TLDR
Google announced in July 2026 that Local Services Ads campaigns will be automatically migrated into a specialised Performance Max pay-per-lead campaign type inside Google Ads, starting with select US advertisers in August 2026. Pay-per-lead billing, Search and Maps-only placement, and keywordless targeting all stay put, but campaign management shifts into Google Ads and weekly budgets are divided by seven to produce daily figures. Historical performance data does not carry over, so advertisers must export their records before their individual migration date or lose access permanently. Non-US accounts, including Australian advertisers, are scheduled for migration through 2027.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What Google announced and when it takes effect
Google confirmed in July 2026 that Local Services Ads will cease to exist as a standalone product, with all campaigns automatically converted into a specialised Performance Max campaign type configured for pay-per-lead goals.[1] The change consolidates two historically separate management interfaces into a single Google Ads account, ending the parallel Local Services Ads dashboard that service businesses have used since the product launched in 2015.
Performance Max has been Google's AI-driven, single-campaign solution since 2021, spanning Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Maps. The new pay-per-lead variant is deliberately narrower, retaining only Search and Maps inventory to preserve the high-intent character that made Local Services Ads useful to tradespeople and professional service firms.
Which advertisers are affected first and the rollout timeline to Australia
Google is rolling out the migration in phases: August 2026 for select US home and storefront service advertisers, including those in pet care, home services, wellness and education; late 2026 for broader US groups covering service-area-only businesses and custom-bidding accounts; and through 2027 for non-US accounts and remaining categories.verifiedVerified Source: support.google.com[1] Australian advertisers fall into that final international cohort.
The phased structure gives Google room to identify friction points in the US population before extending the change globally. Local service businesses in Australia running Google Guaranteed or Google Screened campaigns have until their 2027 migration date to prepare, though Google has not published specific country-by-country dates.
What actually changes: budget conversion, campaign management and reporting
On migration day, weekly budgets are converted into average daily budgets by dividing the weekly figure by seven, and monthly spend remains capped at the daily budget multiplied by 30.4.verifiedVerified Source: support.google.com[1] Advertisers who set budgets in weekly terms will need to check their daily equivalent is financially comfortable before the switchover arrives.
Campaign management moves entirely into Google Ads, shifting billing, optimisation controls and performance dashboards into that interface. The more consequential operational change concerns reporting: historical campaign-level performance data including impressions, clicks, spend and ad-level reports does not carry over into Google Ads, and advertisers must export or download prior reports before their migration date.verifiedVerified Source: support.google.com[1]
That data loss is permanent. Businesses that rely on year-on-year seasonal comparisons or need historical lead-volume records for internal reporting will find the gap hard to reconstruct after the fact. Google's instruction is unambiguous: pull the data before migration day, not after.
What stays the same: pay-per-lead billing, placement and targeting
The Google Ads Product Team was direct on the core commercial terms. According to the Product Team, advertisers still only pay for valid leads such as phone calls and messages, rather than ad clicks.[1] For service businesses whose margins depend on paying only for genuine customer contacts, that assurance is the structural point the migration turns on.
Placement is equally preserved. According to the Product Team, ads in Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals will continue to show exclusively on Google Search and Google Maps in the same ad positions as before, as was the case with Local Services Ads.[1] The migration does not route Local Services advertisers into Display, YouTube or Gmail inventory, which would substantially alter cost and audience quality.
Keywordless targeting also carries over unchanged, with ads continuing to match against service categories rather than advertiser-nominated keyword lists.[1] For a plumber or electrician with no paid search experience, that matters: the system stays operable without keyword management skills.
What local service businesses should do before migration day
Google's guidance resolves to three preparatory actions. First, export all historical performance reports from the Local Services Ads dashboard before the migration date, since those records will not be retrievable through Google Ads afterward.[1] Second, calculate the daily budget equivalent of any weekly budget currently in place and confirm it reflects actual intended spend. Third, ensure the Google Ads account linked to the Local Services Ads profile is in good standing, since that is where campaign controls will live post-migration.
US advertisers in the August 2026 cohort have the least runway; Australian and other non-US advertisers have until sometime through 2027, with Google yet to publish country-specific dates for the international rollout.[1]
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Will my Local Services Ads stop running during the migration?
Does the migration change how much I pay per lead?
When will Australian advertisers be migrated?
What happens to my historical data after migration?
Diana Trent writes about regulation, competition and the law as it meets technology. She reads the judgments and the regulator filings that most people skip, and finds the story in them.
