Tampa, FL · nationwideLocal Services Ads are Google's pay-per-lead ad format for licensed local businesses: law firms, HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, cleaning and about 70 other categories. They appear above regular Google Ads, carry the Google Verified badge (which replaced the Google Guaranteed and Google Screened badges in late 2025), and you pay for leads rather than clicks. We handle the setup that stops most businesses from ever launching. Then we manage the ranking, the reviews, the lead feedback and credit monitoring, and the profile settings that decide whether LSA makes money.
Should I run Local Services Ads or Google Ads?
Both, if you qualify. They are different auctions with different economics. LSA leads are usually cheaper and higher intent because the caller picked you from a short list with reviews and a verification badge. But LSA volume is capped by your ranking, and you have almost no control over targeting or messaging. Google Ads gives you volume, control and the ability to send traffic to your own page. In most local service accounts we run, LSA produces 20 to 40 percent of the leads at roughly half the cost per lead of Search, and the rest comes from Search. Running LSA alone leaves volume on the table; running Search alone leaves the cheapest leads on the table.
Why most LSA accounts underperform
Google says LSA ranking depends on your bid and budget, review count and rating, responsiveness, business hours, proximity to the searcher, relevance to the search, and the quality and completeness of your profile. In the accounts we run, reviews and answer rate are the two we can move fastest. Since mid-2025 LSA reviews live on your Google Business Profile, so the profile has to be linked, accurate and actively collecting reviews. Most accounts we inherit have a handful of reviews, a phone that goes to voicemail after hours, and a budget set once and never touched. The fix is a consistent review process, call handling that answers in seconds, and budget pacing every business day.
What we do
- Verification and licensing. Background checks, license and insurance uploads, and the back-and-forth with Google that stalls most businesses for weeks.
- Profile optimization. Categories, service areas, hours, and the profile copy that affects ranking.
- Review strategy. A consistent follow-up that asks your customers for a Google review at the right moment and makes leaving one easy. It's the same method that took one legal client from a handful of poor reviews to hundreds at a 4.8 average.
- Lead feedback and credit monitoring. Google retired manual lead disputes in 2024. Credits for spam and invalid leads are now decided by Google's automated review, sometimes after a reassessment, and a geographic or job-type mismatch on its own no longer qualifies a lead for credit. Automated credits also have exclusions: Google does not offer them for healthcare, tax specialists or advertisers in EMEA. So we rate every lead in the dashboard, keep service areas and job types exact to reduce mismatched leads, and audit the credits Google issues each month.
- Budget and bid pacing every business day, with "Maximize leads" and manual bids tested per market.
- Reporting alongside your Google Ads, so LSA and Search are read as one funnel. Reporting.
What it costs
With paid search management, LSA is included for the first 90 days, then $250 per profile per month. LSA spend is never part of the management percentage. On its own, LSA management is $1,000 a month or 15 percent of LSA spend, whichever is higher. Lead costs are set by Google and vary by category and market: personal injury leads can run several hundred dollars, plumbing leads a fraction of that. Pricing.