One-line takeaway

Save the ad-platform facts now, then keep membership outcomes separate and unknown until your own records support them.

Source-backed signal

Google's current migration documentation says existing Local Services Ads campaigns will move automatically into a specialized Performance Max campaign type with pay-per-lead goals. Google says the first U.S. phase begins in August 2026 for select home and storefront service advertisers, including HVAC, followed by broader groups later in 2026 and remaining categories and non-U.S. accounts in 2027.

Google says the pay-per-lead model, Search and Maps placements, and keywordless targeting remain. Campaign management moves into Google Ads. Previous performance reports do not carry into Google Ads, and after an account migrates the old Local Services Ads dashboard and its previous performance reports are no longer accessible. Google therefore directs advertisers to download or export their historical performance reports before migration.

Google's current direct-business-search documentation distinguishes a search for a brand or business name from a category or job-type search. In the Local Services Ads lead inbox, Google documents a Search intent filter for Direct Business and report filters that separate Total lead spend and Charged leads by Category or Direct Business.

These sources establish Google's product states, migration timetable, reporting boundary, and documented intent filters. They do not establish how many leads an HVAC company should receive, what a lead should cost, whether a lead was qualified or booked, whether a completed job created a membership opportunity, or whether Local Services Ads caused a membership enrollment.

Interpretation

Interpretation, not a Google claim:

The migration creates a useful deadline for preserving a dated acquisition baseline. It does not create evidence of membership demand.

An operator can save the fields Google controls and then connect them to downstream states the business can actually verify. That connection should remain a measurement exercise—not a channel scorecard, attribution promise, or automated budget decision.

The clean boundary is:

  • Google-supplied context — report period, search intent, lead type, charged status, and spend.
  • Operator-supplied outcome — qualified request, booked job, completed job, eligible membership opportunity, offer, enrollment, and the evidence supporting each state.
  • Unknown — any missing or unjoined state. Unknown is not zero, no, lost, or ineligible.

Direct-business and category intent deserve separate rows because they describe different search contexts. That distinction does not prove that one intent is more valuable. A branded search can reflect prior awareness, an existing relationship, offline marketing, a referral, or another influence the ad report alone cannot identify.

Operator lesson

Preserve the source record before evaluating the channel.

Build one row per lead or one aggregated row per fixed period, but do not mix the two. Every field needs a definition, an owner, a source, and an allowed unknown state.

Use this blank record:

  • Baseline captured at — timestamp; export or saved report date.
  • Report period — start and end date; Google report.
  • Search intent — Category, Direct Business, other, or unknown; Google filter or lead record.
  • Lead type — call, message, booking, other, or unknown; Google lead record.
  • Charged state — charged, not charged, or unknown; Google lead record.
  • Spend — amount and currency, or unknown; Google report.
  • Qualified request — yes, no, or unknown; documented company definition and disposition.
  • Booked job — yes, no, or unknown; booking record.
  • Completed job — yes, no, or unknown; completed-work record.
  • Eligible membership opportunity — yes, no, or unknown; written company eligibility rule.
  • Membership offered — yes, no, or unknown; recorded offer event.
  • Membership enrolled — yes, no, or unknown; enrollment record.
  • Join evidence — source identifiers plus timestamp, or unknown; documented record match.

Do not add customer contact details to a planning worksheet or public artifact. Use the company's approved access, privacy, retention, and identifier rules when joining internal records.

Practical playbook

  1. Confirm the account's actual migration notice. Google's phased timetable does not prove the migration date of one advertiser.
  2. Choose a fixed historical period and record the timezone. Do not compare periods with different lengths without labeling the difference.
  3. Save the historical Local Services Ads reports Google makes available before the account migrates. Record when and by whom the export was captured.
  4. Preserve Google-controlled fields without renaming them into business outcomes. A lead is not automatically qualified, booked, completed, or eligible for a membership.
  5. Separate Category, Direct Business, and unknown search intent. Do not assign a value judgment to an intent label.
  6. Separate lead types and charged state. Keep spend in the report's currency and period.
  7. Define an eligible membership opportunity in plain language before counting it. Apply the same definition to every row in the baseline.
  8. Join downstream states only through evidence the company is authorized to use. Store the source identifiers and timestamp needed to audit the match.
  9. Keep unknown visible at every stage. A missing disposition is not a lost lead; a booking is not completed work; completed work is not proof that an offer was appropriate or made.
  10. Report counts before rates. For any rate, show its numerator, denominator, excluded rows, and unknown count.
  11. Review the baseline after migration using the same downstream definitions. Label any Google field or workflow that changed instead of forcing a false like-for-like comparison.
  12. Use the result to identify the earliest repeated unknown or handoff failure. Do not automate budget, bidding, outreach, or customer messaging from this worksheet.

Email version

Google says the first U.S. phase of its Local Services Ads migration begins in August 2026 for select home and storefront service advertisers, including HVAC. It also says previous performance reports will not carry into Google Ads and will no longer be accessible from the old dashboard after migration.

That is a reason to save a baseline—not a reason to claim the channel creates membership demand.

Preserve the Google-controlled fields first: report period, search intent, lead type, charged status, and spend. Then add only downstream states your own records can support: qualified request, booked job, completed job, eligible membership opportunity, offer, and enrollment.

Keep unknown separate from zero. Keep branded and category intent separate. Show the numerator and denominator for every rate.

The next useful count is Local Services Ads leads with both a known search intent and a known downstream membership-opportunity state.

Which downstream state becomes unknown first after a lead reaches your business?

LinkedIn post

Before an HVAC Local Services Ads account migrates, save the baseline.

Google says previous performance reports will not carry into Google Ads. Preserve the ad-platform facts:

  • Report period
  • Search intent
  • Lead type
  • Charged status
  • Spend

Then keep operator-owned outcomes separate:

  • Qualified request
  • Booked job
  • Completed job
  • Eligible membership opportunity
  • Offer
  • Enrollment

Unknown is not zero. A lead is not a booking. A completed job is not proof that a membership offer was appropriate or made.

Save the source record first. Evaluate the handoff second.

Short post / thread starter

Before HVAC Local Services Ads migrates, save report period, search intent, lead type, charged status, and spend. Then join only the downstream membership states your own records support. Unknown is a result, not a zero.

Community-answer suggestions

  • Ask whether the operator has received an account-specific migration notice rather than inferring a date from the phased timetable.
  • Separate Category, Direct Business, and unknown search intent before comparing downstream outcomes.
  • Ask for counts of qualified, booked, completed, eligible, offered, and enrolled states—with the unknown count beside each.
  • Treat the historical export as source evidence, not as proof that the advertising caused membership demand.
  • Recommend one documented eligibility definition before calculating an offer or enrollment rate.

Sources

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Reader question

Which downstream state becomes unknown first after a Local Services Ads lead reaches your business?