Which categories migrate to Performance Max in August 2026?

US advertisers in nine named home and storefront service categories: plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving. Everything else follows in later waves.

Is mobile detailing in the first migration group?

No. Google named nine specific home and storefront trades for August 2026 and mobile detailing is not among them. Mobile detailing falls into the broader category groups scheduled for late 2026 and 2027.

When do the remaining categories migrate?

Google describes late 2026 for broader US advertiser groups, including service area businesses and accounts with custom configurations, and 2027 for non-US accounts and the remaining business categories.

How will I know my migration date?

The account administrator on the profile receives an email 14 days beforehand, a reminder at 7 days, and a confirmation when it completes, along with banners in the dashboard. Make sure that administrator address is one somebody actually monitors.

Should I do anything if my category is not in the first wave?

Yes. Export your historical performance reports now, because they do not transfer whenever your turn arrives and cannot be recovered afterward. Also confirm the administrator email and document what a lead currently costs you per service.

Does the pay-per-lead billing model change?

No. Local Services stays pay-per-lead after migrating to Performance Max. What changes is where you manage the campaign and how bidding is set, since manual bidding and per-vertical Target CPA are going away in favor of one campaign-level target.

Will my budget start going to YouTube and Display since it is Performance Max?

No. Despite the Performance Max name, these Local Services campaigns serve on Search and Maps only. Google is reusing the Performance Max container and the pay-per-lead goal, not the full Performance Max inventory, so your spend stays on search and map placements.

How long until performance settles down after migrating?

Google says to allow up to about two weeks for performance to stabilize. Lead volume and cost per lead can both move around during that window. Avoid reacting in the first few days, and compare against the baseline you exported before migration rather than against the previous day.

What happens to my BBB callout?

Better Business Bureau callouts are not carried into the new format and disappear at migration. Plan on replacing that trust signal with something else, such as your Google Guaranteed badge, review count, or years in business.

Can I create a new Local Services campaign in Google Ads after migrating?

Not necessarily during the initial rollout. Google directs advertisers to g.co/localservices to create new pay-per-lead campaigns, with creation inside Google Ads described as coming later. If your plan depends on launching additional campaigns to split bidding by service, confirm that is available to your account before building around it.

LSA to Performance Max: Which Categories Move in August 2026

Google has published its migration documentation for moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign type. We covered what the migration actually does to your account separately. This piece answers the narrower question people keep asking us: am I in the first group or not?

The short answer is that most of you are not.

Who Moves in August 2026

Google names the first wave specifically. It is US advertisers only, in home and storefront service categories. The named categories are:

Plumbing
HVAC
Electrical
Appliance repair
House cleaning
Lawn care
Roofing
Pest control
Moving

That is a deliberately narrow list. These are the highest-volume LSA categories, the ones where Google has the most data and the most confidence that a pay-per-lead Performance Max campaign will behave predictably. It is a controlled test, not a general release.

Who Moves Later

Google describes two more phases:

Late 2026. Broader groups of US advertisers, including service area businesses and accounts with custom configurations.
2027. Non-US accounts and the remaining business categories.

If you do not see your category in the August list, you are in one of these. That covers a lot of ground: mobile detailing, auto services, most personal and professional services, and anything outside the US.

Mobile detailing is a good example. It is not on the August list. Google named nine specific home and storefront trades, and mobile detailing is not one of them, so it lands in the broader 2026 or 2027 group instead. If you run detailing LSAs, your dashboard is not changing this month.

Nothing about your account is worse for being in a later wave. If anything it is better, because you get to watch the first group hit the problems before you do.

How to Tell for Certain

Do not guess from the category list alone. The reliable signal is the notification itself.

Google sends the account administrator an email 14 days before your migration, a reminder at 7 days, and a confirmation once it is finished. Dashboard banners appear in the same window.

So the practical check is: whose email address is on the profile, and does anyone read it? We have seen plenty of accounts where the administrator address is a former employee, an old agency, or an inbox nobody has opened in two years. If that email lands somewhere dead, your entire notice window passes silently.

What to Do Now, Even in a Later Wave

The wave you are in changes your timeline. It does not change your homework.

1. Export your performance history

This is the one genuinely irreversible part. Lead history transfers, including contact details and message threads. Historical performance reports do not. Impressions, clicks, spend, and ad-level breakdowns are gone once your account moves, and there is no recovery path afterward.

It does not matter whether you move in August or in 2027. Export now, because the export is free and the regret is permanent.

2. Confirm who gets the email

Check the administrator on the profile. Change it to somebody who works there and reads their mail.

3. Know what your leads cost today

Bidding changes at migration. Manual bidding goes away, and per-vertical Target CPA is deprecated in favor of one campaign-level target across all your service categories. If you offer several services at genuinely different lead values, that single blended target will not serve you and you will want separate campaigns.

You cannot make that call without knowing what each service currently costs you per lead. If you do not have that number, get it before somebody has to guess it under a deadline.

4. Do not restructure yet

Resist rebuilding your campaigns in anticipation. The migration moves your settings, locations, service types, photos, verification status, and Google Guaranteed badge across automatically. Weekly budgets convert to daily budgets by dividing by seven. Preemptive surgery just gives the migration more to trip over.

Five Details People Keep Getting Wrong

These come up in every conversation we have about the migration, and none of them are obvious from the headline.

1. It says Performance Max, but it is Search and Maps only

This is the one that causes the most unnecessary alarm. When people hear Performance Max they picture their budget spraying across YouTube, Display, Gmail, and Discover, which is what a normal PMax campaign does.

That is not what this is. These Local Services campaigns serve on Search and Maps only. Google is reusing the Performance Max campaign container and the pay-per-lead goal, not the full PMax inventory. Your money keeps going where it went before: people actively searching for your service, and people looking at the map.

2. Give it two weeks before you judge it

Google says to allow up to about two weeks for performance to stabilize after your account migrates. Lead volume and cost per lead can both move around inside that window while the system resettles.

The mistake is reacting on day three. Somebody sees cost per lead spike, panics, slashes the budget or yanks the target, and now the campaign is learning against a moving target on top of a migration. If you are going to change something, change it after the two weeks, against the baseline you exported beforehand.

3. BBB callouts go away

If your Local Services profile showed a Better Business Bureau callout, it does not survive the migration. That asset type is not carried into the new format.

It is a small thing on its own, but it is a trust signal you were displaying and now are not. Worth knowing so you can decide what replaces it, whether that is highlighting your Google Guaranteed badge, your review count, or your years in business instead of assuming the old callout is still doing work for you.

4. Audit every setting and asset afterward. All of them

Do not assume a clean handoff. After your migration completes, go through the whole campaign line by line:

Budget. Weekly budgets convert to daily by dividing by seven. Confirm the daily number is what you actually intended.
Bidding. Manual bids are gone and per-vertical Target CPA is deprecated. Check what single campaign-level target you landed on.
Service categories. Confirm every service you offer came across, and nothing you do not offer got added.
Locations and service areas. Verify the radius or ZIP list matches what you were running.
Business hours. These drive when your ads can generate calls.
Photos and assets. Check what transferred, what got dropped, and what now needs replacing.
Verification and badge. Confirm Google Guaranteed is still showing.

An hour of checking beats a month of quietly bidding on the wrong things.

5. You may not be able to create new campaigns yourself yet

Here is the genuinely unsettled part. During the initial rollout it is not clear that advertisers can freely spin up new Local Services pay-per-lead campaigns directly inside Google Ads. Google's guidance points people to g.co/localservices to create new campaigns, with in-platform creation described as coming later.

In practice that means the first wave may only receive these campaigns through migration rather than being able to build them on demand. If your plan was to migrate and then immediately launch a second campaign to split bidding by service, do not assume that door is open on day one. Confirm it before you build a strategy on top of it.

What Is Not Changing

Worth saying plainly, because the announcement caused more alarm than it deserved:

You still pay per lead. The billing model is unchanged. This is not a switch to pay-per-click.
Your badge carries over. Verified status and Google Guaranteed transfer with no re-verification, unless Google asks for additional checks.
Your leads stay reachable. Contact details, message threads, and call recordings move into the new Lead Manager.

The real change is that LSAs stop being their own island and become one more campaign type in an account that probably already has other campaigns in it. For most businesses that is an improvement, because it finally puts lead cost from LSAs next to lead cost from everything else in one view.

The Honest Summary

If you are a plumber, roofer, electrician, HVAC contractor, appliance repair shop, house cleaner, lawn care operator, pest control company, or mover in the US, check your email in August.

Everyone else has more time. Use it to export your reports and find out what a lead actually costs you, so that when your turn comes it is a calendar item and not a fire.

If you run Local Services Ads and you are not sure which wave you are in or whether anyone has saved your history, that is a short conversation with a permanent answer. We will check it with you, and if you are already covered we will say so and let you get back to work.

Is Your Business in the First Local Services Ads Migration? Here Is the List