The short version
- Emergency trades (plumbing, HVAC repair, electrical, garage door) usually fund Local Services first. Big-job trades (roofing, remodeling, windows) fund Search first.
- Compare them on cost per booked job, not cost per lead against cost per click.
- In one account, the same homeowner can show up as a lead in both. Count booked jobs once, by phone number.
- In Australia and New Zealand there’s no choice to make: Search only.
US benchmarks · USD. Every cost in this guide is a US figure, in US dollars, from US accounts and studies. Use it as a guide until your own account has numbers.
On this page · 7 parts
Should you run Local Services, Search, or both?
Both, if your trade has Local Services in your country and your budget can feed two campaigns properly. They do different jobs on the same results page:
- Local Services sit at the very top, in their own block, and you pay per lead. They’re built for the homeowner who wants someone on the phone now.
- Search ads sit below, and you pay per click. You pick the searches, write the ad and choose the page it sends people to.
The catch is coverage. WebFX ran 500 home-service searches in May 2026, and Local Services showed on only about 28% of them: 36% for garage door, 32% plumbing, 28% HVAC, 25% electrical and 21% roofing.[1] On every other search, there’s no Local Services block, and your Search ad is the top paid result. Run Local Services alone and you sit out most searches in your trade.
If you can only fund one well, pick by trade, below. How Local Services work, rank and charge is on the main Local Services page.
Local Services Ads don’t run in either country, so there’s nothing to choose. Run Search with call assets. What that looks like is on the main Local Services page.
How do the two share one Google Ads account?
In the US, once your account moves, your Local Services campaign becomes a pay-per-lead Performance Max campaign in the same Google Ads account as your Search campaigns. What to save before that happens is in the before-the-move checklist. Outside the US, Local Services keep their own dashboard until 2027.
Sharing an account doesn’t mean sharing a budget. Each campaign has its own. The Local Services budget becomes a daily average, your old weekly budget ÷ 7, and the month is capped at that average × 30.4.[2] Your Search campaigns keep their own daily budgets. Set each one on purpose, from the jobs you want, not from whatever’s left over. The method is in the budget guide.
They bid differently too. Local Services now run on one target cost per lead for the whole campaign. Search uses your own bid strategy, often a target cost per conversion. A conversion is a call or form that your own tracking counts as a lead. One number is what Google charges per lead, the other is what your clicks cost per tracked conversion. Don’t copy one number into the other. Setting a Search target is covered in Smart Bidding.
What Google hasn’t documented, as of October 2026, is how a pay-per-lead campaign and a Search campaign in the same account interact in the auction. Google says Local Services keep “the same ad positions as before”, and in WebFX’s sample they were always first. Judge each on its own numbers.
How do you compare cost per lead with cost per click?
Don’t compare them directly. Compare what each booked job cost. Local Services charge per valid lead, and clicks are free.[3] What counts as a valid lead, including missed calls, is on the main Local Services page. Search charges per click, so your cost per lead there is spend divided by the clicks that became calls or forms. They’re different meters, so the fair test is further down the line.
The one public dataset that puts them side by side is a vendor benchmark from SearchLight. The two halves come from different months: Local Services from February 2026, Google Ads from January 2026.[4]
| Campaign | Cost per lead | Book rate (leads that booked) | Cost per paying customer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local Services (888 contractors) | $53 | 43.9% | $233 |
| Google Ads, non-brand (816 contractors) | $149 | 37.6% | $804 |
| Google Ads, blended | $104 | 41.7% | $472 |
Non-brand means searches that don’t include your business name. Blended means all campaigns together. On those numbers, Local Services look far cheaper. Read the fine print before you move budget. SearchLight’s Local Services figures are before credits. Branded searches, people already typing your name, cost $34 a lead in the same data, which pulls the blended figure down. And a Local Services lead only exists for the searches where Local Services show. A $149 Search lead for a roof replacement isn’t the same thing as a $53 call about a leaky faucet.
Your own numbers beat both: spend, leads, booked jobs and revenue for each campaign, every month. Offline conversions send booked jobs back to Google for Search, and the metrics guide covers which numbers to ignore.
Which should you fund first for your trade?
Pick by the kind of job your money needs to find.
| Your work | Fund first | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency and repair: burst pipe, no heat, AC repair, garage door off its track, power out in half the house | Local Services | The homeowner wants a call now. Local Services showed on 25–36% of these searches, and you pay only when they reach you. |
| Big jobs: roof replacement, remodels, windows, foundation repair, pool builds | Search | You pick “roof replacement” over “roof leak repair”, bid to what the job is worth, and send people to a quote page. Local Services showed on 21% of roofing searches. |
| Both, like an HVAC company doing repairs and system installs | Local Services for repairs, Search for installs | Each campaign goes after the job it’s built for. |
Why Search for big jobs? Local Services are keywordless. You choose job types, and Google matches searches to them.[5] After the move, one target cost per lead covers every job type in the campaign, so a full replacement lead and a quick repair lead share one target. Search lets you split them, bid to what each is worth and write an ad for each. See service campaigns and keyword research.
Why Local Services for emergencies? The homeowner with water on the floor calls the first business that looks trustworthy. Local Services put your reviews and Google Verified badge above everything else, and charge only when the homeowner reaches you. But only if someone picks up. Missed calls in business hours are billed, and Google says they can hurt your ranking.[6]
Not every trade gets to choose. Some categories aren’t offered in Local Services, or not in your country. Check at g.co/localservices. If yours isn’t there, Search is the whole plan. How we run it trade by trade is on our pages for plumbers, HVAC companies, roofers and every other home service.
How do you stop them working against each other?
Count each homeowner once, answer both the same way, and match their hours and areas. The bigger risk isn’t the auction. It’s two campaigns blurring your numbers and splitting your phones. Four fixes:
Read each campaign’s leads on their own
A conversion action is the thing Google counts as a lead. Pay-per-lead campaigns come with their own: “Phone call lead”, “Leads from messages” and “Book appointments”. Phone calls are a required primary goal (primary goals are the ones the bidding aims at), and you can’t add your own conversion actions to these campaigns.[7] Your Search campaigns count calls and forms with the tracking you set up. So one homeowner can count twice: they tap your Search ad on Monday, then call from your Local Services ad on Tuesday. Read each campaign’s own conversions column. Don’t add them up and call it your lead count. Conversion tracking covers the Search side, and call tracking covers the phone numbers.
Count booked jobs once, by phone number
Download your Local Services leads from the Leads page and match them against your Search calls and forms by phone number. Give the job to the first contact, or any rule you like, as long as it’s the same every month. Inside Local Services, Google already charges repeat contact from the same number only once within 15 days.[3] Across the two campaigns, nobody does that for you.
Answer both the same way
Local Services calls ring the number set in the campaign. Search calls ring the number on your call asset, the phone number attached to your Search ad. Both should reach the same people, same script, same hours. A missed Local Services call is billed. A missed Search call has already cost you the click. Either way, the homeowner rings someone else.
Match your hours and areas
Keep the ad schedule (the hours your ads run) and service areas consistent. If Local Services stop at 6pm because nobody answers after that, Search shouldn’t run all night into the same voicemail. If Search covers three counties and Local Services one, you’ll misread which one “works”. See location targeting.
Both campaigns report their leads, you add the two together, and the total looks great. Some of those homeowners were counted twice, so you move budget on a number that isn’t real.
You match both lead lists by phone number each month, count each homeowner once, and move budget to whichever campaign books jobs for less.
How does Clique to Close run both?
We run Local Services and Search in one account, as one plan:
- Local Services for the call-now searches, with job types and service areas kept to the work you want.
- Search for the big jobs and every search with no Local Services block, each ad sending people to a quote page for that service and that town.
- Every call answered inside 60 seconds, day and night, so no call from either campaign rings out.
- One Cost-Per-Booked-Job Scoreboard, so you see what each booked job cost you, by campaign.
See how Clique to Close works and pricing.
FAQ
Do Local Services Ads take budget from my Search campaigns?
No. Each campaign has its own budget. They only fight over money if one of them gets “whatever’s left”.
Are Local Services cheaper than Search?
Per lead, usually, in SearchLight’s numbers in the table above. But that’s a vendor benchmark from two different months, and the jobs aren’t always the same kind. Judge it on your own booked jobs.
Can my Local Services ad and my Search ad show on the same search?
Yes. Local Services sit in their own block at the top, and Search ads can show below them. Google hasn’t documented how the two interact in the auction, as of October 2026.
Can I run Local Services without Search?
You can, if you’re an emergency trade on a tight budget and someone always answers. You’ll miss the searches with no Local Services block: about 72% in WebFX’s sample.
What about Australia and New Zealand?
Search only. Local Services Ads aren’t offered there, so put the budget into Search campaigns with call assets.
Sources
- 1. WebFX via Stacker, “Google Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max: What to save before your account migrates”, Sep 17, 2026 (opens in a new tab) ↩
- 2. Google Ads Help, “Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals”, checked Oct 28, 2026 (opens in a new tab) ↩
- 3. Google Ads Help, “How leads work in Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals”, checked Oct 28, 2026 (opens in a new tab) ↩
- 4. SearchLight, “Google Local Service Ads Cost Per Lead by Trade (2026)”, March 2026 (vendor benchmark; Google Ads comparison from 816 contractors, Jan 2026) (opens in a new tab) ↩
- 5. Local Services Help, “About reaching customers with your Local Services Ads”, checked Oct 28, 2026 (opens in a new tab) ↩
- 6. Local Services Help, “About ad rankings”, checked Oct 28, 2026 (opens in a new tab) ↩
- 7. Google Ads Help, “About goals and leads for pay-per-lead goals”, checked Oct 28, 2026 (opens in a new tab) ↩
