Local Services Ads To Performance Max: What To Audit Before Migration via @sejournal, @hethr_campbell

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SEJ STAFF Heather Campbell 37 seconds ago ⋅ 5 min read SEJ STAFF Heather Campbell VP of Sales & Marketing at Search Engine Journal Bio Follow Moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads is not just a dashboard change. Advertisers also need to download historical reporting, check new budget and bidding settings, and confirm that calls still reach the right tracking numbers. In this on-demand webinar, Meagan McLoughlin explained how advertisers and agencies can prepare for the planned move into Performance Max. Her central distinction: the management tools are changing more than the ads people see. The practical starting point is an account audit. Here are the checks she emphasized. Meagan described the migrated campaigns as a specialized, pay-per-lead version of Performance Max. They are expected to retain Local Services Ads placements on Google Search and Maps, rather than automatically expanding into the full set of placements associated with standard PMax campaigns. The more consequential changes happen behind the scenes: campaign management and lead management move into Google Ads, weekly budgets become daily budgets, and manual bidding and service-category-level targets give way to a campaign-level target CPA with automated bidding. For advertisers that previously set different targets across service categories, new campaign-level targeting may require a fresh look at campaign structure. Meagan framed that as a planning issue to address, not a reason to assume every existing setup will stop working. Saving historical performance reports is a pre-migration priority. As Meagan pointed out, “One big thing that I would put like a star next to is your historical local service ad performance reporting does not transfer. So make sure you take the time to download those historical reports and save those in advance.” Remember, the reports you’re exporting are in your LSA platform, not the new Google Ads dashboard. Agencies should make the export an explicit step for each account as they migrate. According to McLoughlin, Google had told CallRail that existing preferred LSA tracking numbers should carry over. McLoughlin also said Google had confirmed that the Business Profile phone number and the preferred campaign number are separate fields. Her advice was still to check both after migration rather than treating expected behavior as proof that an individual account transferred correctly. A weekly budget converted into a daily setting can change how a team monitors spend, even if its overall budget plan has not changed. McLoughlin recommended reviewing the converted budget and target CPA with clients so that everyone understands the new controls. More automated bidding makes it important to check lead quality alongside volume. She emphasized the value of keeping call data outside the ad platform: “Your call recordings, your transcripts, your attribution, your lead intelligence can give you an independent view of performance so you can continue making those decisions with confidence.” Those records, together with qualification tags, can help document poor-fit leads and support a review or dispute to get that lead cost refunded. That is not a promise of a refund: in the Q&A, McLoughlin noted that getting a chargeback has become harder. The useful takeaway is to retain evidence, not assume every disputed lead will be credited. For agencies, a staggered rollout creates an operational problem as well as a technical one. McLoughlin recommended a tracker with each account’s migration date and a clear owner for the notices. She also raised a scope question: an agency may manage Google Ads without managing a client’s Local Services Ads. Bringing both into one interface does not resolve who is responsible for the work or whether it is included in the retainer. A repeatable process should cover exporting reports, documenting the current setup, auditing Business Profile information, checking the migrated settings, and reviewing lead volume and quality afterward. The webinar’s agency walkthrough explains how to turn those checks into a shared workflow instead of a series of client emergencies. Start the audit while the account is still in the LSA platform. The reports and settings you save now give you a reference for checking the campaign after it moves to Google Ads. Watch Meagan’s on-demand audit walkthrough for the before-and-after comparison behind these checks, including how the budget and bidding controls change. Join us as Lisa Salvatore, Sr. Manager of Integrated Marketing at CallTrackingMetrics, walks through how to pull AEO insights, FAQ content, and real customer phrasing out of data your team is already collecting. Her colleague Brian Barranger, Sr. Account Executive III, covers what a qualified conversion actually sounds like, and how that evidence sharpens targeting, scoring, and the gaps and integration requests you route to your product team. Add SEJ as a preferred source on Google Read Full Bio SEJ STAFF Heather Campbell VP of Sales & Marketing at Search Engine Journal Heather has over 20 years of industry experience and is the VP of Sales & Marketing at Search Engine Journal. ... Learn how to connect search, AI, and PPC into one unstoppable strategy. Schema For AI Citations: How To Become A Trusted Source How To Advertise In Google AI Mode For Ecommerce The Content Framework That Worked In 2019 Is Now Working Against You Audit Your Local Services Ads Before The PMax Move Watch On Demand In a world ruled by algorithms, SEJ brings timely, relevant information for SEOs, marketers, and entrepreneurs to optimize and grow their businesses -- and careers.

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Source: Search Engine Journal

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