google-adslocal-servicesperformance-max

Local Services Ads are moving into Performance Max: preserve reports and rebuild bidding boundaries

Google is moving select Local Services Ads into pay-per-lead Performance Max. Export history, map bidding rules and verify settings before the migration.

The short version

Google is automatically moving select U.S. Local Services Ads accounts into a specialized, pay-per-lead Performance Max campaign type from August 2026. Historical performance reports will not transfer into Google Ads, weekly budgets will become daily averages, and manual or vertical-level bidding controls will change.

Export the old reports before migration, document every vertical-specific Target CPA rule, and compare the migrated campaign with the pre-migration baseline. Account administrators should receive notices 14 and 7 days before the move.

What is changing

The first phase covers select U.S. home and storefront service advertisers. Google says the migration will expand later in 2026, with non-U.S. advertisers and remaining service categories following in 2027.

The destination is not an ordinary ecommerce Performance Max campaign. It is a specialized Local Services campaign inside Google Ads, optimized for pay-per-lead goals.

Google says existing targeting and core campaign settings transfer, and past leads transfer. Historical campaign performance reports do not transfer into the new Google Ads campaign.

That distinction matters: the lead history may still exist while the reporting baseline used for budget and bidding decisions disappears from the campaign view.

Export the reporting baseline first

Before the migration window, save enough evidence to explain performance on both sides of the change.

Export:

  • weekly spend, leads and charged leads;
  • lead type and service category where available;
  • cost per lead and dispute or credit outcomes;
  • budget history and material settings changes;
  • geography, hours and targeting settings;
  • bidding mode and Target CPA by vertical;
  • the reporting window, pull date, timezone and account ID.

Keep the raw export beside the report used by operators. A screenshot is useful for orientation but not sufficient for reconciliation.

After migration, do not join the old and new campaign histories into one uninterrupted trend without an explicit boundary. The campaign type, reporting surface, budget representation and bidding controls have changed.

Convert weekly budgets deliberately

Local Services Ads uses weekly budgets. Google Ads represents budgets as daily averages.

Record the old weekly amount and the migrated daily amount before anyone edits the campaign. Check that the implied weekly spend is commercially acceptable, then monitor actual pacing during the first complete weeks.

Do not diagnose a pacing difference from one or two days. Compare complete, like-for-like periods and account for weekday demand, service hours and lead lag.

Rebuild vertical-level bidding boundaries

Manual bidding and vertical-level Target CPA are deprecated in the migration. If one Local Services campaign currently uses different Target CPA rules for different service verticals, separate campaigns are needed to preserve those bidding boundaries.

Before migration:

  1. List every service vertical in the account.
  2. Record its current bidding mode and Target CPA.
  3. Mark which verticals share the same economics and acceptable lead cost.
  4. Identify verticals that need separate campaigns after migration.
  5. Set the campaign split before new performance data accumulates under the wrong target.

Do not copy one Target CPA across verticals merely to simplify setup. A plumbing emergency lead, routine cleaning lead and high-value legal enquiry can have very different qualification rates and contribution.

Verify what transferred

Google says targeting and core settings transfer, but the migrated campaign still needs an acceptance check.

Review:

  • service categories and vertical membership;
  • location targeting and exclusions;
  • business hours and lead availability;
  • budget and bidding target;
  • conversion and lead goals;
  • creative and business information;
  • account access and notification owners.

Record the old value, migrated value and any correction. The migration is complete only when the campaign matches the intended operating model—not when the new campaign merely exists.

Protect measurement across the boundary

Use three reporting periods:

  1. a closed pre-migration baseline;
  2. the migration interval, kept separate;
  3. the first complete post-migration period.

Compare lead volume, charged-lead rate, cost per charged lead, qualification rate and downstream commercial value. Keep platform lead metrics separate from the business’s own qualified-lead and revenue records.

A lower platform cost per lead is not necessarily an improvement if lead quality falls. Likewise, a reporting step change is not proof that demand or conversion quality changed.

Annotate dashboards with the exact migration date and any campaign split. Preserve the old campaign identifier and map it to every new campaign identifier.

A practical migration checklist

Before the 14-day notice

  • Confirm the account administrator and notification email are current.
  • Inventory Local Services campaigns, verticals, budgets and bidding rules.
  • Schedule the historical export and assign an owner.

After the notice

  • Export the reporting baseline.
  • Design any campaign splits needed for different Target CPA rules.
  • Save screenshots and machine-readable settings where possible.
  • Define the post-migration acceptance checks.

Immediately after migration

  • Verify transferred targeting and settings.
  • Confirm the weekly-to-daily budget conversion.
  • Create separate campaigns for verticals that need different targets.
  • Annotate reports and map old identifiers to new ones.

After the first complete reporting period

  • Reconcile platform leads with qualified leads and downstream value.
  • Compare against a like-for-like pre-migration period.
  • Investigate measurement or definition changes before changing bids.

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