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No leads from Local Services Ads? Check the settings that switch the ad off before the ones that push it down.

A quiet Local Services Ads account can be switched off or capped by a setting long before it is outbid. Google's help pages document each switch, and a few of them sit where owners don't look.

By Lonta AIPublished Updated 14 min readHow we write

TL;DR

  • When Google Local Services Ads are not working, check in this order: is the ad on, is the account allowed to run, is verification complete, has the monthly max run out, is a "Max per lead" bid capping you. The first three can stop the ad outright, and a spent monthly max stops it until the month ends. Then hours, service areas, job types and responsiveness, which decide how often a live ad shows: nine checks in all.
  • Start in Reports, not in settings. Charged leads nobody saw, zero spend, and some spend with too few leads are three different problems.
  • "Max per lead" is a hard cap. In Google's own example, a $15 limit means it never bids on a $16 lead.
  • Your monthly max is your weekly budget × 30.4 ÷ 7. Once you hit it, Google says the ad stops appearing for the rest of the month unless you change the budget.
  • Broad search, which shows the ad on searches like "plumber near me", is on by default. If someone turned it off, it is off for every trade in the account.

Local Services Ads not working? First, which kind of "no leads" do you have?

Open Reports from the menu in your Local Services Ads inbox and set the last four weeks. Google's reports page lists charged leads, the total charged and the list of leads, and its troubleshooting page points to the "Budget spent" card on the same screen. If your account has already moved to Google Ads, these reports didn't come with it; the table near the end shows where the same numbers are now. The middle column below is our reading, not Google's:

What Reports showsWhat it usually meansStart with
Charged leads, but the office says nothing came inLeads reach an inbox, an email address or a phone nobody watchesThe next section
No spend and no charged leadsThe ad isn't runningChecks 1–3, then 5
Some spend, fewer leads than the budget should buyThe ad runs but is capped, narrowed or outrankedChecks 4–9

If you were charged for leads nobody saw

Google's leads page says lead emails go to "The email address that was used to create the account". Its notifications page adds that the account owner decides which other users get notification emails, message leads among them, in Menu → Notifications, and that each user can set their own preferences. If an agency or a former office manager set the account up, the address that created it is their inbox, so open Notifications and see which addresses get lead emails today. Then compare the Leads section of the inbox with your phone system's call log. If the leads are there and nobody worked them, the fix is in the office, not the ad. Who owns your Google Ads account covers getting the logins into your own name.

1. Is the ad switched on?

On the Profile & budget page, look at the ad status toggle first. Google suggests pausing it when you're on vacation or too busy, and a pause during a booked-out week is easy to forget. Then the "Business hours" card: Google describes the "temporarily closed" status as the way to turn off your leads, and says that outside business hours, or when you're listed as not taking customers, "your ad won't show in searches with a badge".

Don't test this by searching for your own company. Google says a free version of your listing "may be displayed" while the ad is paused or outside its schedule, and that your ad "won't appear every time you search for it". If a setting changed and nobody knows why, Change history in your Google Ads account, under the Campaigns menu, logs "all adjustments and who made them".

2. Is the account allowed to run?

Local Services Ads are billed through Google Ads, and "Any suspension in your Google Ads account will also suspend your Local Services Ads." Google says the ads won't run until account or billing issues are resolved, and points to the bell icon in Google Ads for alerts "signaling that your ad is down until an action is taken". Disapprovals and suspensions show in the Policy Manager in the Local Services Ads menu, with the policy behind each and a route to fix or appeal it.

3. Is your verification complete?

Google treats HVAC, plumbing and electrical as urgent categories, with "an additional level of screening" that includes background checks on service professionals, on top of insurance and license checks. The documents sit on the Business Verification page in the menu, where each license is entered with its expiration date. The pages we read don't say what a lapsed license or insurance document does to the ad; our reading is to keep those dates current anyway. Look for three things:

  • Anything pending or flagged for review. New advertisers given accelerated verification "have 14 days to complete additional verification steps to keep their ad serving". Google also re-evaluates advertisers over time, and says a skipped review may cost the badge, pause the ads or suspend the account.
  • The Business Profile link. Whoever completes the checks must be an owner or manager of the matching Google Business Profile, and Google says this step "must be done before an ad can appear in search results".
  • Reviews. "Depending on your business type, your business may need 5 reviews to show."

4. Has the monthly max run out?

The weekly budget is an average. The limit is monthly: average weekly budget × 30.4 ÷ 7, per Google's budget page, which adds: "Once you have hit your monthly max, your ad will no longer appear for the remainder of the month unless you adjust your budget."

An illustration with round numbers, not a client's: a $700 weekly budget gives a monthly max of $700 × 30.4 ÷ 7 = $3,040. If a heat wave spends that by the 22nd, the ad is off for the last nine days of a 31-day month.

Any budget change reopens it, even a cut. The new budget sets what you can spend for the rest of the month "regardless of how much you've spent so far", and Google's own example lowers a weekly budget from $100 to $70 with 14 days left, making you "immediately" eligible for $140 more. If the "Budget spent" card shows the max reached before month-end, the budget is what limits how many leads you get; our reading is that checks 5–9 can then only add leads by lowering what each one costs. Our Local Services Ads manual covers the monthly max and bid modes.

5. Is your bid a hard cap?

Google's bidding pages describe three bid modes. Maximize leads is the one Google recommends, with a budget of at least 10 leads a week. Target cost per lead is an optional target inside it, which individual leads can land above or below. Max per lead is a manual limit, "the most you'd pay for a lead".

The last one is where live ads go quiet. Google spells it out: "if you set a $15 USD limit, we'll never bid on leads that cost $16 USD, even if your average lead price would have stayed around $15 USD (or even lower)." Our reading: a cap set when the account opened and never raised can end up below most auctions in your area, and the pages we read describe no warning when that happens.

A rough test, ours and not Google's: divide total charged by charged leads in Reports. No lead costs more than the cap, so an average sitting close to it suggests the cap is deciding which auctions you enter. Change the mode once, then wait: Google says it "takes about 2 weeks to see accurate results as the model adjusts".

6. Does the ad run when someone answers?

The "Business hours" card and the ad schedule are separate settings. The schedule offers "All day", "Only during my business hours" and "Custom hours", and the default is "All day". Both mistakes cost leads:

  • Too narrow. A schedule shorter than the hours your office books jobs switches the ad off while someone could have taken the call.
  • Too wide. An ad running when nobody picks up produces missed calls, and Google's ranking page says "Missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness." From October 1, some missed calls during business hours also become charged leads, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable, which reproduced Google's email to advertisers. That rule has its own article.

Set the ad schedule to the hours someone answers and can book the job, as one account we run did, and keep the Business hours card consistent with it.

Barbosa Plumbing & Air Conditioning · Dallas, TXRead the case
−26%
Calls that rang out
Window
120 days against the 120 before
Source
Call tracking

Barbosa Plumbing & Air Conditioning, Dallas. Calls peaked in the evening, and some of them rolled to an after-hours service or reached someone who could take a message but not book a visit. The office confirmed which hours a person could book, the search budget was moved onto those hours, and Local Services Ads were scheduled to match. Calls that rang out: −26%. Window: 120 days against the 120 before. Source: Call tracking.

Limit: The re-pacing and the Local Services Ads schedule shipped three weeks apart and we did not hold one back. They are reported together because we cannot honestly separate them.

The figure counts calls on the account's call-tracking line across both changes, not Local Services Ads alone and not the ad's ranking. How a plumbing ad account can report missed calls beside spend covers the same idea for search campaigns.

Service areas are counties, cities or zip codes. Google says a city reaches both people estimated to be in it and people elsewhere who name it in their search. Two details catch owners who target tightly:

  • Deselect some zip codes inside a city and the ad can still show there to people whose location Google only knows at city level.
  • If several of your locations serve the same area, "Local Services will show only the highest ranking ad in response to a user's query."

Google recommends setting areas broadly, "your whole county, rather than specific postal codes", which trades against drive time. Our reading: cover all of the area your trucks actually serve and no more. The service area article walks through the same trade-off for search campaigns.

8. Are the job types and broad search on?

Job types are toggles per industry on the "Job types" card. The ad can also show on general searches such as "plumber", but Google adds: "In some cases, your ad will only appear for general category searches if you offer common services for your category." Google's performance page says to "Select all job types you perform", and that includes the everyday ones.

Those general searches have their own switch. Google opts advertisers into their industry's general category by default, which it calls broad search: searches like "plumber near me" that name no service. It is the "broad search" checkbox on the "Settings" card, and unchecking it applies to every industry in the account: in a plumbing and HVAC account, both trades drop out of those searches.

9. Are you losing the auction?

If checks 1–8 are clean, our reading is that the ad is live, funded and aimed, and is either being outranked or meeting fewer searches than your budget could buy. Google's ranking page names the factors: your bid; how likely the ad is to produce a lead, starting with your responsiveness; and profile quality, meaning your rating, number of reviews, average response time, high-quality images and completed verification checks. Higher-quality profiles "may rank higher and may also pay lower costs per lead". Google adds that message and booking leads give customers more ways to reach you, "especially during nights and weekends when you can't answer the phone".

The pages listed below give no responsiveness score, threshold or factor weight. Google also says ranking "provides sufficient opportunity for all providers", so even a strong profile won't show on every search. The ranking factors article separates documented factors from claimed ones.

If your account already moved to Google Ads

The same checks in their new places, per Google's migration page. The migration article covers the rest of the move.

CheckLocal Services Ads dashboardGoogle Ads, after the move
ReportsCharged leads, total charged, "Budget spent"Campaign dashboard columns "Conversions" (charged leads), "Cost" and "Cost / conv."; old Local Services Ads reports don't carry over, so screenshot them before the move
On or offStatus toggle on Profile & budgetCampaign status, Paused or Enabled, in campaign Settings
BudgetWeekly budgetDaily average budget; the month capped at daily × 30.4
Bid modeMaximize leads, target, or Max per leadNo manual bidding; no separate targets per trade within a campaign
Business hours"Business hours" cardSynced one way from your Business Profile
Ad schedule, service areas, categoriesCards on Profile & budgetCampaign Settings, independent of your Business Profile
VerificationBusiness Verification pageCarries over; license and insurance reverification no longer required
LeadsLeads section of the inboxGoals → Conversions → Leads

Google says to allow up to two weeks after the move for performance "to ramp back to stable levels", so a quiet fortnight right after it may be the move itself.

What this doesn't cover

  • Accounts run through a partner affiliate. Google's budget, scheduling and leads pages say their instructions don't apply to them.
  • Charged leads that were junk. That is a credit question, with its own article.
  • How often each cause shows up. We haven't counted it across the accounts we run. The order puts what can switch the ad off or cap it first, not what is most common.

Do this in your account

About 20 minutes, by our estimate.

  1. Read Reports for the last four weeks and match it to a row in the first table (after the move to Google Ads, use the campaign's "Conversions", "Cost" and "Cost / conv." columns).
  2. Find where lead emails go: open Menu → Notifications and see which addresses get lead emails; the address that created the account is one of them.
  3. Check Profile & budget: ad status on, business status taking customers, schedule and hours set to when someone answers and can book.
  4. Clear the red: bell icon, Policy Manager, Business Verification, and your Business Profile linked with you as an owner or manager.
  5. Do the budget math: weekly budget × 30.4 ÷ 7 against this month's spend.
  6. Check the bid mode. If it is Max per lead, compare your average cost per lead with the cap. Change the mode once, then leave it two weeks.
  7. Check reach, then history: service areas, every job type you do, the "broad search" box, then Change history for who changed what.

FAQ

Why isn't my Local Services ad showing when I search for my business? Google says your ad "won't appear every time you search for it", so a self-search proves little; check 1 above covers what to look at instead.

How long after a fix do leads come back? Google gives a few hours for edits to job types and service areas, about two weeks for a new bid mode, three to four weeks on average for first-time screening after you submit documents, and up to two weeks after a move to Google Ads. The pages we read give no figure for re-reviewing an existing account.

Does turning off job types stop leads? No. Google says deselecting every job type won't stop leads from the general category. To stop all leads, you pause the ad.

Will raising the budget fix it? Only if the budget is the limit: the monthly max runs out before the month does, or Maximize leads is funded below the 10 leads a week Google suggests. A bigger budget won't lift a Max per lead cap, restore a paused ad or clear a verification problem.

Sources

All pages below were read in full on September 24, 2026. Every quotation above is from one of them.

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