Inspired by Revved Digital. Original article: Local Services Ads Migration to Google Ads: What Contractors Need to Do Before August 2026. This is a new Tygart article for restoration contractors. We kept the mechanism, added first-party field knowledge, and did not reprint the piece.
Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads. The ads are not dying. Pay-per-lead stays. Search and Maps stay. What changes is the dashboard, the bidding, and the fact that the old reports will not come with you.
First U.S. wave is August 2026 for listed home-service trades. Service-area businesses without a storefront are later in 2026. Restoration shops that live on LSAs should assume they are in that line and act before the 14-day email.
What to do this week
- Export 12 months: spend, charged leads, disputed leads, cost per lead, category, area. Owners need a sheet, not a login that is about to vanish.
- Screenshot the current setup: budget, categories, areas, hours, who answers, who administers.
- Split economics after migration. Water extract and sewage rebuild should not share one target CPA. Google is collapsing category targets into one campaign unless you separate them.
- Lock who can edit the Google Business Profile. Name, address, hours, and primary category will sync into the paid campaign. A casual category tweak can pause ads for a verification window.
- Plan two quiet weeks. Google says performance can wobble while the account settles. Compare against the export, not against Tuesday.
Lead history and recordings move. The performance baseline does not. If you cannot say what a good water lead cost last winter, you will not know whether the new dashboard is worse or just different.