Local Services Ads Bill by the Lead. ServiceTitan Knows Which Leads Paid.

A customer record with Google's phone number on it

Here is a small irony to start the week. When a homeowner taps "Get Quote" on a Local Services Ad, ServiceTitan can now capture the contact in CRM or Bookings. Its own help article then adds that the number it receives "is a Google tracking number, not the customer's real number." So the lead arrives tidy, labeled and booked into your system with a phone number that belongs, in a sense, to Google.

That detail explains the whole channel. Local Services Ads are not a click auction in the usual sense. Google charges for leads, decides what counts as one and stands between you and the customer until you talk to them. Measuring the channel means following each lead from Google's ledger into ServiceTitan's, where the job, the invoice and the real customer live. This guide covers how leads get in, how to match them, how to reconcile the spend and how to handle the ones you should not have paid for. The wider picture of what a website can feed ServiceTitan is on our integration hub.

What Google counts as a lead you pay for

Google's help center is direct about the deal: "With Local Services Ads, you pay for valid leads," and it says valid leads "are related to your business and can occur when customers find your ads on Google." Its list of valid leads is worth reading before you build a single report, because each type reaches ServiceTitan by a different road.

• An answered call, or a callback that connects. You answer, or you call the customer back and speak with them.
• A missed call that waited. Google charges for a call you missed during business hours when the customer stays on the line for more than 20 seconds.
• A message. A text message or email from the customer.
• A booking request. Available in the United States and Canada only.
• A voicemail. The customer leaves one.

Two items on that list should get the office's attention. A missed call during business hours can still be billed, and a voicemail counts too. The phone that rings out at lunch is not free. It is a paid lead that went unanswered, and it shows up in Google's numbers whether or not anyone writes it down in ServiceTitan.

Three doors from the ad into ServiceTitan

ServiceTitan's Reserve with Google and LSA FAQ says both integrations are available to companies in the US and Canada. The booking side behaves like the rest of ServiceTitan's online booking, which we compare with a custom flow on our online booking page. For setup of the message leads, ServiceTitan's LSA integration article is the source.

Turning a masked number into a real customer

A tracking number on a lead is fine. A tracking number saved as the customer's phone is a slow problem. The next time that homeowner calls from their own phone, ServiceTitan sees a stranger. Two records for one household split the service history, the membership offer and the review request. ServiceTitan's API documentation adds a sharp edge: customers and locations cannot be merged, deactivated or reactivated through the API, so cleanup is manual work for the office.

The fix is a habit, not a gadget. The CSR who books an LSA message lead confirms the customer's own number and email on the first contact, before the booking becomes a job. Every job in ServiceTitan needs a customer and a location, so this is the moment when the record is created anyway. Getting it right once is cheaper than merging by hand later. If leads also arrive from your website forms, the same discipline applies there, and our web forms guide shows how a site checks the phone and address before anything reaches ServiceTitan.

Spend in one column, invoices in the next

Local Services Ads report leads and charges. ServiceTitan reports jobs and revenue. Neither system shows both, so the reconciliation is yours. Give LSA its own campaign in ServiceTitan so its jobs are not mixed into a generic "Google" bucket. ServiceTitan's Auto-Map creates campaigns that mirror Google Ads campaigns, and its help article describes that for Google Ads; we would not assume it covers LSA, so create the LSA campaign on purpose. Then record LSA spend against that campaign each month. The Marketing API even has a call for it (POST /costs), which a custom integration can use instead of a person with a spreadsheet.

1. 1

   Export the month's charged leads

   Open the Leads page in the Local Services Ads account and list the month's charged leads with type and date, on the same day each month.

2. 2

   Rate the leads that were not real work

   Use "Rate this lead" on the Leads page for wrong numbers and spam before the totals are final, so feedback is on record.

3. 3

   Match leads to ServiceTitan records

   Find each lead under the LSA campaign. Any charged lead with no ServiceTitan record goes on a short list for the office manager.

4. 4

   Enter net spend as campaign cost

   Charges minus credits, entered against the LSA campaign by hand or through the Marketing API.

5. 5

   Compare cost per booked job across channels

   Put the LSA figure next to Google Ads, Meta and your other campaigns in the same report, then decide where next month's money goes.

That last step is where LSA stops being its own island. Our marketing attribution guide shows the full monthly report, and the Google Ads conversion tracking page covers the search campaigns that LSA usually runs beside.

Paying for a wrong number, and getting it back

Every LSA advertiser eventually pays for a lead that was a robocall, a job they do not do or a homeowner three counties away. Google's process has changed in ways worth knowing. Its lead credits article says leads "determined to be invalid or low quality are not charged," and that charged leads "may be issued credits automatically if later determined to be low quality." In most cases, it says, credits are applied "within 30 days."

Two details change how a contractor should set up the account. Google says it "no longer supports credits for 'job type not serviced' and 'geo not serviced' leads." That makes the service list and service area your own responsibility: if the profile says you fix tankless water heaters in a town you never drive to, the leads that follow are yours to pay for. And feedback still matters. From the Leads page you select "Rate this lead," and Google says feedback can earn "a bonus credit." Lead credits are not available for health care verticals, tax specialists or advertisers in EMEA, which leaves home services in the game.

If your leads are poor for reasons that are not Google's fault, such as slow callbacks or a form nobody watches, our lead problems guide is the honest place to look first.

Reviews, response time and your place in the line

Google ranks Local Services Ads through an auction that weighs your bid and the quality of your profile. Its ad rankings page lists among the profile factors "Your rating, number of reviews, average response time, use of high-quality images, the verification checks you have completed." It also says "Missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness," and that higher quality profiles "may rank higher and may also pay lower costs per lead."

Read that as an operations note. The cheapest LSA improvement is usually a phone that gets answered, followed by a steady flow of reviews from finished jobs. ServiceTitan's Marketing Pro Reputation sends review requests by SMS or email, and with the default "Job Complete" trigger sends one request per job. Our reviews guide covers the tools that connect to ServiceTitan, and getting more Google reviews covers the asking. The broader numbers are in our online review statistics.

What your website still does for an LSA advertiser

An ad can win the first call, but customers still check the company before they let it into the house. The website is where they find the service area, the license, the financing and the booking button. DataCram builds that site on Next.js with Athena CMS, whose Hestia agent keeps hours, phone, address and services the same everywhere they appear, and whose Echo agent drafts review replies and places review quotes on matching service pages. See Athena for the rest.

For Bleuwave Home Services in the Phoenix metro, a company that runs on ServiceTitan, we built a site where "an on-page assistant books straight into ServiceTitan." It is on our work page. Our local marketing programs start at $500 a month, with ads as an option, and the free map pack audit shows where you stand in local results today. Trade pages for HVAC and plumbing companies show how we build for each trade.

Integration work on an existing site is quoted after a free review, and our conversion tracking setup service handles the measurement. New sites start at $1,750, and website financing runs 0% with 25% down for up to twelve months. Start with the free mockup or call (210) 346-0848.