Google is merging LSAs into Google Ads.

Google is shutting down the separate Local Services Ads dashboard. Local Services Ads (LSAs) are the ads at the very top of local search where you pay per lead. Starting in August 2026, LSAs are moving into Google Ads. They become a new Performance Max campaign type built for pay-per-lead. The rollout ends in 2027. By then, the LSA site you log into today won't exist.

Do you run LSAs for your business? Then you may ask, "Should I be worried?" The honest answer: not if you prepare, but yes if you ignore it. The heart of LSAs is not going away. You still pay for leads, not clicks. You still show up at the very top of local search results. What's changing is everything around that. It changes where you manage campaigns and how budgets and bidding work. It also changes what happens to your past data. That last one is where people get hurt.

Let's walk through it step by step.

What's actually changing

Local Services Ads have always lived in their own little world. They had their own dashboard and their own billing. The tools were simple and hard to mess up. That is ending now.

After your account moves, LSA campaigns will live inside Google Ads. Each one becomes a Performance Max campaign designed for local services. You will manage campaigns, leads, and call reports inside Google Ads. The old LSA dashboard shuts off for good. It is not "still available for reference." It is gone.

Don't let the Performance Max name confuse you. These campaigns still focus on local customers. Your ads still show only on Google Search and Maps. They are still keywordless. That means Google matches you to searches based on your services and your Google Business Profile. And you still pay per lead, such as calls, messages, and bookings. You do not pay per click. Google has said clearly that LSAs will not spread to YouTube, Display, or the rest of the Performance Max network.

There is a bigger trend here. In every Google ad product, the machine now does the matching and bidding. Your job is to feed it good data. We explained how AI is used in PPC. The same idea now runs your lead ads.

Here is one real upside. Your Google Business Profile now syncs automatically into your campaign. Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is your free business listing on Google. Change your hours or service types in GBP, and the campaign updates right away. The downside is that you can't edit those main details inside Google Ads. So GBP becomes the one place that controls them. If your profile is a mess, your ads will be too. (GBP is also a top signal for Google's new AI search tools. I wrote about the new AI search performance reports in Search Console in a separate post.)

The timeline

This rollout happens in steps, not all at once:

• August 2026 — The move starts with U.S. advertisers in a few fields. These are home services (plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, pest control), pet care, wellness, and education.
• Late 2026 — It grows to more U.S. accounts. This includes businesses that serve an area and accounts using custom bidding.
• 2027 — Accounts outside the U.S. and all other categories.

You will get a warning. Google emails account admins 14 days before your specific migration date. It sends a reminder at 7 days. When that email comes, you are running out of time on one task. You cannot put this one off. More on that below.

What stays the same

This is worth saying clearly, because a lot of people online are panicking:

• Pay-per-lead billing. You still pay for calls, messages, and bookings. You never pay for clicks.
• Placement. Your ads still show at the top of Search and on Maps, just like today.
• Keywordless targeting. You don't build keyword lists. You don't have to keep blocking bad searches by hand.
• Your Google Screened / Google Guaranteed badge. Your verified status moves over with you.
• Your leads. Your lead history, contact details, and call recordings all move over. They go into the new Lead Manager inbox in Google Ads.

What changes under the hood

Here's where it gets serious. Three changes will quietly shift how your account works:

Weekly budgets become daily budgets. Google takes your average weekly budget and divides it by seven. The math is simple. But daily budgets spend in a different way than weekly ones. A busy Monday can now hit a daily limit. Your old weekly budget would have covered it.

Manual cost-per-lead bidding is going away. Maybe you set a top price per lead by hand today. That option is ending. Google will use automated Target CPA bidding instead. Target CPA means you set the average cost per lead you want, and Google bids to hit it.

Bidding by service type becomes one bid for the whole campaign. Today you can aim for a different cost per lead for each service. For example, drain cleaning can have one target and repiping another. After the move, Target CPA is set once for the whole campaign. Your services may be worth different amounts per lead. For most businesses, they are. The fix is splitting into separate campaigns, one per service level. This is the biggest choice you will make in the move. It's better to make it before Google moves you than after.

Here is a smaller problem: Better Business Bureau callouts are no longer supported. A callout is a short line of text on your ad. Google gives you six other callouts to choose from. Did your BBB rating help people trust your ad? Then pick new callouts with care. Don't just take the defaults.

Google also says to allow up to two weeks for performance to stabilize after the move. In plain words, your smart bidding is learning again. Don't rush to make changes in week one.

The big one: your historical data doesn't come with you

So the task is very simple: before your migration date, export every report you care about. Get monthly results, leads by category, and seasonal trends. Save anything you might need when someone asks, "How does this compare to last year?" It takes fifteen minutes to download now. Skip it, and you will have no past data forever. The choice is easy.

LSAs + Search ads: the cannibalization question

Here's the part most news stories skip. Many local businesses run both LSAs and regular Search ads. If you do, you know they go after the same searches. Your LSA sits at the very top. Your Search ad sits right below it. If they don't work together, you can end up bidding against yourself. You may pay twice to reach the same customer. That is called cannibalization.

The merge brings good and bad news here. The good news: everything is now in one place. You get one screen, one budget view, and one bidding system. So it is finally easy to run LSAs and Search as one team. You can match Target CPAs to what each lead is really worth. You can move budget to whichever ad type gets cheaper leads this month. And you can see the overlap instead of guessing.

The bad news: it is also easier to get wrong. Both ad types now use automated bidding on the same search results page. And there is no manual cost-per-lead cap to stop overspending. If no one watches the account, it can start paying high prices for leads it was already getting. "Set it and forget it" never worked for Search. After this move, it won't work for LSAs either.

What to do before your migration date

1. Download your past LSA reports. Do it today, not when the 14-day email arrives. This is the only item on the list you can't undo.
2. Clean up your Google Business Profile. It will control the details in your ads, like name, hours, categories, and service areas. Fix it now.
3. Match your services to lead values. Decide which services need their own campaign (and their own Target CPA). Then you're ready to split them. You won't be stuck with one mixed number.
4. Write down your current cost-per-lead caps. Use them to set your starting Target CPA. That keeps automated bidding close to what has worked before.
5. Choose your new callouts if you're losing the BBB badge.
6. Check everything after the move. Budgets, settings, and assets move over on their own. But "on their own" does not always mean "correctly." Then wait two weeks before you judge the results.

Where we come in

If you're a current client: you don't need to do any of this. We're already on it. We are saving your past data. We are planning how to split your campaigns. When your migration email arrives, we'll handle the move. Then we'll watch the first two weeks closely. That way your cost per lead doesn't creep up while Google makes its changes.

If you're not a client and this list reads like a second job, that's fair. It is one. This move hurts accounts that no one watches. It helps accounts where someone is paying attention. Google Ads and Local Service Ads management are both paid add-ons to The Refine System. They are separate from the base package. Want help getting your LSAs through the merge? Want to keep your leads (and your data) safe? Give us a call at (949) 416-0274. Businesses that prepare before August 2026 will barely notice this. Those that don't will face "up to two weeks of stabilization" with no past data to compare against.

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