Google Just Moved Your LSA Into Performance Max — Here's What Changes for Home Services

Google is moving all Local Services Ads into Performance Max campaigns. Phase 1 starts August 2026 for US home service businesses — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, pest control, and more. Whether you've touched your LSA account in the last six months or not, your campaigns are moving.

This isn't a minor update. It's a full platform migration. The standalone LSA dashboard you've been managing your leads from is being shut down, and your campaigns are landing inside Google Ads as a specialized Performance Max campaign type. Here's exactly what transfers automatically, what you'll lose, and the actions you need to take before your account flips.

What's Actually Happening

Google is consolidating its advertising platforms. Local Services Ads — the Google Guaranteed listings that appear above regular search results and charge per lead, not per click — are being absorbed into Google Ads as a new variant of Performance Max with "pay-per-lead goals." Google's official migration documentation confirms the timeline and mechanics in full detail.

The key thing to understand: this isn't Google killing LSAs. The pay-per-lead model survives. The Google Guaranteed badge survives. What's going away is the separate platform where you managed them. If you've been running LSAs and Google Search campaigns in two different dashboards, you'll soon manage both from one place.

This migration affects millions of home service advertisers across the US. It is not a beta test. It's a one-way door.

Which Businesses Move First

Phase 1 launches in August 2026 and covers the core home service trades in the United States:

• HVAC
• Plumbing
• Electrical
• Appliance repair
• Roofing
• Pest control
• Lawn care
• House cleaning
• Moving

Phase 2 in late 2026 picks up service-area businesses without a physical storefront and accounts with custom bidding or booking configurations. Non-US accounts and remaining business categories transition in 2027.

Google has stated advertisers will receive a 14-day advance email notice before their specific account migrates. That notice is your countdown clock. Watch your Google Ads account email closely starting now.

What Changes When Your Account Migrates

Three things change in ways that matter for how you manage and measure your campaigns:

Your historical reporting data doesn't transfer. This is the most critical issue in the entire migration. Your cost-per-lead history, lead volume by month, dispute rates, and performance trends you've tracked in the LSA platform — none of that migrates into Google Ads. Once your account switches, that data becomes inaccessible. Export every report you care about before your migration date. Do it now, not when you receive the 14-day notice.

Bidding structure changes. The old LSA platform let you set Target CPA bids at the service vertical level — different targets for a full HVAC install versus a seasonal tune-up. That's gone. The migrated Performance Max campaign uses a single unified Target CPA across all service categories. If your service types have meaningfully different economics, you'll need to create separate campaigns in Google Ads after migration to get that bid control back.

Management moves to Google Ads. Budget changes, targeting settings, message replies to incoming leads, performance review — all of this happens in Google Ads now. If you have staff or a vendor who only accesses the LSA dashboard, they'll need Google Ads access before the switch. Set that up in advance.

What Doesn't Change

The core mechanics that made LSAs worth running are staying intact:

• Pay per valid lead. You still pay only when a customer contacts you directly — a phone call, a message, or a booking — not per click.
• Search and Maps placement. Your ads still appear on Google Search and Google Maps in the same positions. They won't expand to Display, YouTube, or the broader ad network.
• Keywordless targeting. No keyword lists to manage. Targeting still runs off your service categories and service area settings.
• Google Guaranteed badge. The badge and your review count transfer to the new campaign automatically.
• Automatic asset migration. Budgets, settings, and creatives transfer on their own. You're not starting from zero.

For a broader look at how LSAs compare to standard search campaigns, see our breakdown of Local Services Ads vs. Google Ads for service businesses.

Watch Your Lead Cost for 60 Days After Migration

For the first 60 days after your account migrates, track two numbers every week: cost per lead and lead quality.

Inside the old LSA platform, Google's algorithm operated in a fairly controlled environment. Inside Performance Max, it has broader latitude — learning from your conversion signals and adjusting continuously. For most businesses this stabilizes within a few weeks and can actually lower your cost per lead over time. For businesses with thin review counts or misconfigured service areas, it can initially push costs up.

Pull your average cost per lead from the last 90 days in the LSA platform before you migrate. Use that as your benchmark. If your CPL in the first 30 days post-migration climbs more than 20% above that baseline without a corresponding improvement in lead quality, something needs to change — your Target CPA setting, your service area configuration, or your conversion tracking setup.

Our Google Ads management service monitors these numbers automatically for every client. If you're self-managing, schedule 30 minutes every Monday to review the prior week's numbers for the first two months.

Fix Your Lead Follow-Up Before You Migrate

Migration is also a good forcing function to address things you've been putting off. The Performance Max platform inside Google Ads integrates more cleanly with conversion tracking and booking tools than the old LSA system did.

If incoming leads are currently going to a phone number and a notebook, you're losing business — not because of the migration, but because of the gap in your follow-up process. Connecting an automated appointment scheduling system to your new Google Ads account means every lead gets an immediate response, even at 10pm on a Sunday.

The migration doesn't require this. But the disruption of touching your account is a useful prompt to audit your whole lead intake while you're in there anyway.

Is This Better or Worse for Your Business?

Straight answer: for most service businesses that weren't actively managing their LSA bids, this changes very little in practice. Campaigns transfer, ads keep running.

For owners who were actively optimizing — different bid targets per service type, close monitoring of lead quality, regular use of the LSA dispute process — migration adds work up front and requires close attention afterward. The consolidated single Target CPA is a real step back in bidding granularity.

The upside: everything is now in one place. If you're already running standard Google Search ads alongside LSAs, managing both from Google Ads is cleaner than two dashboards. And conversion tracking is more powerful inside Google Ads, which gives the algorithm better data to optimize against over time.

This is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to prepare. Pull your LSA data now. Document your current cost-per-lead baseline. Plan how you'll handle the transition when your 14-day notice arrives.

If you want a professional look at your current ad setup before the migration hits, book a free 24-hour audit and we'll map exactly what's in your account, what to expect on day one inside Google Ads, and what to do differently going forward.

Sources

• Google Ads Help: Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals
• Search Engine Land: Local Services Ads come to Google Ads via Performance Max
• Search Engine Roundtable: Google Local Services Ads to Transition to Google Ads Platform
• Cornerstone Advertising: Google Just Changed Local Services Ads (July 2026)