Cluster
Local Services Ads
The unit that sits above the map pack and the organic results, charges per lead rather than per click, and requires passing a screening process before it will run at all. A different product from Google Ads, with different mechanics.
The pricing model, the verification badge and the credit behavior are taken from Google's own Local Services and Ads documentation, retrieved on 15 November 2026 and linked below. Where sources conflict or terminology has shifted, the spokes say so with dates.
The local results page has three surfaces, and this is the one at the top. It is also the one most often misunderstood, because it looks like an ad and behaves like a directory listing with a billing model attached.
Local Services Ads are a separate product from Google Ads. Different account, different auction mechanics, different unit of payment, and an eligibility gate you have to clear before anything runs.
What are Local Services Ads and how are they different from Google Ads?
Local Services Ads are Google's pay-per-lead local advertising product: your listing appears at the top of search for services you offer in areas you choose, and you are charged per lead rather than per click. Google's list of valid leads covers an answered call, a text or email, a voicemail, a booking request — and a missed call during your business hours where the caller stayed on the line more than 20 seconds.
The deeper difference is eligibility. Google Ads will run for anyone who can pay. Local Services Ads require passing a screening and verification process first, which is what produces the badge on the listing.
A missed call during your business hours counts as a valid, chargeable Local Services Ads lead when the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds. A call reaching voicemail or an automated greeting during business hours is treated as connected and charged on the same threshold, whether or not a message is left.
Only unanswered calls falling within BOTH your ad schedule and the business hours set in your Google Business Profile are charged. With an automated phone menu, a caller who hangs up without pressing a key is not charged even if the menu runs past 20 seconds; the timer starts at the first key press and later presses do not restart it. Answering the call avoids a charge based on ring time.
Why it sits in the Local SEO pillar rather than a paid chapter
Because the inputs overlap almost completely with the organic local work.
Your reviews feed it. Your responsiveness feeds it. Your service areas, hours and categories feed it. A firm with a neglected business profile and thin reviews will underperform here regardless of budget, which is not how a conventional ad auction behaves.
That is the practical argument against treating this as "the paid team's problem." The same review and profile work improves the map pack and the ads together, and neglecting it caps both.
What this cluster covers
The spokes take the mechanics one at a time: how the product and its badge actually work, what Google names as ranking inputs, why the review system here is not quite the one you already manage, how lead credits and disputes behave now that the process has changed, and how the economics compare with paid search and organic.
How LSA works
The eligibility gate, the verification badge, the pay-per-lead unit, and the question that decides whether the whole channel is profitable — what Google counts as a lead.
LSA ranking
Google names the inputs but not the weights, and one of them is contested. Here is what is actually documented, what is inference, and the one factor that is a staffing decision rather than a marketing one.
Credits & disputes
You pay for bad leads unless they are credited, which makes this the page that decides whether the channel works. The process changed recently and the sources disagree, so this page shows the disagreement.
Missed calls are charged
A call you never answered can now be a billable lead. That turns phone coverage from an operations detail into a direct advertising cost, and it is the single most expensive thing to misunderstand about this channel.
LSA reviews
Review score and count are named ranking inputs here, which makes the reviews pillar a prerequisite rather than a parallel project. The wrinkle is that this is not quite the review system you already manage.
LSA economics
Three channels with three different cost structures and three different failure modes. The comparison that matters is not cost per lead against cost per click — it is what each one does when you stop paying.
The PMax migration
Local Services Ads are moving into Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The budget arithmetic changes, manual bidding goes away, and your historical performance reports do not come with you.