You have decided to spend money on Google. Now there are two buttons to push, and they work nothing alike. One is Google Search ads. The other is Local Services Ads, usually called LSA. Which one gets your first dollar?
The short answer: if you are an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical contractor and Google lets you run LSA for your work, start there. Roofing and residential general contractors split the budget between the two. If you sell commercial or industrial work, lead with Search. The rest of this post explains why, what each one costs, and how to avoid the mistakes that make either one look worse than it is.
Where a quote or fact comes from Google, we link the Google help page it came from. Everything that comes from Red Door is labeled as our estimate or our guidance, and examples are marked as illustrative.
The one difference that matters: click or lead
With Search ads, you pay when someone clicks your ad. What happens after the click is up to your website. With LSA, you pay when you get a lead instead of a click.
That sounds like LSA wins on paper, and for some contractors it does. With Search, you pick the keywords, write the ad, and choose the page the click lands on. Our plumbing FAQ notes that with LSA you cannot control ad copy.
Our PPC for contractors guide covers both channels in depth. This post focuses on the decision between them.
How each one charges you
Search: you pay per click. Google's Help Center defines the maximum cost per click as “the highest amount that you're willing to pay for a click on your ad,” and says a click will not cost you more than that maximum bid. The same page also notes that your actual bid can be higher than the maximum in some cases, such as when you use Enhanced CPC, manual bidding for Search Partners, or bid adjustments. Both statements are on that page, so treat your maximum as a planning ceiling and not a guarantee. The average you actually pay shows up in your account as Avg. CPC.
LSA: you pay per lead. Google's Local Services Help page says “You only pay when you get a lead.” It also explains how the price is set: “When similar local businesses bid on the same lead, those bids determine how much the lead is worth.” A bid is “the most you'd pay for a lead,” and you can either set your own limit per lead or use a target cost per lead.
Two more details from that same page matter for planning:
- Budget: “The higher your weekly budget, the more leads you could get,” and Google recommends “a minimum budget of 10 leads per week for optimal results.”
- Learning period: “It takes about 2 weeks to see accurate results as the model adjusts and learns about your business.”
Here is that budget advice as illustrative math, not a quote or a result. If a lead cost you $50, ten leads a week would be $500 a week. If a lead cost $120, it would be $1,200 a week. Before you choose LSA, check that the weekly number Google recommends is one you can carry for a couple of weeks while the system settles.
How each one decides who shows up
With Search, you choose the keywords you want to show up for and can add negative keywords to block searches you do not want.
LSA works differently. Google's article on ad rankings lists the factors it uses. They include:
- Your bid, described as “the maximum amount you're willing to pay for a lead.”
- How likely your ad is to result in a lead.
- Your responsiveness to customer inquiries and requests. Google says missed calls can hurt this.
- Your rating, number of reviews, and average response time.
- The time of the search, the location, and other characteristics of the search.
Three of those factors (responsiveness, rating, reviews) are about how you run the business, not how much you spend. Our plumbing FAQ says the same: if you are not actively managing reviews, “LSA placement suffers regardless of what you spend.” That is our guidance. Google's own list is the one above.
What each costs, by trade
These are Red Door's figures from our PPC guide. They are our 2025–2026 Northeast/Mid-Atlantic planning numbers, not public benchmarks and not guarantees.
On clicks, the guide puts Search at $4–$14 per click for residential trades and $12–$45 per click for industrial terms. LSA does not charge per click, so there is no matching figure. For leads, the guide says LSA cost per lead is “often lower,” at “$18–$65 per lead depending on market,” for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical.
The guide also lists target cost per acquisition by trade, for each channel:
| Trade | Target CPA, Search | Target CPA, LSA |
|---|---|---|
| HVAC | $55–$120 | $30–$75 |
| Plumbing | $45–$105 | $25–$65 |
| Electrical | $50–$110 | $28–$70 |
| Roofing | $65–$145 | $35–$95 |
| General contractor (residential) | $95–$220 | $55–$130 |
| Industrial mechanical | $280–$800 | Not applicable |
Source: Red Door's PPC for contractors guide, trade-by-trade bid strategy table. These are targets we plan accounts around, not what any one contractor will pay.
Look at the last row. For industrial mechanical work, the guide lists LSA as not applicable. That brings us to who each channel fits.
Which one fits your company
HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. Our guide says “HVAC, plumbing, and electrical should be on LSA before Google Search,” because “you pay per contact” and the cost per lead is often lower. It adds that speed-to-answer matters more than landing page copy here. The trade-offs, from our plumbing FAQ: you cannot control the ad copy, and ranking is driven by review count, recency, and response rate, not bid strategy. If your reviews are thin or nobody answers the phone during the day, fix that first. LSA will not cover for it.
Roofing and residential general contractors. The guide does not put these in the “LSA first” group. Its table has LSA targets for both. For residential storm roofing the split is 50% Search and 50% LSA. For residential general contractors it is 60% Search and 40% LSA.
Commercial contractors. Commercial work leads with Search and uses a smaller LSA share. In the guide's table that is 80% Search and 20% LSA for light commercial HVAC and for commercial electrical, 70% Search and 30% LSA for commercial plumbing, and 70% Search and 30% LSA for commercial flat roofing. Our guide also says “LSA coverage is thin for commercial and industrial work,” so check which job types Google currently allows in your area before you count on that LSA share.
Industrial contractors. Our guide says: “As of 2026, LSA is largely unavailable for specialty industrial trades. Run Search instead.” For industrial mechanical, the table lists LSA as not applicable and a split of 90% Search and 10% display retargeting. Buyers here are fewer and each contract is larger, so a more expensive click can still make sense. Our guide recommends tightly targeted campaigns, because “broader spend burns budget fast.”
A simple way to split the first budget
Our guide gives starting splits by trade. For example, HVAC: 40% Search and 60% LSA for residential work. Plumbing: 35% Search and 65% LSA for emergency and residential work. Industrial mechanical: 90% Search and 10% display retargeting. Those are our starting points, to be adjusted once you have real call data. A three-step way to use them:
- Decide whether LSA is open to you. Check which job types Google currently allows in your trade and service area, and finish the screening and verification Google requires. Google's announcement of the single Google Verified badge says new advertisers need to complete the Local Services screening and verification process to receive the Google Verified badge.
- Fund the channel your trade favors first. HVAC, plumbing, or electrical: LSA, with a Search campaign alongside it. Roofing or residential general contractor: use the table split (50/50 for roofing, 60% Search and 40% LSA for residential GC). Commercial: lead with Search and add the LSA share from the table if Google allows your job types. Industrial mechanical: 90% Search and 10% display retargeting.
- Give it time. Google says LSA takes about 2 weeks to show accurate results. Separately, for Google Ads accounts overall, our guide says an account is not optimized until it has 60–90 days of conversion data, and the first 30 days are data collection.
Mistakes that make either one look bad
Mixing the numbers together. Our guide lists this as one of the mistakes that wreck conversion data: “Counting LSA conversions in the same row as Search conversions. LSA runs separately. Blended reporting makes your CPL look artificially low.” Track each channel on its own line.
Counting calls without listening to them. The guide says to check call duration. In its words, “if most calls are under 45 seconds, the leads are junk”, and if calls run long but nothing books, “that's your intake process”. That second case is a phone problem, not an ads problem.
Sending Search clicks to a weak page. Our guide says a service page built for the search converts at 6–12% for residential trades, while homepage conversion rates are typically 1–3%. That gap decides your cost per lead. We walk through the math in How Much Does Contractor PPC Cost in 2026? and the wider budget in the construction marketing plan cost guide.
Ignoring the website. Search ads send people straight to your site. If the site is slow on a phone, shows a “not secure” warning, or has no tap-to-call button, you are paying Google to send people to a page that loses them.
Frequently asked questions
Is LSA cheaper than Search ads?
For residential trades, often yes per lead. For HVAC, plumbing, and electrical, our guide puts LSA at $18–$65 per lead, and lists lower target cost per acquisition for LSA than for Search in every residential trade in the table above. Those are our planning estimates, not guarantees, and your market may differ. LSA also gives you less control than Search.
Why am I not showing up in LSA even though I bid high?
Bid is only one factor. Google's ranking article also lists responsiveness, your rating and number of reviews, and the specifics of each search. A high bid does not make up for missed calls or few reviews.
Does LSA work for industrial or commercial contractors?
Usually not for specialty industrial trades. For commercial work, coverage is thin, so check which job types Google allows.
How much should I budget to start LSA?
Google recommends a minimum budget of 10 leads per week. Multiply that by what a lead is likely to cost in your trade and market to get a weekly number, and expect about two weeks before Google says results are accurate. For a sense of how the pieces fit into a total marketing budget, see our construction marketing plan cost guide.
Before you pick a channel, check the website
Either channel sends people to you. If your website is losing them, the best ads in the world will cost more than they should. Not sure if your website is costing you calls? Our Free Website Check-Up is a free check of your website, and we send you a one-page report. It covers things like whether your site works on a phone, whether it shows a “not secure” warning, and who shows up on Google instead of you.
Request yours, or call us at (267) 574-6444.