Local Services Ads are moving to Performance Max: what to check first

Google is moving Local Services Ads out of their separate dashboard and into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. According to Google's help page on the transition, the first select US home and storefront advertisers moved in August 2026, broader groups including service-area businesses without storefronts follow in late 2026, and non-US accounts and remaining categories follow in 2027.

The ads still appear on Google Search and Maps, and you still pay per lead rather than per click. What changes is how you control budget and bidding, where you handle leads, and what history you keep. For a plumber, cleaner or HVAC firm that depends on these leads, the commercial question is whether your cost per booked job stays stable through the switch.

What changed, and when

Google's help page sets out the phased timeline, checked on November 11, 2026:

• August 2026: first phase for select US home and storefront service advertisers, in categories including plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control and moving.
• Late 2026: broader groups, including service-area businesses without storefronts and accounts with custom bidding or booking configurations.
• 2027: non-US accounts and remaining business categories.

Google says account administrators receive an email 14 days before migration and a reminder 7 days before, and that advertisers should allow up to two weeks for migration to finish and performance to stabilise. Search Engine Journal and PPC Land reported the same timeline when Google announced the change on July 20, 2026.

The newest development is smaller. On November 10, 2026, Search Engine Roundtable reported a new opt-in setting in Google Ads called "Ads with pay-per-lead goals terms", based on a screenshot shared by a practitioner. Google had not published documentation about that setting when we checked, so treat it as an observed rollout signal, not a confirmed eligibility change. The practitioner's own caution, quoted in the report, is that the terms do not explain lead prices or credit eligibility, or guarantee booked jobs.

What the migration changes for your account

The official help page lists the operational changes. The ones with the clearest commercial effect are:

• Budgets: weekly budgets become average daily budgets (weekly divided by seven), and monthly spend is capped at the daily average multiplied by 30.4.
• Bidding: manual bidding and vertical-level Target CPA are deprecated; one campaign-level Target CPA applies, so separate service lines with different lead values need separate campaigns.
• Lead handling: leads move to Goals, Conversions, Leads inside Google Ads, and lead email notifications use a new toggle that needs at least one active user opted in.
• Reports: past performance reports do not carry over, though past leads, messages and call recordings do.
• Business details: name, address and hours sync one way from Google Business Profile, and significant name or address changes can trigger a verification review of typically 24 to 48 hours, during which the campaign may pause.
• Callouts: Better Business Bureau callouts are no longer supported, and Google recommends at least six other structured callouts.

The help page also states that new pay-per-lead campaigns cannot yet be created in Google Ads, and points new advertisers to the existing Local Services sign-up.

What does not change

Ad placement on Search and Maps stays the same, according to Google. Billing remains per lead, targeting stays keywordless, and existing insurance and licence verification status carries over, with reverification no longer required. The leads you receive should look familiar; the controls around them are what move.

Who this affects most

ConversionNest analysis: three groups carry the most risk.

• Multi-service businesses: a firm that previously set different Target CPAs for, say, emergency plumbing and drain cleaning loses that vertical-level control inside a single campaign and needs to decide whether to split campaigns.
• Budget-sensitive owners: the daily average budget with a 30.4-day monthly cap changes how spend is paced; owners who planned cash flow around a weekly figure should recalculate the monthly maximum.
• Owners without exported history: anyone who has not downloaded past LSA performance reports loses the baseline needed to judge whether the migration changed results.

Service-area businesses without storefronts are named in the late-2026 group, so many of them should expect the 14-day notice soon if it has not arrived.

What to do before your migration email arrives

How to judge whether the migration hurt performance

Give it the two weeks Google suggests, then compare like with like. Use the same number of weeks before and after, avoid comparing a slow season with a busy one, and measure booked jobs and gross profit per job alongside cost per lead.

A lower cost per lead with fewer booked jobs is a worse commercial result. Our guide to paid ads that generate leads but not qualified opportunities explains how to connect leads to sales outcomes before changing targets. If you also see more booking-related traffic from Google's AI features, our note on Google AI Mode and home service booking covers that separate development.

What to do now

If you run Local Services Ads in the US, export your history and record your baseline this week, before the notice arrives. If you advertise outside the US, nothing changes for you yet according to Google's timeline, but the same preparation will apply in 2027. Confirm the status in your own account, because Google's rollout timing varies by account and category.