Is it the ads, or what happens after the phone rings?

Because Google judges itself on what it’s told to count. If a short call counts as a lead, voicemails and hang-ups count too, and Google finds you more of them. Your booked jobs sit in ServiceTitan, Jobber or Housecall Pro, where Google can’t see them unless they’re sent back. And one target for every job hides what each job is worth.

Field Notes: half my calls are junk. Is that normal?

At $10K or more a month, I run both. LSA charges per lead and takes less setup. Regular Google Ads lets you pick the jobs you pay to show up for, like panel upgrades or water heater installs. I compare them on what a booked job costs.

Field Notes: LSA vs Google Ads for trades

If you’re in the US and don’t have a storefront, your LSA account is set to start moving into Google Ads in late 2026. It becomes a campaign type inside Google Ads called Performance Max, and it still charges per lead. Some US accounts started moving in August 2026. Accounts outside the US follow in 2027. Your old LSA performance reports don’t move across, so save them first. Setting your own maximum cost per lead goes away. Google advises setting a target cost per lead only once a campaign gets more than 15 leads a month.

Google’s page on the move · Field Notes: what changes

Yes. It used to be called Google My Business, and it’s part of the work. I set the categories and services to the jobs you want, post every week with your job photos, and reply to every review. Review requests go out from your booking software after each job, so your techs need to close jobs in it. You stay the owner, and I work as a manager on the profile. I don’t promise map rankings. No one can.

No one can promise that. Google rechecks charged leads on its own and may credit low-quality ones automatically, usually within 30 days. It no longer credits leads for a job type or an area you don’t serve. You can’t make Google credit a lead. What you can control is which leads you pay for, by choosing the job types you take and the area you serve.

Google’s credit policy

Probably not, if you spend $10K or more a month on Google Ads and LSA. Each location of the 14-location franchise has its own Google Ads account. In my first 10 weeks those locations averaged roughly $13,000 a month each, and seven of the 13 locations running ads spent under $15,000 a month. The method doesn’t change with size. One shop has fewer booked jobs for Google to learn from, so it takes longer to move from bidding on calls to bidding on booked jobs.

The results on this page are electrical and plumbing. The plumbing location went from $212 to $156 per booked job over the same 13 summer weeks a year apart. The method doesn’t change by trade: count real calls, send booked jobs back to Google, set a target per job type. What changes is the targets, because a furnace install, a drain clean and a panel upgrade aren’t worth the same. The Read shows how your account counts calls and jobs today, whatever the trade.

On an account I haven’t worked on before, the first month goes on getting the tracking right. Google learns on calls first, then on calls worth booking, then on booked jobs. That takes a few weeks. At month 1, 2 and 3, we check against the numbers we wrote down at the start. Every change gets a date to judge it on, written down before it’s made. One slow week is noise.

One question: of last month’s booked jobs, how many could you match to an ad, and how many not? If they say all of them, they aren’t checking. If they point you to a monthly report, your job records and your ads aren’t connected. The Read checks that, whether you keep your agency or not.

You get a shared Slack channel with me, and reporting on the numbers we wrote down at the start: cost per booked job, from your own job records. We get on a call when there’s a decision to make.

I quote at the end of the Read, once I’ve seen the account and we both know it’s a fit. You get the fee and the terms in writing before anything starts. The Read itself is free.

Three months, then month to month. Give 30 days’ written notice any time; it takes effect at month three at the earliest. You keep the accounts, conversion actions and data. They’re yours from day one.