On Monday, July 26, 2024, Google Local Services Ads sent out an email titled “No Action Required: Automating Google Local Services Ads Lead Credits”. The headline of the email reads “Good News: Easier, Proactive Lead Credits”.
What does this mean?
The change will start rolling out to accounts in July. It impacts attorneys and all other advertising verticals in LSA.
Google is removing the ability to dispute charges and get advertising credits.
Google claims a “new system” they’ve been working on for the last 12 months utilizes machine learning to automatically dispute charges for you.
In Google’s email, sandwiched in between all of the feel-good language, Google admits “This change may mean fewer credits for some advertisers.”
The email (seen below) also states they will no longer credit “job type not serviced” and “geo not serviced” leads.
This is unlikely to work.
If you couldn’t tell, I am not optimistic that this will work in your favor, unless you are an LSA advertiser who completely ignores leads and does not dispute junk leads. That’s because Google has completely and knowingly neglected the tremendous amount of spam and algorithm problems plaguing LSA while continuing to roll out new features.
Personal Injury Attorneys who use LSA are used to disputing $600 leads when someone calls about property damage. Currently, those disputes are approved.
Since “job type not serviced” is no longer a creditable charge, will Google even refund it in the rare event their fancy new machine learning system identifies it?
I also wonder if there really is a “new system” as they state.
The bottom line.
We manage LSA accounts for law firms, and they’re probably about to get more expensive. I suspect they’ll continue to be worth it for some attorneys, and not for others.
For current details, see Google’s page “About Automated Local Services Ads lead credits” here: https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/15100654/.
