If you run Local Services Ads, the dashboard you have been logging into is going away. Your ads are not. The badge is not. But the place you manage them, and most of the controls you are used to, are moving into Google Ads and becoming a specialized Performance Max campaign built for pay-per-lead.
Google calls this a migration. Functionally it is a renovation, and you are living in the house while it happens.
Most of it is fine. Two parts are not, and one of them is costing some businesses money right now, five weeks before they will hear about it.
Key takeaways
- Your historical performance reports do not migrate. Lead records and call recordings do. Screenshot or export your reports before your migration date, because afterward the old dashboard is gone.
- Manual bidding is dead. No more max cost-per-lead, no more per-category bids. One campaign-level Target CPA across every service you offer.
- Google Business Profile becomes the source of truth for your name, address and hours. You can no longer edit them in the ads platform, and changing them triggers a review that can pause your campaign for 24 to 48 hours.
- BBB callouts are gone. If you were leaning on that credential, you need six other callouts to replace it.
- Separately, and more urgently: since October 1, missed calls over 20 seconds are billable leads. That one is already live.
- You get 14 days of notice before your account migrates, with a reminder at 7 days. It goes to the account administrator, so make sure that is a real inbox somebody reads.
What is actually staying the same
Start here, because the headline makes this sound worse than it is.
Your ads look identical to customers. They still show only on Google Search and Google Maps, in the same positions as before. You still pay per valid lead rather than per click. Your verification, your background check and your badge transfer over automatically. Targeting stays keywordless, driven by the service categories and areas you picked.
You are not rebuilding anything. Nobody has to relaunch a campaign.
The timeline
Per Google’s own documentation:
- August 2026. First phase. Select home and storefront service advertisers in the United States. Plumbing, HVAC, and others like them.
- Late 2026. Broader groups, including service-area businesses without a physical storefront, and accounts using custom bidding or booking setups. This is where most Grand Strand contractors land.
- 2027. Non-US accounts and all remaining business categories.
If you are a home services business in South Carolina, you are either in the first wave or the second. Not the third.
The four things that actually change
1. Your reports do not come with you
This is the one people discover afterward.
Google is explicit: your Local Services Ads performance reports will not transition to Google Ads. Lead history does transfer, including contact details, message history and older call recordings. The reports do not.
Google says a download page is coming. At the time of writing it says “soon,” which is a word doing a lot of work. Their own fallback advice is to take screenshots of your reports before migrating.
So: screenshot everything. Cost per lead by month. Lead volume by category. Your seasonal curve. If you have been running LSAs for three years, that is three years of knowing what a plumbing lead costs you in February versus July, and it is the only copy you will have.
Do it the day the 14-day notice arrives. Not the day before migration.
2. Manual bidding is over
You can no longer set a maximum cost-per-lead. You can no longer bid differently by category. Google calculates one unified campaign-level Target CPA and applies it across every vertical you run.
For a business that does one thing, this is a shrug. For a business where a drain cleaning lead and a full repipe lead are worth wildly different amounts, this flattens a distinction you were probably using to stay profitable.
There is a workaround, and Google suggests it themselves: split into separate campaigns per vertical. One campaign per service line, each with its own Target CPA. More to manage, but it preserves the control you are losing. If a single blended CPA would quietly subsidize your cheapest service with your most profitable one, do this before you migrate rather than after.
3. Your Google Business Profile is now driving
Business name, address and hours sync one direction, from your Google Business Profile into Google Ads. You cannot edit them on the ads side anymore.
Two consequences.
An error in your profile is now an error in your live ads, immediately. Wrong hours on your profile means wrong hours in the ad.
And a significant change to your name or address triggers a verification review, during which your campaign may pause for 24 to 48 hours. So if you were planning to tidy up your business name, do not do it on a Friday in your busy season. This is the kind of thing listings management exists to prevent, and it just got more expensive to get wrong.
4. BBB callouts are retired
Google is no longer supporting Better Business Bureau credential callouts. If your accreditation was part of how you differentiated in the ad unit, that lever is gone.
Google recommends carrying at least six other structured callouts instead. Payment methods accepted, specialized service tags, years in business, licensing, emergency availability, warranty terms. Go pick six now rather than discovering the gap when your lead flow dips.
The separate change that is already costing you
This one is not part of the migration and it did not wait for it.
As of October 1, 2026, missed calls during business hours are charged as valid leads if a caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds. Previously a missed call with no voicemail generally became billable only when you called the person back.
Read that again if you run a small crew. A call you never answered, during business hours, where the person waited more than twenty seconds, is now a lead you pay for.
There is one meaningful exception, and it is the actionable part: if your phone system requires the caller to press a key to be routed, the 20-second timer does not start until the keypress. A caller who never presses a key is not charged.
Two honest caveats, because this rule has been communicated by email rather than published cleanly. It is not yet reflected on Google’s public help documentation, and reporting disagrees on exactly when the clock starts, whether at first ring or at connection. Anyone telling you a precise number of seconds to answer within is making it up. The keypress exception is the part that is consistently reported.
What to do about it this week:
- Pull your LSA billing since October 1 and look at what you were charged for. If missed-call charges appeared, that is why.
- Check what happens when nobody picks up. How long does it ring? Where does it land?
- Consider a keypress routing step if your call volume makes the math work.
- Fix the underlying problem, which is that the call went unanswered. You were already losing that job. Now you are losing the job and paying for the privilege. Missed-call text-back and a real answering process are the actual fix here, and they are cheaper than the ad spend you are burning. That is most of what Marketing in a Box is for.
What to do before your migration date
- Confirm the account administrator email is a real inbox somebody checks. That is where the 14-day notice goes.
- Screenshot or export every performance report you care about.
- Decide now whether you want one blended campaign or one campaign per service line.
- Audit your Google Business Profile. Name, address, hours, categories. It is about to be the source of truth.
- Pick your six replacement callouts for BBB.
- Check your missed-call handling and your billing since October 1.
None of this is hard. All of it is easier before the switch than after, and the reports in particular are a one-way door.
If you would rather hand this to somebody, our Local Services Ads management and Google Ads work covers the migration, and the free Visibility Scorecard will tell you what else is leaking while you are in there.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to do anything to migrate?
No. Google migrates the account automatically and tells you 14 days beforehand, with a reminder at 7 days. The work is preparation, not execution. The one genuinely irreversible step is saving your reports.
Will my Google Guaranteed badge disappear?
No. Google’s documentation says verified status and the badge transfer automatically, along with your background check and screening. The badge is not what is changing.
Will my cost per lead go up?
Nobody can honestly promise either way, and be suspicious of anyone who does. What is knowable is that losing per-category bidding removes a control some businesses were using to protect margin on their cheapest service. If that describes you, splitting into separate campaigns per vertical is the hedge.
What happens to my existing leads and call recordings?
They transfer. Google’s documentation says past lead history, contact details, message history and older call recordings move to Google Ads automatically. It is specifically the performance reports that do not.
Why am I suddenly being charged for calls I never answered?
Because of a separate change effective October 1, 2026, not the migration. Missed calls during business hours lasting more than 20 seconds are now billable leads. If your phone system requires a keypress to route, the timer starts only after the keypress.
Is this the end of Local Services Ads?
No. It is the end of the standalone dashboard. The ad product, the pay-per-lead model, the placements and the badge all continue inside Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign type built for lead generation.