Google recently announced a few updates to the Local Services Ads (LSA) platform that may impact your home service business. As always, Coalmarch by WorkWave keeps a constant pulse on Google's platform changes so we can adapt as fast as possible to best utilize new tactics and strategies to support our client’s success. Below, we will dive into the details of these updates and what they may mean for your business!

Update #1: Automated Lead Credits

Google is phasing out the manual dispute option in LSA, opting to automatically credit businesses for what they deem as poor-quality leads. This update aims to save businesses the time and effort it takes to manually dispute leads. While this sounds great in theory, there are some pros and possible cons.

What are the pros?

• Time savings: Businesses no longer need to manually file disputes. This is particularly beneficial for those who invest heavily in Local Services and find themselves devoting hours a month to reviewing leads and disputing them. This update will save you time, which is always a good thing.

What are the possible cons?

• Discontinuation of certain credits: Google will no longer provide credits for "job type not serviced" and "geo not serviced" leads. This means they will no longer give you a credit if a lead is looking for a service you don’t provide or outside of your service area. With that being said, it’s crucial to ensure that your service area, verticals, and job type settings within your dashboard are accurately configured to ensure you aren’t wasting ad dollars on unqualified leads.
• Skepticism on credit claims: Although Google claims they will credit more leads on average, we remain cautious given their track record. If disputing leads was something that you were regularly doing, we recommend that you continue to check and confirm if Google is indeed crediting leads appropriately for the next few months as things settle. If they are not, we are unsure what options will be made available to business owners, but we promise to keep you in the loop as we know more.

Update #2: Local Services Ads on Google Maps App

Google has announced the launch of LSA ads on Google Maps, initially limited to the iOS version of the mobile app. According to Google, the billing and pricing for these new ads will remain consistent with current Search ads, charging only for qualified leads using existing bids.

We don’t anticipate this affecting the home service industry all too much (positively or negatively), as utilizing the Google Apps map for search is more regularly used to find nearby brick-and-mortar businesses—think gas stations, grocery stores, drive-thrus, etc.—than for home service businesses. If anything, this could present additional opportunities for home service companies to generate leads, but we don’t anticipate much additional lead volume.

LSA ads have already been appearing in the map section of the traditional SERP for quite a while, so it’s important to note this change is solely for the Google Maps app on iOS.

Update #3: ‘Wildlife’ Job Type Has Been Removed

As of June 12, Coalmarch by WorkWave was alerted that Local Service Ads were discontinuing the “wildlife” job type under the Pest Control vertical of the platform. In Google’s release notes, they stated, “In some locations, wildlife control, which includes services such as removing bats and raccoons from attics, has different licensing requirements than pest control. To simplify pest control services in Local Services Ads, we are removing wildlife control.” 

The “wildlife” job type has been automatically removed from accounts that this job type was on for. 

Does this mean I can’t utilize LSA to generate wildlife leads?

This doesn’t necessarily mean that LSAs are no longer displaying for wildlife searches or that you can’t utilize LSA to generate wildlife leads. There are a few things to note with this:

• From our research, it doesn’t seem like any LSAs are displaying when you search “wildlife control” or “critter control” in Google. In order to capture users searching these exact terms, businesses will have to rely on traditional pay-per-click ads to drive paid traffic and leads. 
• However, LSAs are still showing up for some wildlife-related searches, such as squirrel, bat, opossum, and bird removal.
• Squirrel searches seem to be tied to the “rodent” job type, while bats, opossums, and birds seem to be tied to the “other” job type in the back end of your LSA dashboard.

Unfortunately, Google does not disclose which job types are tied to which searches, so it’s hard for us to say with 100% certainty. Grouping squirrels under the “rodent” job type and bats, opossums, and birds under the “other” job type appears to be new with this update. 

How could this update affect my business?

If you were utilizing the “wildlife” job type, you may see a decline in LSA spend or wildlife leads in particular. If you want to continue to drive leads for squirrels, bats, and bird removal through LSA, ensure you have the “rodent” and “other” job types on. If you are a current Coalmarch customer, we are already handling this on your behalf!

Coalmarch Has You Covered

As always, Coalmarch by WorkWave will continue to monitor changes as they happen in real time and adapt as fast as possible to best utilize new tactics and strategies to support our clients’ success. When you’re a customer of ours, you won’t have to worry about this kind of stuff—we've got you covered!

Interested in learning more about the ways in which Coalmarch can help maximize your LSA account? Contact us today to speak with one of our Digital Marketing Consultants.