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Local Services Ads or Google Search ads? Run both, but give each a different job

One charges per lead and picks your searches from a list of job types. The other charges per click on words you choose and sends people to a page you wrote. That difference decides which of your jobs each one should chase.

By Lonta AIPublished Updated 14 min readHow we write

TL;DR

  • Run both, but give each different jobs. Local Services Ads charge per lead and choose the searches from the job types and service areas you tick. Search ads charge per click on keywords you pick, with negative keywords, a search terms report and a landing page you write. In the accounts we run, that makes Local Services Ads the channel for need-it-today calls and Search the one for planned, high-ticket work.
  • Google's promise that you "still only pay for valid leads" has a limit in its own help: a customer "researching potential projects or prices" is on its list of leads that won't be credited, so a price shopper who calls about a replacement can be a charged lead that Google won't credit back.
  • Local Services Ads have no keywords and no negative keywords. You steer them with job types, service areas, a "broad search" setting Google turns on for you, hours, budget and bid mode.
  • The 2026 move into Google Ads keeps pay per lead and keywordless targeting and drops manual bidding and per-trade targets inside one campaign. If your Local Services Ads land in the same Google Ads account as your Search campaigns, "Conversions" there means two different things.
  • Give both channels the same hours. Both default to "All day".

Google LSA vs Google Ads: what are you paying for?

Local Services Ads. Google's "How leads work" page counts these as valid leads: a text or email, a voicemail, a call you answer, a booking request, and a missed call you return and then reach the customer or their voicemail. Lead prices "may vary depending on your location, the job type, the type of lead, or your bidding mode", and message leads are typically priced lower than calls. Our Local Services Ads guide covers what caps the monthly bill and how the bid modes differ. Charged leads may later be credited automatically if Google's models judge them low quality. (A change to how missed calls are charged from October 1, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable, has its own article.)

The same page lists leads that won't be credited. Three of them matter here:

  • a customer researching projects or prices (more on this below);
  • a valid lead that arrives outside your business hours;
  • a general service type you listed when you don't do the specific job.

Search ads. Google defines actual cost per click as "the final amount you're charged for a click". Its migration FAQ, describing standard Performance Max, which also bills per click, says that model charges "whenever a user clicks your ad, regardless of whether they ultimately contact your business."

Putting both on one scale. Turn clicks into leads first: Search cost per lead is cost per click divided by the share of clicks that call or send a form. As an illustration only: at $20 a click, with one click in eight turning into a call or form, a Search lead costs $160. That figure, not the click price, goes next to your Local Services Ads cost per lead.

Then both go through your CRM: how many leads booked a visit, and how many visits sold. A lead that costs less but books half as often can cost more per sold job. Cost per lead is the wrong number shows how to get cost per sold job out of ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber.

Who picks the searches your ad shows on?

Local Services Ads pick them for you. Google's migration page says the campaign "remains keywordless", with targeting based on "the service categories and areas you offer". You toggle job types from Google's list for each trade, and Google's page on reaching customers says: "When people search for phrases related to these services, your ads will be eligible to appear."

The ad can also show on general searches such as "plumber near me" that name no job. That is the broad search setting. Google opts advertisers in automatically, though it says that in some cases the ad appears on these searches only if you offer the common services for your trade. You can switch it off on the Settings card under Profile & budget. Google warns that this may cut leads and that, with more than one trade in the account, it switches off for all of them.

There is no keyword list and no negative keyword. Google's bidding page offers three bid modes, "Maximize leads", "Target cost per lead" and "Max per lead", and none of the pages we read describe a way to bid more for an installation than for a repair. The ad doesn't lead to your website either: "When users click on your ad, they'll find your profile." Google lists two factors in the auction: your bid, and how likely the ad is to produce a lead. Under the second it names responsiveness ("Missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness"), the customer's search (the job, the location and "time of the search"), how well your services and bio match, and profile quality, such as rating, review count, response time and images. Google adds that ranking also "optimizes for the overall health and diversity" of Local Services Ads, so the list isn't the whole rule.

Search ads show on words you choose, and you can see what they matched. Every keyword is broad match unless you change it, and Google says broad match can show your ad on searches "that don't contain the direct meaning of your keywords" (see what broad match does in a trade with few searches). Exact match gives "the most steering over who views your ad". Negative keywords block searches, but they "won't match to close variants", so plurals and synonyms go in separately. The search terms report shows the searches that triggered your ads, apart from low-volume ones Google leaves out for privacy. Each ad has a final URL, "the landing page where people are taken when they click your ad", and that page can answer the price question before anyone calls.

Local Services AdsGoogle Search ads
You pay forA valid lead: an answered call, voicemail, message, booking, or a returned missed call (from October 1, some unanswered calls too, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable)A click
What triggers the adJob types and service areas you tick, plus general category searches (broad search, on by default)Keywords you add, broad match by default
Keeping out searches you don't wantTurn off a job type, or turn off broad search for every tradeNegative keywords
Seeing the actual searchesNone of the pages we read describe a search terms report. The Leads table can show category (broad search) leads, and the Reports page splits spend and charged leads by "Category" or "Direct Business"Search terms report
Where the customer landsYour profile on GoogleA page on your site that you choose
BiddingMaximize leads, Target cost per lead or Max per lead (manual goes away with the move)Max CPC bid or Smart Bidding

Which jobs belong in which channel?

This is our reading from the accounts we run, not a rule Google publishes. Sort your jobs by how people buy them. The order to set up SEO, Search and Local Services Ads has its own article.

Need-it-today work. No cooling in July, no heat, a burst pipe. The homeowner calls the first listing that looks trustworthy and open, and a Local Services ad shows exactly that: stars, review count, hours, the Google Verified badge and a phone number. Google's auction also weighs the time of the search and how reliably you pick up, and paying per lead means you don't pay for the people who look and move on. Switch these job types on and fund them in Local Services Ads.

Planned, high-ticket work. Replacements, heat pumps, panel upgrades, EV chargers, repipes. People research and ask about price first. In Local Services Ads that research call is, by Google's own list, a lead that won't be credited, and the customer lands on your profile rather than a page that explains the price. In Search you choose the words ("panel upgrade cost"), send them to a page that answers the price question (why a published range helps), and cut the searches that are only research.

The split matters inside Search too. In the accounts we run, when urgent and planned searches share one campaign, the urgent ones book faster and take the budget, and the planned work, where most of the margin is, gets what is left. For an HVAC shop that means a repair call and a system replacement get their own campaigns, pages and cost targets: HVAC advertising with repair and replacement kept apart shows that split from campaign to report.

Reeis Air Conditioning, Plumbing & Electrical · Phoenix, AZRead the case
−31 to −37%
Cost per sold electrical job
Window
90 days against the 90 before
Source
Call tracking

Reeis Air Conditioning, Plumbing & Electrical, Phoenix. Electrical had been added to an account built for air conditioning, and it bought urgent repairs, planned work and do-it-yourself searches at one bid. Planned jobs such as panels, service upgrades and car chargers were being outbid by the urgency of a tripped breaker. After electrical got its own budget, the panel-upgrade searches went to a page that prints a price range, and the diagnostic searches came out, cost per sold electrical job: −31 to −37%. Window: 90 days against the 90 before. Source: call tracking.

Limit: the landing page and the campaign split went live in the same fortnight. We report them together because we cannot separate them honestly.

The changes in this case were on the Search side: the split, the search terms and the page. The figure covers all electrical jobs and doesn't compare Local Services Ads with Search.

What changes when Local Services Ads move into Google Ads?

Among what Google's migration page says isn't changing: you "still only pay for valid leads (such as phone calls and messages) rather than ad clicks", the ads show only on Google Search and Google Maps "in the same ad positions as before", and targeting stays keywordless. Service-area businesses without a storefront move in late 2026; the migration article covers the dates and what to save.

The move changes the comparison in three ways.

Local Services Ads are run from Google Ads. Billing already went through Google Ads: Google's leads page says "Billing for Local Services Ads is managed by Google Ads". After the move, budgets, targeting and lead replies are handled in Google Ads too, so you "manage all your Google advertising in one unified platform". Google's page doesn't say it will be the same Google Ads account your Search campaigns run in. Check which account your Local Services Ads bill through.

If that is your Search account, "Conversions" means two things on one screen. In the pay-per-lead campaign, Google says the column shows "the total number of leads for which you're charged". In a Search campaign it counts your primary conversion actions, and by default most conversion actions are included. Google's conversions page says account-level views may show a dash instead of a total when campaign types with different conversion measurement are combined; it doesn't say whether pay-per-lead campaigns trigger that. Our reading: either way, read the two campaign by campaign, against booked and sold jobs.

The per-lead cap goes. Google's migration page says: "Manual bidding (such as setting a maximum cost-per-lead) is no longer supported in Google Ads." A campaign that had separate targets per trade gets one "unified campaign-level Target CPA". The page doesn't name a per-lead cap to replace it. Google's Target CPL page for Local Services Ads says: "Some conversions may cost more than your target and some may cost less." Our read is the same applies to the campaign-level target after the move. Separate targets for HVAC and plumbing need separate campaigns, which for now are still created at g.co/localservices, not inside Google Ads.

Why should both channels keep the same hours?

Both default to "All day": the Local Services ad schedule and Google Ads campaigns alike. Outside a Local Services schedule, Google says "a free version of your listing may be displayed". And a valid lead received outside your business hours is on Google's list of leads that won't be credited.

Barbosa Plumbing & Air Conditioning · Dallas, TXRead the case
+25 to +30%
Booked calls after 6pm
Window
120 days against the 120 before
Source
Call tracking

Barbosa Plumbing & Air Conditioning, Dallas. Calls peaked from about half past five to nine in the evening, while the search budget was mostly spent by mid-afternoon, and some evening calls rolled to an after-hours service that couldn't book a visit. Once the office agreed which hours were really covered, search spend moved to those hours and Local Services Ads were scheduled to match, so the two channels stopped disagreeing about when the company is open. Booked calls after 6pm: +25 to +30%. 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 case names staffing coverage, the client's doing, as the biggest single change. In order: the office confirmed which hours a person could book a visit (week 6), search spend moved onto those hours (weeks 7–9), and the Local Services Ads schedule came last (weeks 10–12). So the figure isn't the result of matching schedules alone, and it doesn't separate Local Services Ads from search.

What this doesn't cover

  • How the auction treats both campaign types on one search. Google's keyword page explains how Performance Max campaigns are prioritized against Search keywords. The migration page doesn't say whether that applies to keywordless pay-per-lead campaigns, and we won't guess.
  • A cost comparison. We don't publish an "LSA is X% cheaper" figure; Google's leads page gives no average.

Do this in your account

  1. List your ten most common jobs. Mark each "emergency" or "planned" and add its average ticket from your CRM.
  2. Pull 90 days of Local Services Ads leads. Leads in the lead inbox, or Goals → Conversions → Leads after the move. Mark each lead with its job type, whether it booked and whether it sold.
  3. Find the broad search leads. In the Leads table, set "All search intents" to Category. On the Reports page, the "Total lead spend" and "Charged leads" cards filter by "Category" or "Direct Business".
  4. Clean up job types. Profile & Budget → "Job types" card → pencil icon. Turn off the jobs you don't do: Google won't credit a lead for a specific job you don't do if you listed the general service type.
  5. Decide on broad search with the step 3 numbers. If category leads book and sell like the rest, leave it on.
  6. Give planned work its own Search campaign and page. Keywords for the job, a landing page with a price range, and a weekly pass through the search terms report for do-it-yourself, job-seeker and supplier searches (HVAC negative keywords has a starting list).
  7. Match the hours, then compare per sold job. Set both ad schedules to the hours someone books visits, and buy later hours only on purpose. Then divide each channel's spend by its sold jobs, per job type, from your CRM.

FAQ

Is Google LSA better than Google Ads? Neither is better for every job. Local Services Ads charge per lead and pick searches from the job types you tick; Search ads charge per click on keywords you choose and send people to your own page. In the accounts we run, Local Services Ads suit emergency calls and Search suits planned, high-ticket work.

Are Local Services Ads cheaper than Google Ads? In the accounts we run they sometimes are per lead, but that isn't the number to judge by. None of the Google pages we read publish an average. Use cost per sold job, as in step 7 of the checklist.

Can I run Local Services Ads and Google Ads at the same time? Yes. Billing for Local Services Ads already runs through Google Ads, and after the move you manage the campaign there too. Give each channel its own jobs so you can read the results separately.

Will the move to Google Ads make Local Services Ads pay per click? No. Google's migration page says you still pay only for valid leads, such as calls and messages, and the ads still show only on Google Search and Google Maps.

Sources

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