Case study · Home and local services
Electrician · Chicago
Local Services Ads are the one advertising format built specifically for licensed trades, and they behave differently enough from Google Ads to be worth understanding properly.
What are Local Services Ads and do they work for an electrician?
They are Google's pay-per-lead format for licensed local trades. They appear above regular search ads, they charge for a lead rather than a click, and they require licence and insurance verification plus background checks before they run.
This Chicago electrician reported being completely booked after a Local Services Ads campaign was built. That is the electrician's own account of their workload, not a metric we measured.
Paying for clicks in a trade that sells calls
An electrician needed better ads management.
Electrical work splits into two quite different businesses. There is urgent work, where something has failed and a homeowner needs somebody today, and there is planned work, where a panel upgrade, a rewire or an installation is being arranged in advance. Both are searched, and the urgent side is where the immediate money is.
Read the full breakdown: Paying for clicks in a trade that sells callsHide the full breakdown: Paying for clicks in a trade that sells calls
Standard search advertising is a blunt instrument for this. The electrician pays for every click, including from people comparing prices, people outside the service area, people looking for a different specialism, and people who were never going to call anybody. In a trade where a single job might be worth a couple of hundred dollars, a run of wasted clicks is a real cost.
Local Services Ads exist because Google recognised this. They sit above the regular ads, they charge per lead rather than per click, and they require verification: licence, insurance and background checks. For a legitimate, licensed electrician, that verification requirement is not an obstacle. It is a competitive advantage, because it excludes everybody who cannot pass it.
Where clicks go on a trade search
BrightLocal's Local Services Ads Click Study, published in 2018, remains the clearest public breakdown of where clicks go on a local service results page when Local Services Ads are present. It is dated, it predates AI Overviews, and it is quoted here with that caveat attached.
SourceBrightLocal, Local Services Ads Click Study, 2018, more than 5,500 US internet users
The important structural point survives the study's age. Local Services Ads occupy the top of the page, and they take a share of it that the business would otherwise have to earn or buy through other surfaces.
Whether Local Services Ads were the right answer
They are not right for everyone, and the qualifying questions are worth working through before any money is spent.
Does the business qualify
Licence, insurance and background checks are required, and the verification takes time. A trade that cannot pass them cannot use the format at all, which is exactly why it is worth using for one that can.
Is the job type suitable
The format works best for defined, urgent, local jobs. A trade selling long, complex, quoted projects gets less from a pay-per-lead format because the lead is much further from the sale.
Can the business answer the phone
This is the decisive question. Local Services Ads deliver calls, and a missed call is a lead paid for and wasted. A one-van operation that cannot answer while working needs an answer to that before spending anything.
See the remaining steps: Whether Local Services Ads were the right answerHide the remaining steps: Whether Local Services Ads were the right answer
Is the service area realistic
Leads are generated inside a defined area. Setting it wider than the electrician can serve produces leads that get declined, which costs money and affects standing in the format.
Are reviews in place
Reviews influence how the format ranks businesses against each other, so a business entering with none starts at a disadvantage that is straightforward to fix beforehand.
Local Services Ads against standard search ads
| Item | Standard search ads | Local Services Ads |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | A click | A lead |
| Position on the page | Below Local Services Ads | Above the regular ads |
| Verification required | No | Yes |
| Who can compete | Anyone with a budget | Verified, licensed businesses |
| Disputing a bad lead | Not applicable | Possible, within the format's rules |
| Control over messaging | High | Limited |
Neither is better in the abstract. Local Services Ads suit defined local jobs from verified trades; standard search ads suit everything that does not fit that description.
Building the campaign
Complete the verification properly
Licence, insurance and background checks submitted correctly the first time. This is administrative and it is where most delays happen, usually because a document is out of date or the business details do not match across sources.
Set the job types and the service area honestly
Only the work the electrician actually wants and can perform, in the area they can genuinely reach. Every unwanted lead is a paid lead that has to be declined, and over-broad settings are the most common way budget is wasted in this format.
Align the profile and the business record
The format draws on the same business information as everything else. A mismatch between the licence, the profile and the website creates verification problems and, once running, inconsistency a customer notices.
See the remaining steps: Building the campaignHide the remaining steps: Building the campaign
Build the review base
Reviews affect standing within the format. Running a consistent request process, inside platform policy and without incentives, is part of making the ads work rather than a separate project.
Manage the leads, including the bad ones
Leads arrive as calls and messages and they need to be answered, tracked and, where a lead is genuinely invalid, disputed through the format's own process. An unmanaged pay-per-lead campaign quietly pays for leads that should not have been charged.
Why position is not just about budget
In both advertising formats, what a business pays and where it appears is decided by more than the amount it is willing to spend.
For a pay-per-lead format, answering the phone is not just good practice, it is part of how the system assesses a business. A trade that reliably answers is shown more than one that does not, which means operational discipline and advertising performance are the same thing here.
The same principle appears in standard search advertising through Ad Rank, where expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience combine with the bid. In both cases the business that does the unglamorous work competes above its budget.
The consequence for a small trade is encouraging. You do not have to outspend a larger competitor. You have to answer faster, be verified, hold better reviews and serve a tighter area, all of which are available to a one-van operation.
What changed, and how we have described it
The electrician reported being completely booked after the Local Services Ads campaign went live.
Completely booked is the electrician's own account of their workload. It is not a metric, it was not measured by us, and it has no unit attached. We have carried it forward because it appears on the live case page and it is a meaningful thing for a tradesperson to say, and we have attributed it plainly rather than presenting it as a result we produced.
It is also worth noting what being fully booked means for a small trade, which is that the campaign should probably now be reduced. A one-van electrician at capacity who keeps paying for leads is paying to decline work, which damages standing in the format as well as wasting money. Capacity is the limit on this kind of success and it arrives quickly.
About these results
Completely booked is the electrician's own description of their workload. It is not a measurement, it has no unit or timeframe, and it should be read as a client-reported state rather than as data.
No lead volume, cost per lead or revenue figure was published for this engagement.
A single-van trade reaching capacity is a low bar in absolute terms compared with a larger contractor. The same campaign at a business with ten vehicles would be a very different result.
Results are from a specific client engagement and vary by market, budget, competition and other factors. They are examples of past outcomes, not a guarantee of future results.
What was actually delivered
- Local Services Ads verification: licence, insurance and background checks
- Job types and service area configured to what the electrician actually wanted
- Business record and profile aligned with the licence details
- A compliant review request process feeding the format's ranking signals
- Ongoing lead management, including disputing genuinely invalid leads
If you are a licensed trade
Check whether you qualify for Local Services Ads before you spend anything on regular search ads. If you are licensed and insured, the format sits above the regular ads, charges per lead rather than per click, and excludes everybody who cannot pass verification. That is a structural advantage worth having.
Answer the phone. In a pay-per-lead format this is not a soft skill, it is a ranking input and a direct cost. Every missed call is a lead you paid for and threw away, and the format notices.
Set your job types and area tighter than feels comfortable. Every lead outside your scope is money spent on a job you will decline. Narrow settings produce fewer leads and better economics.
Plan for capacity before you switch it on. A small trade can reach full capacity quickly, and continuing to pay for leads you cannot serve costs money and damages your standing. Decide in advance what you will do when the diary fills.
Licensed and not using Local Services Ads?
It is worth ten minutes to check whether you qualify. For a verified trade it is usually the first format to try.
Straight answers.
Who can use Local Services Ads?
Licensed, insured local service businesses in the categories Google supports, after passing verification including background checks. The requirements and eligible categories vary by area and change over time.
Google publishes the current requirements, and checking them directly is worth doing before planning around the format.
How is a Local Services Ad different from a Google Ad?
You pay for a lead rather than a click, the ads appear above the regular search ads, verification is required, and you have much less control over the creative.
The trade-off is control for position and cost certainty. For defined local jobs from a verified trade, that is usually a good trade.
Can you dispute a bad lead?
There is a process for it within the format, for leads that genuinely do not meet the criteria, such as being outside the service area or for a service you do not offer.
It needs to be done consistently and promptly. An unmanaged campaign quietly pays for leads it should not have been charged for, which is a common and avoidable cost.
Do reviews affect Local Services Ads?
Reviews are part of how businesses are assessed within the format, alongside responsiveness and proximity. A business entering with no reviews starts behind.
The same compliance rules apply: no incentives, no gating, ask everyone the same way.
What happens when you get too busy?
Reduce or pause. Continuing to receive leads you cannot serve costs money on every one and affects how the format assesses your responsiveness.
For a small trade this arrives faster than expected, which is why it is worth deciding the plan before the campaign starts rather than in the week it happens.
Where this comes from.
Primary documentation and published research behind the guidance on this page.
- Google Local Services Ads Help: About Local Services Ads (opens in a new tab)The pay-per-lead format, and the licence and background checks it requires.
- Google Ads Help: About ad position and Ad Rank (opens in a new tab)Why the highest bid does not automatically win the auction.
- Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google (opens in a new tab)The rules that decide whether a profile stays live, including name and category policy.
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration (opens in a new tab)Federal safety requirements for trades working on site.
- Google Business Profile Help: Prohibited and restricted content (opens in a new tab)What may and may not be done to obtain reviews.
Talk to the team
A short call, a look at how the business currently shows up, and a straight answer on what we would do first.