Save Your "Good" Lead Examples
If your home care agency runs Local Services Ads, your dashboard might be changing soon.
Google says Local Services Ads are moving into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The first phase starts in August 2026 for select U.S. home and storefront service advertisers, and each advertiser should get a notice before their own migration date.
The important part isn't the new dashboard. It's what can disappear in the move. Google says your campaign setup can transfer. Your past customer lead history can transfer too, including contact details, message history, and older call recordings. But your previous campaign-level performance reports won't migrate into Google Ads. Once your account moves, the old Local Services Ads dashboard won't be accessible the same way.
That means this is the moment to save what normal looked like before the interface changes.
Don't Just Save The Google Report
Google can show how many charged leads came in. It can show spend, cost per lead, and lead type. All of this matters, and you should export it before your account moves. But a home care agency needs a deeper baseline than the ad platform can give. The dashboard can tell you if a family called, but it can't tell you whether that family needed skilled care you don't provide, care outside your service area, or pricing that was never going to fit. It also can't tell you whether your team called back fast enough.
That gap is where a lot of agencies misread their marketing.
If leads dip after the move, it may look like a platform problem. Booked assessments dipping may actually be a follow-up problem. If cost per lead rises but the families are better fits, the campaign may be healthier than the dashboard makes it look. You won't know unless you save the baseline now.
What a Useful Baseline Should Include
Start with the simple numbers from Local Services Ads. Save spend, charged leads, cost per lead, lead type, and whatever campaign or service-area breakdowns you rely on. Then add the internal layer your agency actually uses to judge quality.
For each recent lead, you should note whether:
- The family was in your service area
- They needed the kind of care you provide
- They had a realistic start timeline
- The inquiry became an assessment.
You don't need a complicated system for this. A spreadsheet is enough if it clearly shows what happened after the lead came in. The point is to define a normal lead before the dashboard changes. If your agency usually gets ten LSA leads a week and three turn into assessments, that matters. If half the leads are outside your real fit, that also matters. Those details help you compare the new period against the old one without guessing.
The First Two Weeks Need a Human Owner
Google says account administrators should receive advance notice before migration. Treat that notice like a workflow deadline. Before the move, decide who owns every new LSA inquiry. That person or team should know where leads appear after migration, how fast they should respond, and what has to be logged after the call or message.
A small platform change can quietly disrupt lead handoffs, causing qualified families to slip through even while everything looks normal on the surface. That isn't the kind of problem Google can solve from inside the dashboard.
For the first 14 days after the move, compare more than lead volume. Compare spend, lead quality, response time, booked assessments, and any follow-up misses. Look for the first place where the path feels different.
If the leads are coming in but fewer families book, review your intake process. If the leads are lower fit, review service categories and service areas. If the team is slower, fix ownership before changing budget.
Don't Let The Old Normal Vanish
This migration may be easy for some agencies and annoying for others, but either way, the risk is the same. Your old reporting context can disappear before you've saved what you need. So export the Google reports as soon as possible. Screenshot the views you use to make budget decisions, and save a simple internal baseline that shows what a good lead looked like before the move. Then watch the first 14 days with the right question in mind. Are we getting leads, and are the right families reaching the right person fast enough to book an assessment? That's the standard the dashboard can't fully answer on its own.