Check which migration wave your account is in, then use the 14 days Google gives you to export your lead list, screenshot your reports and write down your settings. After the move, judge the campaign by cost per booked job, not cost per lead, because Google bills every valid call whether or not it turns into work.
Google is moving existing Local Services Ads accounts into Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals in phases, so your date depends on your country and category. Past leads carry over; performance reports do not. Where your ad appears does not change: Google Search and Google Maps, with no keywords to manage.
Which wave a carpet cleaning account falls into
Google's help pages describe three phases. The first began in August 2026 for home and storefront service businesses in one country. A second wave, due late in 2026, takes service-area businesses without a storefront and accounts with custom bidding or booking set-ups. Accounts outside the first country, plus any category not yet moved, follow in 2027.
| Phase | When | Who Google names | What it means for a carpet cleaner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | From August 2026 | Home and storefront service businesses in the first country | Carpet cleaning appears in Google's phase 1 category directory, so a firm with a shop or office address may already have a notice |
| 2 | Late 2026 | Service-area businesses without a storefront, and accounts with custom bidding or booking set-ups | A van-based firm that hides its address on its profile probably belongs here |
| 3 | 2027 | Accounts outside the first country, plus remaining categories | Nothing to do except prepare |
There is one wrinkle. The sentence in Google's migration page that lists first-phase trades names plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control and moving, yet the directory on its supported-categories page also includes carpet cleaning. I would not try to settle that by reading the schedule. Your notice settles it.
The account administrator on your profile gets an email 14 days before your date, with warning banners in the current dashboard, a final reminder a week later and another email when the move is done. Check that the administrator address is an inbox somebody reads daily. After the move, the old Local Services Ads dashboard redirects to your campaign overview in Google Ads, so there is no going back to look at it.
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Buy nowWhat moves across and what stays behind
Google says its system transfers your campaign set-up automatically. This is the list as the help pages give it, with what I would do about each line. The migration page is worth reading in full before your date.
| Item | What Google says | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Locations, service types, categories, budget limits, ad schedule, photos | Move over automatically | Write them down first so you can spot drift afterwards |
| Verified status and the Google Verified badge | Carry over; insurance and licence reverification is no longer required | Nothing, but watch the Google Ads notifications in case another check is asked for |
| Lead history: contact details, message history, older call recordings | Carry over to the Leads page | Export anyway, because a separate Google page says recordings are held for up to 30 days |
| Performance reports: spend, impressions, clicks, ad-level figures | Do not carry over; downloads are promised on a redirection page "soon", with screenshots as the fallback | Screenshot or save them before your date |
| Weekly budget | Divided by 7 into a daily average; monthly spend is capped at that average times 30.4 | Do the sum yourself and check the daily figure in Settings |
| Manual bidding and a maximum cost per lead | No longer supported | Expect Maximise Conversions; if you set different targets by category, Google merges them into one campaign-level Target CPA |
| BBB callouts | No longer supported | Replace them with at least six other structured callouts |
| Business name, address, hours | Sync one way from your Business Profile | Edit the profile, not the ad |
One row deserves a second look. A big edit to your business name, address or primary category after the move triggers a verification review that typically takes 24 to 48 hours, and Google warns that the campaign may pause while it runs. Picture a firm that adds "and Upholstery" to its profile name the day after migrating, to look more complete. Leads stop for two days, and the owner assumes the migration broke something. Whether a given edit counts as significant is Google's call, so the safe rule is no name, address or category changes in the fortnight around the move.
The export routine for your 14 days
Google says past leads migrate, so part of this is insurance. It is also the only way to keep your performance history, and the outcome columns you add yourself are what let you compare cost per booked job before and after.
- Day 14, 10 minutes. Note your migration date, confirm the administrator address on your profile, and tell whoever answers the phone that a settling-in fortnight is coming.
- Day 13, 30 minutes. Copy your lead list into a spreadsheet: date, lead type (call or message), job asked for, charge status. Add three columns of your own: answered or missed, outcome, job value. Fill the outcome for the last three months from your diary or job software.
- Day 12, 20 minutes. Screenshot the reports as far back as they go: leads, spend and cost per lead by month, plus the weekly spend chart. Google says historical reports will become downloadable from its redirection page but gives no date beyond "soon", and recommends screenshots if you need them straight away.
- Day 10, 15 minutes. Write down every setting you can see: weekly budget, bid levels by job type, service areas, service types switched on, business hours, the number calls forward to, and any callouts.
- Day 7, 15 minutes. Check your Business Profile for name, address, hours, categories and phone. Fix errors now, then hold other edits until the move has settled.
- Day 3, 10 minutes. Choose who watches the first fortnight. Google says to allow up to two weeks for the migration to finish and performance to return to normal, so one person should read the leads daily and check the Settings tab on day one.
A finished export sheet is plain. This one is illustrative, with the three columns you add yourself on the right.
| Date | Type | Job asked for | Charge status | Answered | Outcome | Job value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Oct | Call | Lounge, hall and stairs, pet stains | Charged | Yes | Booked | $240 |
| 4 Oct | Call | One wool rug, collection | Charged | Yes | Wrong service | $0 |
| 6 Oct | Message | Three bedrooms, price only | Charged | Replied in 3 hours | Quote sent | $0 |
| 7 Oct | Call | Landlord, six flats, end of tenancy | Charged | Missed, called back | Booked | $620 |
| 9 Oct | Call | Line open, no speech | Not charged | Yes | Spam | $0 |
| 11 Oct | Call | Upholstery only, two sofas | Credited | Yes | Wrong service | $0 |
From a weekly budget to a cost per booked job
All figures here are illustrative. Take a three-van carpet cleaning firm with a $350 weekly budget.
First, the budget sum. Google divides the weekly figure by 7, so $350 becomes a daily average of $50, and monthly spend is capped at $50 times 30.4, which is $1,520. That cap is the most the campaign can bill in a month, even though a single day can run past $50.
Second, last quarter's numbers from the export. Over three months the firm averaged 36 charged leads and $1,430 of spend a month, which is $39.72 a lead. From the outcome column, 13 of those 36 leads became booked jobs, a booking rate of 36 per cent. Cost per booked job is $1,430 divided by 13: $110.
Third, break-even. The average job is $230 and the firm keeps about 60 per cent after labour, chemicals and van costs, so gross profit is $138 a job. Multiply by the booking rate of 0.361 and the most the firm can afford to pay for a lead is about $50. At $39.72 there is roughly $10 of headroom a lead. That headroom, not the cost per lead alone, is the figure to defend after the move.
Fourth, the Target CPA question. With 36 leads a month the firm clears the 15-lead mark that Google's best-practice page gives before a target is even worth considering, but it is under break-even, so leaving the default Maximise Conversions strategy alone is a sound decision. If cost per lead crept past $50 for four weeks with the booking rate unchanged, a first target near $45 would be the next move. A target of $35 could throttle delivery.
Fifth, the comparison after the move.
| Measure | Three-month average before | First full month after |
|---|---|---|
| Charged leads | 36 | 33 |
| Spend | $1,430 | $1,480 |
| Cost per lead | $39.72 | $44.85 |
| Booked jobs | 13 | 14 |
| Cost per booked job | $110.00 | $105.71 |
Cost per lead rose 13 per cent, which would alarm anyone watching that column alone, yet cost per booked job fell about 4 per cent because fewer wrong-service leads arrived and more of the rest booked. A firm that watched only the Cost / conv. column in Google Ads would have changed settings that were working.
Calls, messages and bookings as pay-per-lead goals
The new campaign type asks which contacts count as a lead. Phone calls are a required goal for this campaign type, because Google treats them as the primary channel. Text and email messages are optional and on by default. Bookings are optional, arrive from October 2026, and need an eligible category plus a booking integration on your Business Profile, so check before counting on them.
Google's advice is to opt in to messages and bookings only if you can reply within 24 hours, and it says message leads typically cost less than phone leads, though not always. Carpet cleaners get a distinctive kind of message: price-only enquiries such as "how much for three bedrooms and stairs?" Google routes these through an anonymous number and email alias, and you can reply from the lead's panel on the Leads page. A reply that collects the five facts that set a price keeps the conversation moving.
Hi [first name], thanks for getting in touch. To give you an exact price I need five things: how many rooms and whether there are stairs, the carpet type if you know it (wool or synthetic), any pet stains or odours, how old the worst stains are, and a photo of the worst patch. Send those and I'll reply with a fixed price today. If it's easier to talk, call [your number] and I can do it in five minutes. [your name]
A chat assistant is good at turning your own pricing rules into a reply like that, and at keeping the tone consistent across fifty messages. It is bad at your prices, so paste in your rate card and check every figure against your per-room price calculator before the first reply goes out.
Why call handling is now a cost control
Google's lead-billing rules explain why a missed call has a price. The table below follows its How leads work page.
| What happens | Billed? |
|---|---|
| You answer, or call back and speak to the customer | Assessed as a lead; poor-quality or duplicate ones can be credited |
| You miss a call in business hours and the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds | Billed |
| The call reaches voicemail or an automated greeting in business hours | Treated as connected; billed if the caller stays beyond 20 seconds, message or not |
| Same customer, same number or email, within 15 days of a charged lead | Not billed again |
| Unanswered call outside your ad schedule or business hours | Billed only when it falls inside both |
"Business hours" means the hours on your Business Profile. A firm whose profile says 8am to 6pm, but whose vans stop answering at 4.30pm, is exposed to 90 minutes of unanswered time every working day. A quick sum: if nine callers a month stay past 20 seconds in that window and a lead costs $40, that is $360 of leads that only pay back if somebody rings them back fast. Either align the profile hours with real answering hours, or pay for something to pick up. The tutorial on replying faster to carpet cleaning leads covers the cheaper options.
The Friday review: ten calls, five checks
Where Google records calls (this depends on country and category), you can listen from the lead details, but recordings and sensitive message history are held in the Lead Manager for only up to 30 days. Where there is no recording, use your own call notes. Ten calls a week is enough to see a pattern.
| Check | Why it matters for carpet jobs | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Answered in about five rings, or called back within 15 minutes | A cleaner on a job misses calls, and callers move to the next firm | Leads page for time and type; your phone log |
| Rooms, stairs, pets and stain type captured | Price depends on them; vague calls produce vague quotes | Recording where available, or your notes |
| A price or a price range given | A caller who leaves with a number and a slot has something to compare | Notes |
| The booking asked for | Many calls end with "I'll think about it" because nobody asked | Notes or recording |
| Lead status set to Booked or Completed | Google says status updates help you organise your workflow and help its systems optimise over time | Leads page |
Settings to check on the first day after the move
Google puts everything under a few menus. Budgets, bidding, locations and service types sit in Settings under Campaigns. Photos and callouts sit in Assets. Leads and call recordings sit under Goals, then Conversions, then Leads. Business name, address and hours stay in your Business Profile. Notifications sit under Admin.
- Daily budget. It should equal your old weekly budget divided by seven.
- Service areas. Google's best-practice page says not to set boundaries more than two hours' driving time from your business, and every targeted area must be in the same country as your listing.
- Service types. Switch off the ones you do not want, such as rug collection or duct work if you do not offer them. These settings influence which searches trigger your ad.
- Phone number. The number leads route to can be edited in real time and can differ from your public profile number. A dedicated line makes ad calls easy to count. Google also says a phone number change on your Business Profile syncs across within 24 hours, so recheck this setting after any profile edit.
- Callouts. Replace any BBB callout with at least six others, up to six per category: "quotes from photos", "pet-safe products", "same-week appointments", provided each is true.
- Asset optimisation. If a website address is on the campaign, Google may scan the site to generate callouts. You can switch the setting off or remove the address.
- Direct Business Search. A campaign setting, under Profile and Budget, that shows your ad only for searches on your business name and screens out returning customers, so you pay only for new leads. It is not a general filter for the main campaign, so choose it deliberately.
- Notifications. Every user is opted in to lead emails by default, and Google requires at least one user to stay opted in.
Google's own advice is to run a pay-per-lead campaign alongside Search, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns rather than instead of them. If you are weighing a normal Search campaign next to it, read Performance Max against Search for a local service business first.
Sorting the lead export with AI before you decide anything
Twelve leads at a time is a good size for a first pass. Strip names, phone numbers, addresses and email addresses from the export before pasting anything into a chat assistant. Business plans from OpenAI and Anthropic do not train on your content by default, and consumer plans have a data-use setting, but removing identifying details is the safer habit either way.
You are helping a carpet cleaning company review its Google lead export.
Below are 12 leads. Each row has: row number, lead type, the job asked for,
charge status, and my own note. No names or numbers are included.
For each row return a table with: row number, one category from this list
(Booked job, Bookable but not booked, Price shopper, Wrong service,
Outside scope, Spam or no speech) and a reason of ten words or fewer.
Flag any row where my note is too thin to classify instead of guessing.
After the table, list the three most common reasons for Wrong service or
Outside scope, and say which Google service-type settings might be letting
those leads in. Do not invent settings I have not mentioned.
[paste the 12 anonymised rows]A typical reply, illustrative and shortened, looks like this.
| Row | Category | Reason given |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Booked job | Lounge, hall and stairs; booked at quoted price |
| 2 | Wrong service | Single rug collection; we do not collect rugs |
| 3 | Price shopper | Asked for a per-room price, no photo, no reply |
| 7 | Price shopper | Price only, then went quiet |
| 9 | Flag: note too thin | Note says "weird call"; cannot classify |
It then names the most common reason: rug-only and upholstery-only requests, five of the twelve, with a suggestion to check whether those service types are switched on. Here is what I would fix. Row 7 should be a booked job, because my note said "asked price, booked next day", and the assistant read only the first half. It cannot know your service list, so its settings advice is a prompt to look, not a diagnosis. And a thin note gets a flag at best and a guess at worst, so write notes in plain facts: what was asked, what you said, what happened.
Six weeks after the move: what to compare and when to act
Compare against the figures from your export, not against memory. Give the first two weeks as settling time, as Google suggests, then read the leads weekly.
| Signal | Likely cause | First check |
|---|---|---|
| Leads fall by a quarter or more for two weeks | Campaign paused for a verification review, a budget that is not what you expect, or narrower areas | Campaign status, daily budget and locations in Settings |
| Cost per lead up, booking rate flat | More wrong-service leads getting through | Service types, then feedback on the junk leads |
| Cost per lead up, booking rate up | Better leads at a higher price | Judge on cost per booked job; change nothing |
| Many charged missed calls | Profile hours longer than real answering hours | Business Profile hours and ad schedule |
| Booking rate falls | Slower replies or weaker call handling | The Friday review; message replies within 24 hours |
For leads that arrive despite your settings, the credit and feedback routes are the same for every trade. Google has said it no longer supports credits for leads outside your listed job types or areas, so those are settings problems first. The plumber's evidence pack for disputing Local Services leads walks through the routes that remain, and the plumber's export checklist for the move is a useful cross-check from another trade.
Questions carpet cleaners ask about the switch
Do I have to do anything before Google moves my account?
Google says the account administrator gets an email 14 days before your date, with banners in the old dashboard and a reminder later. Nothing is required first, but use that fortnight to export leads, screenshot reports and write down settings, because performance reports do not carry over.
Can I start a new pay-per-lead campaign inside Google Ads?
Not yet, according to Google's migration page: new accounts and campaigns still start from the Local Services sign-up, and creating them inside Google Ads is described as something for later. Existing Local Services Ads campaigns are moved automatically, so most carpet cleaners simply wait for their notice.
Will my past leads and call recordings come across?
Google says lead history, meaning contact details, message history and older call recordings, transfers to the new Leads page. A separate Google page says recordings and sensitive conversation history are kept for up to 30 days, so do not treat Google as your archive. Keep your own outcome notes.
What if my account is outside the first country Google started with?
Google's schedule puts accounts outside the first country in 2027, after the August 2026 start and a late-2026 wave for service-area businesses and custom set-ups. Read the migration page for your own country before assuming a date, and do not edit settings in a hurry.
Is a Target CPA worth setting after the move?
Google's best-practice page says to keep the default Maximise Conversions strategy unless a campaign gets more than 15 leads a month and the cost per lead is higher than you want, and warns that a target can restrict delivery. Work out your break-even cost per lead first, then decide.
Further reads
- Local Services Ads for Pest Control: Bad Leads and the Google Ads Move — The sibling piece on bad leads, credits and feedback wording.
- Carpet Cleaning Quote Template: Rooms, Stairs and Pets via AI Chat — Turn price-only messages into quotes that ask for rooms, stairs and pets.
- AI for Carpet Cleaners: Seven Jobs Worth Automating First — Other jobs in a carpet firm that AI can take off your plate.
- Carpet Cleaning Software: Jobber, Service Fusion and Workiz Compared — Job software that records the outcomes you need for cost per booked job.
- Pool Service Leads: Compare Paid Leads, Local Services Ads and Fast Replies — Cost per booked pool for Local Services Ads, marketplace leads and instant replies, with text templates and a four-week test you can run.
- Carpet Cleaning Facebook Ads: Write and Test Offers With AI — Work out a starting budget from one job's profit, write honest offer variants with AI, and run a two-offer test with a scoreboard and clear wording rules.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Google Ads Help pages on the Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max, pay-per-lead goals, their best practices and supported verticals, plus Local Services Help on how leads work and automated lead credits (read 1 November 2026).