LSA to Google Ads Migration: What Changes and What Stays the Same

The LSA to Google Ads migration moves existing Local Services campaigns from the separate LSA dashboard into Google Ads. Google creates a specialized Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals. Advertisers continue paying for valid leads and serving through Local Services positions on Search and Maps.

Google's LSA migration announcement confirms the phased 2026 and 2027 rollout. Google transfers campaign setup and lead history, changes budget and bidding controls, and ends access to the old dashboard and its historical campaign reports.

Use the account-specific email as the deadline. Save reports before that date, record current settings and service economics, confirm Google Ads and Business Profile access, then assign an owner for the first 14 days after transfer.

Google changes the management system, reporting timeline, budget unit, bidding controls, lead inbox location, and source of core business details. The pay-per-valid-lead model, Local Services placements, keywordless targeting, and high-intent local service purpose remain.

The fourth column below turns each product fact into an account check. A promised transfer still needs a dated review because access, service configuration, routing, and permissions can differ by account.

Google starts the first phase in August 2026 for select U.S. home and storefront service advertisers. Google lists plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving among the included categories.

The late-2026 phase expands to broader advertiser groups, including service-area businesses without storefronts and accounts with custom bidding or booking configurations. Google assigns non-U.S. accounts and remaining categories to 2027.

A category in the August phase does not establish one account's migration date. The administrator receives an email 14 days before the scheduled date and a reminder seven days later. Google also places a banner in the current dashboard and sends a completion email.

Advertisers still pay for valid customer leads rather than ordinary ad clicks. Google lists calls, messages, and bookings as pay-per-lead contacts. Lead validity, charge review, and business qualification remain separate questions.

The specialized campaign stays in Local Services positions on Google Search and Google Maps. Google says those positions remain the same. Migration does not add YouTube, Gmail, Discover, or Display delivery to this campaign type.

Targeting remains keywordless. Services, categories, areas, schedules, and business context guide the Local Services experience. Operators should verify those settings after transfer, but they do not need to create a Search keyword list for the migrated campaign.

Google also carries completed verification and the Google Verified badge into Google Ads. Google says prior license and insurance verification does not need to run again, while later business-level checks can still appear in the account.

Campaign management moves into Google Ads. Owners use Campaigns for performance and status, Settings for budget, bidding, service areas, schedules, and categories, Assets for photos and callouts, and Goals > Conversions > Leads for lead review and messages.

The old LSA dashboard becomes inaccessible on migration day and redirects to Google Ads. Previous campaign reports do not carry over. Google starts a new performance timeline in the migrated campaign, so the account needs a saved pre-migration baseline.

Google divides the historical average weekly budget by seven and shows an average daily budget. Monthly billing uses the daily average multiplied by 30.4. Manual bidding ends, and Google replaces vertical-level Target CPA values with one calculated campaign-level target.

Core business name, physical address, and standard hours come from Google Business Profile through one-way sync. Google says some fields, including service areas and ad schedules, remain editable for ads. Significant name or address updates can trigger verification review and a temporary campaign pause.

Google removes Better Business Bureau callouts. Advertisers can use supported callouts from the Assets area. Standard Performance Max headlines, videos, and sitelinks do not apply to the specialized pay-per-lead campaign.

Google transfers targeted locations, service types, business categories, budget limits, ad schedule, business photos, verification status, and past customer lead history. Review each item in the destination account instead of assuming every user can see the same fields.

Google does not transfer the previous campaign performance report. Past impressions, clicks, weekly spend, and ad-level performance examples do not appear as historical metrics in the new campaign. Save the report before the old dashboard closes.

Past customer lead history follows a different rule. Google transfers contact details, message history, and older call recordings into Lead Manager. That history does not recreate the old performance report or the business's qualification, booking, completed-job, and revenue records.

Old campaign performance reports do not transfer. Past customer lead history does transfer to Lead Manager. New campaign performance begins in Google Ads. Qualification, booked work, completed jobs, revenue, and capacity remain in the advertiser's business systems.

Save those four layers under separate source labels. Use the old LSA report for historical spend, charged leads, lead types, filters, and credits. Use Lead Manager for transferred and new lead records. Use the Google Ads campaign table for new Cost, Conversions, and Cost / conv. Use business systems for downstream outcomes.

A reviewer should not join old and new files by column name alone. Record Customer ID, source system, extract date, performance period, time zone, filters, included metrics, missing fields, owner, and privacy classification. Preserve raw files and make joins in a working copy.

Use the campaign dashboard for Conversions, Cost, and Cost / conv. Google defines those metrics for the migrated campaign as charged leads, spend, and average cost per charged lead. Set explicit dates before comparing periods.

Use Campaigns > Settings for budget, Target CPA, service areas, ad schedule, business categories, and campaign status. Use Goals > Conversions > Leads to check, download, or interact with leads. Use Assets for photos and supported callouts.

Use Google Ads Report Editor documentation for custom tables and charts. Use Google Ads Change history documentation to review later account edits. Agencies can use Google Ads manager-account report documentation for multi-account performance reports, then confirm which specialized fields are available across selected clients.

Google converts a $700 historical average weekly budget into a $100 average daily budget and a $3,040 monthly limit. A $1,400 weekly average becomes $200 per day and a $6,080 monthly limit. A $2,100 weekly average becomes $300 per day and a $9,120 monthly limit.

Those figures apply Google's formulas and do not recommend spend. Actual Cost can differ across complete periods because demand, campaign status, service mix, season, and account edits can change. Compare the converted setting, complete-period Cost, charged leads, and business outcomes.

Google removes manual bidding and vertical-level Target CPA controls. It calculates one campaign-level Target CPA for the migrated campaign. Google does not publish the calculation formula, weights, or lookback period. Save each former vertical target and record the migrated value without presenting a weighted estimate as Google's method.

A multi-service business can review separate campaigns when it needs separate bidding rules, but account availability and data volume matter. Google says direct creation of new pay-per-lead campaigns inside Google Ads is not available at this time.

Migrated LSA uses a specialized Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals. Google keeps it on Search and Maps, keeps it keywordless, ties it to Local Services eligibility and profile context, and reports charged leads through Lead Manager.

Standard Performance Max uses goal-based bidding across a broader channel set that can include YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. It uses standard creative, conversion, audience, feed, and destination inputs based on campaign configuration.

Keep the campaigns separate in planning and reporting. A standard Performance Max playbook can create false asset, placement, billing, or measurement assumptions when applied to migrated LSA.

Confirm the business, Customer ID, administrator, time zone, migration date, and Google Ads destination account. Assign one person to the archive and another authorized person to test access.

Save historical campaign reports for useful date windows. Capture settings, Business Profile details, verification status, photos, lead-routing numbers, permissions, business outcomes, service-line economics, and operating context. Open every saved file before the dashboard closes.

Keep customer contact information in approved storage. Restrict access to staff who need the record, remove identifiers from public screenshots, and follow existing privacy, contract, and retention obligations.

On Day 0, confirm the migrated campaign, account, status, and user access. Record the first time the campaign appears and any redirect or error. Avoid an optional strategy change while you are still proving the transfer.

On Day 1, compare services, categories, areas, schedule, budget conversion, campaign Target CPA, Business Profile link, photos, callouts, and routing with the saved inventory. Correct material access, routing, or transfer defects and record each action.

On Day 7, review Lead Manager, charged status, lead types, message access, campaign metrics, Change history, and any downtime. Compare the first week only for operational direction because it includes the ramp period.

On Day 14, run a directional account review after Google's stated stabilization window. Keep Days 0 through 14 separate from the durable 28-day post-transition comparison.

Compare three periods: the last 28 complete days before migration, Days 0 through 14 as the transition, and 28 complete days after the transition. Use the same weekday mix, account scope, service definitions, and business outcome sources.

Keep Google campaign metrics in one layer: Cost, charged leads, and Cost / conv. Keep lead operations in another: type, answer, response, feedback, and routing. Add qualification, bookings, completed work, revenue, lost reasons, and capacity from the approved business systems.

Record seasonality, weather, staffing, schedule, promotions, prices, territory, and service mix beside the dates. A performance change after migration does not establish migration as the cause.

A single-location operator needs one clean account inventory, report archive, access map, and routing test. The owner should know who reviews the campaign and who answers each lead type during the first two weeks.

A multi-service company needs service-line targets and business outcomes even though Google applies one campaign-level Target CPA. HVAC operators should preserve seasonal and service-type context. House cleaning and lawn care teams should record recurring versus one-time work, route capacity, service frequency, and seasonal demand.

Agencies and multi-location teams need Customer ID, business, location, administrator, migration date, source report, and owner on every row. Keep old LSA data separate from new Google Ads reports until the metric dictionary and account mappings pass review.

An agency should create one control register before the first client notice. Use one row per Customer ID and location. Record category, administrator, notice date, migration date, time zone, archive owner, Google Ads access, Business Profile owner, routing owner, transfer status, first-review date, and open exception.

Keep three states: preparing, transition, and post-transition baseline. Preparing accounts need reports and settings. Transition accounts need access, transfer, status, and routing checks. Post-transition accounts need an equal-period campaign and business outcome comparison.

Build manager-account reports with Account and Customer ID so exported rows remain attributable. Select migrated accounts for the new Google Ads dataset. Store pre-migration LSA exports in a separate historical dataset until the team maps metric definitions and checks sample accounts.

Use an exception queue instead of applying the same edit to every account. A missing Lead Manager permission, mismatched service area, incorrect route, verification notice, and budget discrepancy require different owners and evidence. Record the correction and next review date on the affected account row.

Use the focused guides below when the pillar identifies a specific task. Each page has a separate search intent and working deliverable, so the directory routes the reader without repeating every procedure here.

Google LSA 14-day migration email guide: confirm the notice, deadline, ownership, and first response.

LSA migration checklist: save nine evidence bundles and assign archive ownership.

Why Google is moving LSA into Google Ads: review the wider Google Ads consolidation and AI strategy.

HVAC LSA migration checklist: preserve seasonal service-line economics and operating capacity.

Five LSA settings to verify after migration: compare the transferred services, areas, schedule, budget, and bidding.

Where old LSA reports go after migration: separate historical reports, Lead Manager history, and new reporting.

Download LSA reports before migration: create and test the pre-migration archive.

Compare LSA performance before and after migration: use before, transition, and post-transition periods.

LSA vs standard Performance Max: compare placements, billing, assets, leads, and setup.

LSA Target CPA changes for multi-service businesses: preserve service-line evidence under one campaign target.

LSA budget after Google Ads migration: reconcile weekly, daily, monthly, and actual Cost records.

Approved agency and developer workflows can identify a Local Services-enabled Performance Max campaign through campaign.pmax_campaign_settings.local_services_enabled. Google documents the setting for its current API and notes access conditions for this campaign configuration.

Google Ads API documentation for Local Services campaigns says the API can retrieve Local Services campaigns and budgets, update supported settings on existing campaigns, and read Local Services report resources for leads, conversations, verification, licenses, insurance, and employees. It does not support creating or removing these campaigns through the API.

Google Ads API documentation for Performance Max asset groups documents a Local Services asset-group field, an exemption from standard minimum asset requirements, and category-ID immutability after asset-group creation. Keep credentials and customer data outside public files and limit API access to approved accounts and staff.

Before migration, save historical reports, record settings and service economics, verify access, and assign owners. On migration day, confirm the expected Google Ads account and campaign before changing optional strategy.

During the first 14 days, verify the transfer, Lead Manager, call and message routing, status, Business Profile details, assets, budget, bidding, reporting, and Change history. Build the durable comparison after that transition window.

Use Google's documentation for product behavior and your approved business systems for qualification, bookings, completed jobs, revenue, and capacity. Record facts, calculations, and recommendations under separate labels.

Verified against Google's migration documentation on July 31, 2026. Timeline, notice cadence, transfer scope, unchanged product behavior, dashboard access, budget and bidding changes, Google Ads destinations, Lead Manager, assets, Business Profile sync, setup availability, and ramp guidance come from Google's LSA migration announcement.

Historical LSA report fields and the October 1, 2017 availability date come from Google's Local Services Ads report guide. Standard Performance Max channel context comes from Google's Performance Max channel guide. Technical restrictions come from Google Ads API documentation for Local Services campaigns. Checklists, review windows, data layers, and operating decisions are PrimeLSA recommendations.