Google starts moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads in August 2026. If HVAC and plumbing share one LSA account, the migration collapses your per-trade bid targets. You end up with one campaign-level Target CPA, meaning one price you tell Google to pay for a lead, covering both trades. Google’s own documentation says the fix is separate campaigns, one per vertical. Make that split before your migration date, not after it.
- Phase one starts August 2026 for US home and storefront services. Google’s category list names plumbing and HVAC.
- Manual bidding ends. Google’s page: “Manual bidding (such as setting a maximum cost-per-lead) is no longer supported in Google Ads.”
- One campaign covering both trades gets one blended Target CPA applied across every category in it.
- Split HVAC and plumbing into separate campaigns to keep separate bid targets.
- Export your LSA performance reports first. Those do not migrate.
Quick answers:
- When does the HVAC Local Services Ads migration start?
- Will I lose my LSA lead history and reports?
- Can I still set a max cost per lead for HVAC leads?
- Should HVAC and plumbing run in the same Google Ads campaign?
What changes in August, and who moves first
Google’s transition page dates the rollout in three phases. The first one is yours. Google writes: “August 2026: The first phase of the migration begins for select home and storefront service advertisers in the United States (including plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving).”
Late 2026 brings in service-area businesses without a storefront. Non-US accounts and the remaining categories move in 2027.
Your campaign becomes a Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals. The name is misleading. Search Engine Land reported on 20 July 2026 that Google is “replacing the standalone LSA dashboard” with this campaign type, and noted that “despite the Performance Max branding, these campaigns do not expand to Google’s other advertising channels.”
You are not suddenly buying YouTube and Display. You are managing the same pay-per-lead placements from a different screen.
If you are a US HVAC or plumbing contractor with an active LSA account, plan for August.
The one sentence that decides your campaign structure
Two things end at once: manual bid caps, and per-vertical targets.
On bidding, Google’s transition documentation says: “Manual bidding (such as setting a maximum cost-per-lead) is no longer supported in Google Ads.” Today, Google’s LSA bidding page still lists a manual Max Per Lead limit next to Maximize Leads and Target Cost Per Lead. After migration that lever is gone.
The second change is the structural one. Google states it plainly: “Google Ads does not support vertical-level Target CPA bidding.” Then the mechanic: “If you previously managed different Target CPA amounts for separate verticals under a single campaign, a unified campaign-level Target CPA will be calculated and applied to all vertical categories.”
The platform does the averaging for you. Google also names the workaround, and it names your two trades while doing it: “If you wish to maintain separate bidding rules for different business categories after migration, you can achieve this by setting up separate campaigns for each vertical (for example, creating separate campaigns for plumbing and HVAC).”
That is the whole play. One campaign means one number for both trades. Two campaigns means two numbers.
The two trades do not pay back the same
An HVAC lead and a plumbing lead cost within $6 of each other and return very different money.
SearchLight Digital’s Local Services Ads benchmark tracked 888 home services contractors and $6.72M in LSA spend in February 2026. SearchLight is an agency publishing aggregate numbers from campaigns it tracks, not neutral third-party research. It is still the most segmented LSA data I have found in public.
| Trade (SearchLight LSA data, February 2026) | Cost per lead | Book rate | Average ticket | Closed ROAS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrical | $39 | 43.4% | $1,434 | 8.52x |
| HVAC | $51 | 44.0% | $2,110 | 9.55x |
| Plumbing | $57 | 44.5% | $1,714 | 6.85x |
| Drain and sewer | $59 | 39.5% | $1,521 | 5.50x |
Look at the columns that disagree. In that February data, HVAC and plumbing leads cost almost the same, $51 against $57. Their book rates sit within half a point.
But the average ticket differs by nearly $400, and the closed return differs by much more. Divide 9.55 by 6.85 and HVAC returned about 39% more per dollar than plumbing that month.
A blended target cannot express that. It buys both leads as though they were the same lead. On any fixed budget, a shared target chases the cost number, not the return. Dollars move toward whichever trade hits that number first, not toward the trade that pays you back.
The gap swings with the season, and one target cannot follow it
The best public HVAC LSA benchmark is a February snapshot, and February is the wrong month for a cooling business. SearchLight flags it themselves: February is heating season. That is part of why HVAC book rates and tickets look strong in the dataset.
July is a different market. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in a 2017 analysis of residential electricity use, puts 18% of annual household electricity use on air conditioning. It also finds home electricity consumption peaks in July and August, when cooling demand is highest.
That is when the no-cool calls land. A no-cool call in a heat wave is not the same buy as a scheduled fall tune-up.
The spread shows up by job type too. SearchLight’s HVAC Google Ads benchmark covered 816 HVAC and plumbing contractors and $14.88M in spend in January 2026. In non-branded search that month, AC repair ran $231 per lead, AC install $157, heating repair $144, and plumbing $167.
Those are search CPLs, not LSA. The shape is the point: the number moves by job type.
Separate campaigns let you move a target with the calendar. Raise the HVAC target going into your cooling peak and hold plumbing flat, and you have expressed a real seasonal decision. One shared target averages your July and your October into a number that is wrong in both.
What moves with you, and what you lose forever
Most of the account survives. Google transfers your targeted locations, service types, business categories, budget limits, ad schedule, and business photos. Lead history moves too, including contact details, message threads, and older call recordings.
A completed verification carries the Google Verified badge across. Billing does not change: “You still only pay for valid leads (such as phone calls and messages) rather than ad clicks.”
Reporting is the exception, and it is permanent. Google writes: “Your previous campaign-level performance metrics (such as past impressions, clicks, weekly spend, and ad-level performance reports) will not migrate to Google Ads.”
That is the record you would use to set a defensible per-trade target. Export it now, broken out by service category and by month. Then your new targets start from your own history instead of a published benchmark. Budgets convert mechanically: Google divides your historical average weekly budget by seven to set the daily average.
One correction, because this campaign type does not behave like a normal Performance Max campaign. Google’s page says: “While Performance Max campaigns generally require or support additional asset types such as Headlines, Videos and Sitelinks, these don’t apply to campaigns with pay-per-lead goals.”
Do not spend the last week before migration producing video and headline assets for it. Photos are the asset that still counts. Google’s migration page puts the limit at 100 additional business photos, plus callouts up to six per category.
Two weeks of ramp, and why your migration week matters
Google sets the expectation directly: “While many ads will start running right away, please allow up to two weeks for the migration process to fully complete and for your campaign performance to ramp back to stable levels.”
Two unstable weeks cost a cooling business more in late August than they cost a drain cleaner. That is a scheduling problem, not a bidding problem. It is also the reason to split your campaigns before migration rather than during the ramp.
The common mistake is judging the new campaign inside that window. Pull your targets around on day four and you have taught the system nothing except that the target moves.
A shared target makes a junk lead more expensive
Blending costs you twice. The second charge shows up in lead quality.
Google’s pay-per-lead rules are broad about what you are charged for. An answered call, a voicemail, a text or email, a returned missed call, and a booking request all bill. Search Engine Land reported on August 25, 2026, in trade coverage not yet reflected in Google’s official Local Services Ads documentation, that from October 1, 2026 an unreturned missed call may bill too: a missed call during business hours is charged as a valid lead when the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds, with some exceptions, and that where a phone menu asks the caller to press a key the twenty-second clock does not start until they press it, with no charge at all if they never do.
The list of what will not be credited is just as clear. A valid lead outside business hours stays on the invoice. So does a customer researching prices. So does one who only wants project advice, or who never answers your callback.
Under separate campaigns, a bad plumbing lead is a plumbing problem. Under one blended target, that same charge pulls on the number that also prices your HVAC leads.
We have covered the dispute and credit path, and spotting fake HVAC leads before you pay. The timing lesson is the same in both. A check that runs before the charge is a decision. A check that runs after it is a request.
Automation gets more useful as your inputs get cleaner and more expensive as they get dirtier. When we run HVAC lead generation for a contractor, the unit we sell and grade is a verified call or a verified lead. OTP verification, bot and spam filtering, and in-market targeting sit in front of it.
Inside your own account the same rule holds. Keep your call tracking and attribution split by trade so the numbers you feed the platform mean something.
Doing nothing is choosing the blend
There is no neutral option here. Run both trades in one campaign on your migration date and Google calculates the unified target. It then applies that target to everything. Passive is not the same as safe.
So the order is short. Export your LSA reports by service category and month. Build HVAC and plumbing as separate campaigns, each with a target set from your own closed revenue rather than a published benchmark. Confirm the weekly-to-daily budget conversion matched your intent. Then leave it alone for two weeks.
The broader mechanics are in our guide to the Local Services Ads transition. Our plumbing LSA comparison covers the call-type split between LSA and search.
One thing stops being reversible in August. Inside a single campaign, you lose the ability to say an HVAC lead is worth more than a plumbing lead. Say it now, in two campaigns, before the migration says it for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does the HVAC Local Services Ads migration start?
August 2026. Google’s transition page says the first phase begins for select US home and storefront service advertisers, and plumbing and HVAC are both on the included-category list. Late 2026 covers broader groups, and non-US accounts move in 2027. Accounts migrate on their own dates inside those windows, so treat August as the start of your exposure rather than a fixed appointment.
Will I lose my LSA lead history and reports?
You keep the leads and lose the reports. Google says past customer lead history transfers automatically, including contact details, message history, and older call recordings. Verified status and the Google Verified badge transfer too. But previous campaign-level metrics, meaning past impressions, clicks, weekly spend, and ad-level performance reports, will not migrate. Export those first, broken out by service category and month.
Can I still set a max cost per lead for HVAC leads?
No. Google’s documentation states that manual bidding, such as setting a maximum cost-per-lead, is no longer supported in Google Ads. You move to a Target CPA that applies at the campaign level rather than per vertical. The closest thing to per-trade bid control is structural. Run HVAC in its own campaign, and you have a separate number to raise going into cooling season.
Should HVAC and plumbing run in the same Google Ads campaign?
Not if you want different bid targets for them. Google states that Google Ads does not support vertical-level Target CPA bidding. One campaign covering both trades gets a single campaign-level Target CPA applied to every category in it. Google’s own recommended fix is separate campaigns per vertical, using plumbing and HVAC as the example. The trades carry different average tickets and different seasonal peaks, so splitting is the default for a multi-trade contractor.
