, website, and photos.
  5. Calculate your acceptable cost per booked job by service line, not just one account-wide cost per lead.
  6. Decide whether different service verticals need separate campaigns because their margins or close rates differ.
  7. Screenshot the current settings pages. An export proves results; screenshots make configuration mistakes easier to spot.
  8. Tell whoever answers calls that lead volume or quality may move around temporarily.

Google says targeted locations, service types, categories, budget limits, schedules, and photos should transfer automatically. It also warns that performance may take up to two weeks to stabilize after migration. That is why a clean before-and-after record matters.

What to check on migration day

Do not immediately overhaul the campaign. First confirm that the transfer matches the old setup.

Open the campaign settings in Google Ads and compare the daily budget with your old weekly budget divided by seven. Review service areas, ad schedules, business categories, call routing, message settings, and campaign status. Then open Lead Manager under Goals, Conversions, and Leads. This replaces the old lead inbox and includes charged status, lead type, feedback, messages, and downloads for CRM imports, according to Google’s campaign management guide.

Also check your assets. Better Business Bureau callouts are no longer supported. Google recommends selecting at least six other structured callouts, such as business hours, specialties, or payment methods. Businesses can upload up to 100 additional photos, although headlines, videos, and sitelinks used by standard Performance Max campaigns do not apply to this pay-per-lead version.

Create a dated migration note in your reporting system. Without that marker, a future manager may compare pre-migration and post-migration numbers as if Google measured them in one continuous report.

How to judge performance after the move

Give the campaign room to settle, but do not disappear for two weeks.

Check spend, lead delivery, and routing daily for the first three business days. A phone number error or paused campaign needs an immediate fix. Avoid changing the budget, target CPA, geography, and categories all at once unless something is clearly wrong. Multiple simultaneous changes make it impossible to identify the cause of a performance shift.

After seven days, compare lead count and cost per charged lead with the same weekday mix before migration. After 14 days, add qualified-lead rate, booking rate, and cost per booked job. At 30 days, compare revenue or estimated job value by service category.

Do not let the new Google Ads interface push you toward familiar but irrelevant metrics. Impressions and clicks can help diagnose visibility, but a Local Services campaign is built to produce leads. The business scorecard should stay simple: charged leads, qualified leads, booked jobs, revenue, and gross profit.

Lead quality feedback also matters. The new Lead Manager retains a feedback form. Use it consistently, especially when a lead requests a service you do not offer or comes from an area you cannot profitably serve. Before blaming automation, inspect your job types. Google notes that advertisers can be included in broad category searches such as “plumber near me,” and businesses can adjust that broad-search setting when they only want more specific service requests in the job type and industry controls.

What not to do

Do not create a second campaign because the migrated one looks unfamiliar. Google says new pay-per-lead campaigns cannot yet be created directly inside Google Ads. Additional setups still begin through Google’s Local Services signup flow.

Do not change your Business Profile name to stuff in keywords. Beyond violating the spirit of an accurate business profile, a significant name change can trigger verification and pause advertising.

Do not judge the migration from a single day. Google expects a ramp period. Watch closely for broken settings, then use a fair comparison window for performance.

Finally, do not assume the Google Verified badge replaces trust on your website. Google says Local Services profiles can show business details, hours, reviews, photos, and verification information. A customer may still visit your site before calling. Your service pages, proof, phone experience, and follow-up process still determine whether a lead becomes revenue.

The bottom line

Google is moving the controls, not eliminating the Local Services model. Search and Maps placements remain. Pay per lead remains. The verified status remains.

Your job is to preserve the history that will not transfer, verify the settings that will, and measure booked work instead of getting distracted by a new interface.

If you want a second set of eyes on your Local Services setup, landing pages, and lead tracking before the move, get started with Your Web Team. We will help you find the gaps before they turn into wasted leads.