I have been running local services ads for a few months now. My GBP profile has 65 five star reviews, not a single below five stars, and my budget is 5K a month. This is for garage door repair so it's a bit competitive, but even then. Not a single lead. I don't know what could possibly be the reason for this. My GBP is on another email than my LSA account, but it's still linked up,
Anyone have a similar situation?
That’s one of the things I have been looking at with Google’s LSA migration, lately.
The migrated LSA campaigns sits inside Google Ads as a specialized Performance Max setup, but they retain several LSA-specific characteristics:
So treating these campaigns exactly like standard PMax could create problems with reporting and optimization. Realising this, I wanted to post this here to help others too....
Here is the differences and what agencies should actually be looking at.
It Looks Like Performance Max, But It Does Not Behave Like Performance Max
Curious what others think: will agencies treat migrated LSA campaigns as PMax, or continue managing them more like LSA?
My business is located in Florida, the tracking number that google has assigned us is an Alabama phone number. We have heard comments from multiple customers and can only imagine this has deterred some potential customers from calling since it the number makes us not look local.
I have spoken with the LSA customer service but they say they can't change it. I have thought about closing the account and starting over but anyone have advice?
By the time the new system appears in your account, you may have very little time to understand what changed. I would rather have the baseline data, account structure, lead history, and reporting documented beforehand.
That way, when Google changes the environment, you can compare what you had before with what you have after.
Check this article to know why LSA migration should start before the actual migration:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lsa-migration-starts-before-google-moves-your-balasubramanian-vrupc
Question for you folks regarding the LSA/Ads migration. We manage around 120 campaigns in the painting industry, and it'll be a nightmare to monitor each inbox individually for the migration notification. Supposedly, Google will notify us two weeks out.
And while each campaign has a unique email associated with it, they're all also connected to an MCC. Do you think we'll be notified in the MCC inbox as individual campaigns begin migrating?
Bonus: Has anyone received the migration email and/or had a campaign successfully migrate?
Everywhere I look online says you cannot target specific keywords in a google LSA account. Nor can you apply match types (broad, phrase, exact) to any search terms/keywords google choooses for you.
But I just signed up for my google LSA account 3 days ago and I have definitely deleted all of googles suggested keywords and replaced them with a list of phrase match and exact match keywords and google says my campaign is running. So can you target keywords in google LSA like you can in regualar google ads account or not?
Ok…Please. Please feel free to tell me if I’m wrong. But so far in my experience with a handful of clients, Local services ads have very rarely been more than a complete waste of money. Most calls are junk price-shopping and only occasionally turn into anything. Google claims that you are only charged for leads and then basically says everything is a lead.
I’ve had instances where my client has literally said “Well actually we don’t do that, but here’s another company that does” - Google still bills as a lead. Numerous leads come in for services not offered and clearly unchecked on “services provided” that Google bills for anyway. However, my biggest grip is below…
For my one client in particular, the same person called twice within a week. Both times they clicked “1” because they are an “Existing customer calling for tech support.” Google billed BOTH calls as leads.
The first call the customer clearly states their name and address for reference and then says “You guys installed all of our x and we’re having some technical issues.” I called Google, they said “they exchanged information, therefore it’s a lead…”
The second call, the person again presses 1 as an “existing customer calling for tech support.” Spends a few minutes on hold and then hangs up. Google bills again, stating it’s for a “different inquiry…”
The first time I called Google over similar with this client, they said the call was billed as a lead because the person pushed “2” for sales (Again…existing person the client was already working with). They told me because they pushed “2” for sales, it was a lead - and the only way they could determine if it was an existing customer was if that person had already called. Fast forward to now. Same person calls within a week - clearly for tech support as an existing customer - and Google counts as a lead.
There is no oversight. It’s just arbitrary. There’s no reasoning with so called “support” it’s just a script and then “This is google’s policy…”
I have now paused LSAs for this client and will go back to regular search ads where I actually at least have an illusion of control.
Again - please feel free to correct me or explain to me what I’m doing wrong.
edit: For clarity, yes I do go through and rate every lead. Usually within a day to a week at most. Sometimes that changes it, but not usually. And it hasn’t seemed to curb the same recurring “leads” that the client doesn’t do and has unchecked.
Keywordless targeting makes campaign management simpler, but there's a trade-off.
What happens when you can't control the keywords bringing customers to your LSA?
That's the interesting part of Google's move toward keywordless targeting.
On one hand, it removes a lot of manual work.
On the other, advertisers lose some visibility into how Google decides which searches and customers are relevant.
The bigger question isn't whether keywordless targeting is good or bad.
It's how much control should advertisers give Google before they can no longer explain where their leads are coming from?
I explored that tension here. Just sharing it for knowledge.
I need some input from people who actually understand LSA at a high level.
I’m in an extremely competitive market and currently have my LSA budget set at $25,000/week. Budget is basically unlimited if the leads are profitable.
The strange part is my visibility.
One search → I’m #1.
Another search → I’m #3.
Another search → I completely disappear.
This has been especially noticeable over the last 2 days.
I have:
• $25K/week budget
• Strong reviews
• Very high call-answer rate
• Established business/profile
• Willingness to spend significantly more
• Large competitive market
So my question for people running serious LSA accounts:
What are the REAL ranking factors you’re seeing right now?
Is it bidding?
Proximity?
Service-area setup?
Lead response time?
Booking rate?
Review velocity?
Disputing/archiving leads correctly?
Business hours/availability?
Account history?
Google rotating advertisers?
Something else entirely?
I understand that throwing more money at LSA doesn’t automatically guarantee the #1 position. I’m trying to figure out what separates the businesses consistently dominating the top spots from everyone else.
I’m especially interested in hearing from anyone managing high-volume LSA accounts in very competitive markets.
If you’ve actually scaled accounts like this and know how to diagnose what’s holding an account back, DM me. I’m willing to pay for someone who genuinely knows LSA — not someone selling generic Google Ads management.
Would love to hear what you guys are seeing.