Contents
Google offers two main ways to pay for calls from people searching for your services. Local Services Ads charge you per lead. Google Ads search campaigns charge you per click. To a homeowner they can look similar, both sitting near the top of the page. Behind the scenes they work very differently and suit different businesses. This guide explains both in plain terms, with a decision table and a way to compare them on the number that matters.
How Local Services Ads work
Local Services Ads, often called LSAs, are built for local service businesses. They're available for many home service categories in supported countries and areas, though not every trade or job type is covered everywhere.
What the homeowner sees. Your business name, your rating and number of reviews, your service area and hours, and often a verification badge. Google has used names such as "Google Guaranteed" and "Google Screened" for these badges, depending on the category and region. The homeowner can call, send a message or, in some cases, request a booking.
What you do to qualify. Google screens businesses before their ads run. Depending on your trade and location, that can include checks on your business registration, licenses and insurance, and background checks on the owner or field workers. It can take a while, so start early.
How you pay. You pay per lead, not per click. A lead is a call, message or booking request that Google counts as chargeable. The price per lead varies by trade, job type and area. Google has a process for leads that shouldn't be charged, such as spam or requests for work you don't do, and those rules and the way credits work have changed over time. Check the current policy.
What you control. Your job types, service area, hours and budget, and how you bid: you can let Google aim for as many leads as possible within your budget, or set the most you'll pay per lead.
What affects where you show up. Google's help pages have pointed to factors such as how close you are to the customer, your review score and number of reviews, how responsive you are to leads, your business hours and whether there have been serious or repeated complaints about you. In practice, that means answering the phone matters a great deal.
How Google Ads search campaigns work
Google Ads search campaigns are the text ads that appear for searches you choose.
What the homeowner sees. A text ad with your headline and description, often with extras like a call button, your location, links to specific pages and short highlights.
How you pay. You pay when someone clicks your ad or, with call ads, taps to call. The cost per click is set by an auction, and it's also affected by how relevant your ad and landing page are to the search.
What you control. Nearly everything:
- The searches you target (keywords) and the ones you block (negative keywords)
- The wording of your ads
- The page people land on
- The locations, days and hours your ads run
- Bids and budgets for each campaign
What it needs to work. Conversion tracking, so you know which clicks turn into calls and form requests, and a landing page built for the job. A click that lands on a slow home page and leaves still costs you money.
Side by side
| Local Services Ads | Google Ads (search) | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Per lead | Per click, or per call from a call ad |
| Setup | Screening and verification, which can take time | Account, campaigns, ads and tracking; quick to start, but takes skill to do well |
| What you control | Job types, area, hours, budget and bid approach | Keywords, ad wording, landing pages, schedule, bids and locations |
| What the ad shows | Name, rating, reviews, badge and hours | Your ad wording and extras |
| Needs a website? | No, though customers who check you out will look for one | In practice, yes: a good landing page |
| Biggest influences | Reviews, responsiveness, distance and hours | Keyword choice, ad and page quality, and bids |
| Management time | Lower: answer leads, manage budget, flag bad leads | Higher: a weekly review of searches, ads and results |
| Weak spots | Less control over exact job types; depends heavily on reviews and answering | Easy to waste money without tracking and negative keywords |
Who each suits
| Your situation | Often a better starting point | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Established business with strong reviews that answers every call | Local Services Ads | Reviews and responsiveness are among the factors Google has pointed to |
| New business with few reviews | Google Ads, while you build reviews | Your rating and review count show on every LSA and affect where you appear |
| Want specific high-value jobs (system replacements, panel upgrades, full re-roofs) | Google Ads with a campaign and page for each | You choose the exact searches and send them to a page built for that job |
| Job types not covered by LSAs where you work | Google Ads | LSAs aren't an option for that work |
| Little time to manage ads | Local Services Ads | Less to adjust from week to week |
| Nobody can answer calls during the day | Neither, yet | Fix call handling first, since both depend on answering |
That last row matters. Both options send you people who want help now. If calls go to voicemail, you're paying for leads you'll lose. At the very least, make sure a missed call gets an immediate text back.
Compare them on cost per booked job
Cost per lead and cost per click aren't the same thing, so compare the results you actually care about:
Cost per booked job = spend ÷ jobs booked
Revenue per ad dollar = revenue from those jobs ÷ spend
Here's a hypothetical example. The numbers are invented to show the method, not to predict what you'd pay.
Imagine a two-truck plumbing company that runs both for a month:
| Local Services Ads | Google Ads (water heater campaign) | |
|---|---|---|
| Spend | $1,200 | $1,500 |
| Leads | 24 charged leads | 30 calls and forms from 300 clicks |
| Booked jobs | 12 | 10 |
| Cost per booked job | $100 | $150 |
| Average job value | $400 (mixed repairs) | $900 (replacements) |
| Revenue | $4,800 | $9,000 |
| Revenue per ad dollar | $4.00 | $6.00 |
On cost per booked job, the LSAs win. On revenue per ad dollar, the targeted Google Ads campaign wins, because it was aimed at bigger jobs. Neither number tells the whole story. Look at both, along with your profit margin on each type of job. Job costing explains how to work out that margin.
Getting Local Services Ads right
Getting Google Ads right
For the landing page side, see contractor website design: 15 details that win jobs.
How this plays out in different trades
- Emergency-heavy trades (plumbing, HVAC, garage doors, electrical repair) are a natural fit for pay-per-lead ads, because a lead is often a call from someone who needs help now. That only works if someone answers every call.
- Big-ticket replacements (HVAC systems, water heaters, panels, roofs) are where a focused Google Ads campaign and a strong landing page can earn their keep.
- Recurring services (cleaning, lawn care, pest control) should judge both on the value of a recurring customer, not just the first visit.
- Seasonal trades (roofing after storms, landscaping in spring, painting before the exterior season) can raise and lower budgets on either platform as demand changes.
Running both together
Many businesses use both. A common setup is LSAs for core service and emergency calls, and Google Ads for specific high-value jobs, for services LSAs don't cover, or for areas where LSAs don't show you often. Watch for:
- Overlap. Both may appear for the same search. That's not necessarily bad, but know what each one costs you per booked job.
- Tracking. Record the source of every call and form. LSA leads appear in their own dashboard. For Google Ads, use call tracking and conversion tracking.
- Budget creep. Set one monthly total across both and review it every month.
And remember the free placement underneath all of this: your Google Business Profile in the map results. Paid ads tend to work better when your profile is complete and your reviews are strong. Local SEO for plumbers covers the basics, and most of it applies to any trade. For tracking every source in one place, see marketing analytics: which calls came from where.
Whichever ads you run, they only pay off if the calls get answered and followed up. Zome's missed call text back is built for exactly that gap, and the free AI report shows how your Google profile and website look to the people your ads bring in.
