Performance Max Ads in Pittsburgh.
Google is folding Local Services Ads into a specialized Performance Max campaign type with pay-per-lead goals. Phase one lands in August 2026 for United States home and storefront service advertisers. You still only pay for valid leads. But the dashboard is retired, manual bidding is removed, your weekly budget gets resliced, and your campaign reporting history does not come with you. This page is what changes, in order, with nothing invented.
Local Services Ads Are Not Being Shut Down. They Are Being Moved.
Almost everything written about this gets it backwards. The ads survive. The format survives, the placement on Search and Maps survives, and the pay-per-lead billing survives. What is being retired is the container: the standalone Local Services Ads dashboard, which will redirect into the Google Ads campaign overview once your account moves. Your campaign becomes a specialized Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals, a goal type that did not exist in Google Ads before this.
You Still Pay per Lead
The billing model comes across intact. Google's own wording is that you still only pay for valid leads. Pay-per-lead goals were built into Google Ads specifically so this could move without changing what you are charged for.
Your Verification Comes With You
Verification and background screening transfer automatically, with no license or insurance reverification. This is the part owners brace for and it is the part that is genuinely handled.
The Dashboard Is What Dies
The app and the standalone dashboard go away and you end up in the Google Ads campaign overview. That sounds cosmetic. The controls on the other side are different ones.
Every Piece of Your Campaign, and Which Side of the Line It Lands On.
This is the whole migration on one screen. Each row is stated in Google's own documentation, and the rows that say "gone" are the ones worth your attention this quarter.
| What it is | After the migration | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| The ad format | Survives | Same ad, same Search and Maps placement. Your customer sees no difference. |
| Pay-per-lead billing | Survives | You still only pay for valid leads. |
| Verification and screening | Transfers automatically | No license or insurance reverification. |
| Lead history | Migrates | The leads themselves come across with you. |
| The LSA dashboard | Retired | Redirects into the Google Ads campaign overview. A different interface, with different controls. |
| Manual bidding | No longer supported | The throttle a lot of owners used is gone. Automated bidding runs the campaign instead. |
| Weekly budget | Auto-divided by 7 | Becomes a daily budget. Same weekly total, different pacing across the week. |
| Campaign-level history | Does not migrate | Export it before you move. There is no going back for it afterwards. |
Read that table twice and you will notice the pattern. Everything your customer sees survives. Almost everything you use to control the campaign changes. That is why this is a management problem, and why the businesses that get hurt by it will be the ones who assumed an automatic migration meant nothing to do.
Phase One Is August 2026. Whether That Is You Depends on Your Category.
Google is rolling this out in waves. There is no published per account date, so the honest way to answer "when does this hit me" is to find the phase your trade and your country sit in.
- Aug 2026Phase one. Select United States home and storefront service advertisers. If you are a Pittsburgh area trade running Local Services Ads today, this is the wave to plan around.
- Oct 2026Booking conversions launch. Relevant if customers schedule with you directly out of the ad rather than calling, because that is the conversion type the campaign will start optimizing toward.
- Late 2026Service area businesses come in, along with custom bidding and booking. Professional services are expected in this window too. If you drive to the customer rather than having them come to a storefront, this is your phase.
- 2027Non United States accounts and the remaining categories. Advanced verification trades, locksmiths and garage door companies among them, are expected here.
Sourced from Google Ads Help articles 17213585 and 17325249 and Local Services Help 16498018, checked 22 August 2026. There is no blog post announcement on this. If somebody quotes you a specific date for your own account, ask them which document it came from.
The Migration Runs Itself. The Damage Shows Up Later.
Nothing here throws an error or emails you a warning. These are three changes that land silently and only show up later, in the cost per lead or in a report you cannot pull anymore.
Automated Bidding Inherits Your Budget
Manual bidding is no longer supported. Whatever restraint you were applying by hand is now applied by a system optimizing toward a goal, and if that goal is set carelessly it will happily buy you a different kind of lead than the one you built your business on.
Your Budget Gets Resliced by Seven
The weekly budget is auto-divided by seven into a daily budget. The weekly total is the same, so it looks like nothing happened. Pacing across the week is not the same, and for trades with a Monday spike or a weekend dead zone, that matters more than the total does.
Your Reporting History Evaporates
Campaign-level historical metrics do not migrate. Lead history does. So you keep the leads and lose the story of what they cost you. Anyone who wants to prove the channel works next year needs that export taken this year.
Nobody in Your Business Has Opened This Interface
The person checking leads on their phone between jobs is now looking at a Google Ads campaign overview. That is a real operational change, and it is the one most likely to end with a campaign nobody has looked at in six weeks.
The Google Guarantee Is Already Gone. This Is a Separate Change, and It Has Already Happened.
It landed in 2025, and a surprising number of local marketing pages are still selling around a badge that no longer exists.
The Google Guarantee and Its Money-Back Guarantee
Discontinued 20 October 2025.
The badge and the consumer money-back guarantee behind it were both retired. The window for consumers to claim reimbursement under it closed on 7 December 2025.
If an agency is pitching you on getting Google Guaranteed, that is a tell. It has not been a thing for the better part of a year.
A Single Google Verified Badge
Automatic conversion.
All advertisers now carry one Google Verified badge instead. Existing verified businesses were converted automatically and no action was required from anybody.
Which is genuinely good news operationally. It is one badge, one standard, and one less thing to maintain a claim about on your website.
Two Jobs: Save What You Are About to Lose, Then Run What You End Up With.
Split cleanly into before and after, because they are genuinely different pieces of work. The first has a deadline you cannot recover from. The second is where the money is either made or quietly wasted for the next two years.
Before You Move
- ✓Export your campaign-level reporting while it still exists, because it does not come with you.
- ✓Write down your current cost per lead and lead volume, so you have a real baseline to judge the new campaign against.
- ✓Confirm your Google Ads account access is in your name, not an old agency's. Find that out before migration day.
- ✓Work out what your weekly budget looks like divided by seven, and whether that daily number is one you are happy running unattended.
- ✓Check your verification status is current. It transfers on its own, but transferring a problem still leaves you with a problem.
After You Move
- ✓Set the pay-per-lead goal properly, because automated bidding now optimizes toward whatever it is pointed at.
- ✓Watch the first weeks of pacing closely, since daily budgeting spends differently from weekly budgeting even at the same total.
- ✓Review lead quality by hand. The system counts a lead. Only a person can tell you it was the wrong kind of job.
- ✓Dispute invalid leads. That process still matters, and it matters more when a bidding system is learning from what it is fed.
- ✓Report monthly in plain English against the baseline you saved, which is the only way to answer whether the move cost you anything.
This sits inside our Google Ads management, which starts at $1,000 a month and is quoted per business. Your ad spend stays yours, on your own card, never marked up. If all you want is somebody watching the account through the migration, say so and we will scope it to that.
Worth Saying Plainly, Before You Spend Twenty Minutes on a Call.
This Is for You If
- ✓You run Local Services Ads today and they bring you real work.
- ✓You are a home or storefront service business in or around Pittsburgh, which puts you in the first phase.
- ✓You want your reporting exported before the move, because afterwards it is gone.
- ✓You do not want to be the person learning a new Google Ads interface with live spend running through it.
This Is Not for You If
- ✕You have never run Local Services Ads. There is nothing to migrate, so start with the ordinary Google Ads conversation instead.
- ✕You want a guaranteed cost per lead after the move. Nobody has one. The campaign type is new and anyone quoting you a number is quoting you a feeling.
- ✕You want us to stop the migration or opt you out of it. It is not optional and it is not ours to stop.
- ✕You need somebody physically in your office. We work remotely and we are good at it, but we are not going to be sitting with you.
The Things People Ask Before They Sign.
Are Local Services Ads being shut down?
No, and this is the thing that gets reported wrong. The ads are not going away. The campaign is being moved into Google Ads and rebuilt as a specialized Performance Max campaign type with pay-per-lead goals.
The ad format survives. The placement on Search and Maps survives. The pay-per-lead billing survives. What is retired is the standalone Local Services Ads dashboard, which will redirect you into the Google Ads campaign overview instead.
When does this happen to me?
It depends on your category and your country. Phase one is August 2026 and covers select United States home and storefront service advertisers. Late 2026 brings in service area businesses, along with custom bidding and booking. 2027 covers non United States accounts and the remaining categories.
Advanced verification trades such as locksmiths and garage door companies are expected in 2027, and professional services in late 2026. Booking conversions launch in October 2026. Google has not published a per account date, so the only honest answer for a specific business is the phase it falls into.
Do I still only pay per lead?
Yes. This is the part owners assume is being taken away and it is not. Google's documentation is direct about it: you still only pay for valid leads.
Pay-per-lead goals are a new goal type inside Google Ads that did not exist there before this migration, and they exist specifically so the billing model can survive the move. Your cost structure is not what changes here. Your controls are.
Do I have to get verified again?
No. Verification and background screening transfer automatically, and there is no license or insurance reverification as part of the migration.
Worth knowing separately: the Google Guarantee badge and its money-back guarantee were discontinued on 20 October 2025 and replaced by a single Google Verified badge for all advertisers. That conversion was automatic too. If you are still being sold something built around the Google Guarantee, the person selling it has not read a Google document in a year.
What gets harder after the migration?
Three things. Manual bidding is no longer supported, so the lever a lot of owners used to throttle spend is simply gone and the campaign runs on automated bidding instead.
Your weekly budget is auto-divided by seven into a daily budget, which changes how spend paces across a week even though the weekly total looks the same. And Performance Max is a fundamentally different interface from the Local Services Ads app, so whoever has been checking leads on their phone in the van is now looking at a Google Ads campaign overview.
Do I lose my performance history?
Partly, and this is the one thing on this page with a deadline attached. Campaign-level historical metrics do not migrate. Your lead history does.
So the leads themselves come across, but the campaign reporting that shows what you spent and what it returned over the last two years does not. If you want that data, it has to be exported before your account moves, because there is no way to go back for it afterwards.
Do I need to do anything, or does it just happen?
The migration happens either way. Google runs it, and it does not need your approval.
What is worth doing beforehand is small and finite: export your reporting, write down your current cost per lead so you have a baseline to compare against, check that your Google Ads account access is in your own name rather than an old agency's, and know what your weekly budget divided by seven looks like as a daily number.
That is most of it. The work after the move is the real work, because that is when automated bidding starts making decisions nobody in your business has checked.
Who manages this for me?
We do, and it sits inside our Google Ads management, which starts at $1,000 a month and is quoted per business. Your ad spend is separate, it goes to Google directly on your own card, and we never mark it up.
If you already run Local Services Ads and only want somebody watching the account through the migration, say that on the call and we will scope it to that rather than selling you a whole program you did not ask for.
Tell Us Your Trade. We'll Tell You Which Phase You Are In.
One conversation. What you do, where you do it, and whether you run Local Services Ads today. We come back with the phase your category falls into, the list of things worth exporting before your account moves, and what running the campaign properly on the other side would cost. You keep the list either way. Most of this work is for trades across the Pittsburgh metro, which sits squarely in the first phase.