How Local Services Ads work in Google Ads for carpet cleaners

How Local Services Ads work once your account is in Google Ads

Local Services Ads (LSA) are Google's pay-per-lead ads for service businesses. Once your account has moved, it runs inside Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals. You manage it from the Campaigns, Goals and Admin menus in Google Ads. Google's transition page says you're still charged for valid leads, such as calls and messages, rather than for clicks.

This guide covers the weekly work after the switch. For the move itself, read what carpet cleaners should do as LSA moves to Google Ads. For how LSA fits with Search and Meta, start with our carpet cleaning paid ads guide.

There are no keywords to manage. Google's pay-per-lead goals page says you set locations, 1 to 10 business categories, service types and an ad schedule. The service types you turn on or off shape which searches trigger your ad. Most routine work happens in four places:

Your business name, address and hours come over from your Google Business Profile in a one-way sync, so you fix them on the profile. Service areas, ad schedules and categories are different. Google says these settings operate independently of your Google Business Profile after migration is complete, so you change them in the campaign itself.

Where LSA leads show up in Google Ads and how to work them

Your leads are under the Goals menu. Click Conversions, then select Leads. Google says this table "replaces your Local Services Ads lead inbox," and it keeps each lead's charged status, its lead type and a lead feedback form. You can read and reply to text and email leads from inside Google Ads.

The lead types you can turn on

Google's pay-per-lead goals page lists three lead types. Calls are always on, and the other two are your choice.

For calls, Google says you're charged only for valid phone leads that meet minimum call duration requirements. Turn on texts and emails if someone on your team checks them during the day, since a quote request that waits until evening can go to another company. Turn on bookings only when your schedule is set up for a customer to pick a time without a call first.

A daily lead routine

1. Open Goals > Conversions > Leads in the morning and again before the end of the day.
2. Reply to every text and email lead from inside Google Ads.
3. Return voicemails and missed calls the same day.
4. Enter the lead source on the job in your CRM, the system where you book jobs, when you book it.
5. Use the lead feedback form on spam, job seekers and sales pitches. Our post on how to dispute bad LSA leads covers how Google handles bad leads and credits.

Lead email notifications

Email alerts for call and message leads are controlled under Admin > Notifications. Google opts in all account users and direct managers by default, and your account must keep at least one active user opted in at all times. After the move, open that page and confirm the person who answers the phone is on the list. Anyone who doesn't act on lead emails can opt out, as long as one active user stays opted in.

How to read Conversions, Cost and Cost / conv.

Google's transition page points to three columns for pay-per-lead results. Each one counts leads or spend, and none of them counts booked jobs.

A conversion here is a charged lead. A caller asking the price of one loveseat counts the same as a property manager with six move-out cleans. Read the columns for trends, and judge the campaign by booked jobs.

Worked math for cost per booked job

Take the Cost column for the month and divide it by the jobs you booked from LSA leads in that month. Say Cost shows $1,200 and your CRM shows 24 jobs booked from LSA. Each booked job cost $50 in ad spend. Those are example numbers, not a benchmark, so plug in your own and compare the result with your average ticket on those jobs.

This is how we report it for clients through our paid ads service. Each call and form is tagged with its source when it comes in. We match that lead to the job in the client's CRM where the data allows, so the monthly report shows booked jobs by channel. If you track it yourself, our post on cost per booked job by channel covers the math for every channel. Our post on attribution for carpet cleaners covers tying each job to its source.

How Target CPA and the daily budget work

One Target CPA for the whole campaign

Target CPA stands for target cost per action. Google's Target CPA page describes it as an automated bid strategy that tries to keep your cost per conversion equal to the target. In a pay-per-lead campaign a conversion is a charged lead, so the target works as an average cost per lead.

You can no longer set a hard cap on each lead, because Google Ads doesn't support manual bidding for these campaigns. Google calculates one campaign-level Target CPA and applies it to every category in the campaign. It also says Google Ads doesn't support a separate Target CPA for each vertical.

When separate campaigns per category make sense

If carpet cleaning is your only category, one target covers everything. It gets harder when you list more than one. Google's supported verticals page lists Carpet Cleaning, House Cleaner and Water Damage as separate home services sub-verticals. If you'd pay a different amount for a water damage lead than for a carpet cleaning lead, one shared target can't reflect that.

Google says you can set up separate campaigns for each vertical if you want separate bidding rules. Split only the categories where lead value differs, since every extra campaign is one more budget and one more set of settings to check.

How the daily budget and monthly cap behave

Your old weekly budget becomes a daily average. To get that daily figure, Google takes your historical average weekly budget and divides it by 7. The monthly ceiling is the daily average multiplied by 30.4, which Google describes as the average number of days in a month. The daily figure is an average across the month, and the cap is the most the month can cost.

For example, a $40 daily average gives a monthly cap of $40 × 30.4, which is $1,216. That's only the math, not a suggested budget. You change the budget in the Settings tab of the Campaigns menu. Raise it a few weeks before your spring or holiday rush, and check the cap against what a busy month has cost you before.

Callouts, photos and asset optimization

Assets are the photos and short lines of text Google can show with your ad. You manage them under Assets in the Campaigns menu.

Callouts

Callouts are short phrases about your business. Google allows up to 6 callouts per category and gives "free estimates" as an example. Google no longer supports BBB callouts, so an ad that leaned on one needs a replacement. Here are callout ideas for a carpet cleaner, to use only if they're true for your company:

• Pet odor and urine treatment
• Upholstery and sofa cleaning
• Area rug cleaning
• Tile and grout cleaning
• Truck-mount hot water extraction
• Move-out cleaning for renters

Each callout should name work you want leads for. A callout for a service you rarely take invites calls you'll turn away.

Photos

Google lets you upload up to 100 additional business photos, which add to the images it pulls from your Google Business Profile. Use real job photos, such as a before-and-after on a pet stain, the truck-mount at the curb or a finished sectional.

Asset optimization

Asset optimization lets Google Ads scan your linked business website and create assets such as callouts. You can turn it off in your campaign settings. If you leave it on, check the Assets page after the move, and turn it off if it writes callouts you wouldn't say on the phone.

Pausing, resuming and running LSA next to Search and Performance Max

Pausing and resuming

Google says you can temporarily stop receiving leads at any time. Go to the Settings tab in the Campaigns menu, select the campaign and switch its status to Paused. When you want leads again, switch it back to Enabled.

Pause when nobody can take calls, such as a week the whole crew is off. If the calendar is full but the crew is working, our paid ads guide suggests lowering the budget a notch instead of turning ads off.

Running pay-per-lead next to Search and Performance Max

Google recommends running pay-per-lead campaigns alongside Search, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns. The two kinds of Performance Max reach different places. Pay-per-lead campaigns serve only on Google Search and Google Maps, while standard Performance Max campaigns serve across all Google ad networks, including YouTube, Gmail and the Google Display Network.

Google's suggestion doesn't mean you need every campaign type. Search campaigns let you choose keywords and send people to a specific page, which suits higher-ticket work like pet urine treatment or tile and grout. Our paid ads guide covers when to add Search on top of LSA and how to keep rental-machine shoppers out. Whatever you add, give each campaign its own lead source in your CRM so you can compare booked jobs.

Starting a new pay-per-lead campaign

Google says you can't create new pay-per-lead campaigns directly in Google Ads at this time. A second campaign for another category starts at g.co/localservices, and so does a company that has never run LSA. Our setup guide for Local Services Ads walks through screening, job types and your first booked job.