If your Local Services Ads are getting almost no impressions, check the ad schedule before you touch the budget. Google lets you run LSA all day, only during your business hours, or on custom hours, and All day is the default. If someone switched it to business hours, a home-services ad that runs 9 to 4:30 on weekdays is off for the evening and the whole weekend, and a bigger budget doesn't change that.
23 impressions in a big city
On a mentoring call, we reviewed a newly launched LSA account for a branch of a roofing and exteriors franchise. It served a big city, and in its first few days live it had 23 impressions and no leads. To push for leads, the weekly budget had been raised to $100,000, against a real target of about $5,000 a month.
Budget wasn't the constraint. The ad schedule was set to business hours, 9:00 to 4:30, with weekends closed. Our read: this branch's customers are mostly families, at work between 9 and 4:30. The roof conversation happens after they get home, and that's when they search. The ad wasn't there when they looked.
Our advice was to run it all day, which is what we do by default, because you don't know when your customers will search. The owner preferred shorter hours, so the compromise was at least a 12-hour window, 8 to 8 or 9 to 9, treated as a hypothesis: widen the schedule, then see whether impressions and leads follow. Nobody expects a roofer at 10 pm. They expect a call back the next day.
What Google documents about the schedule
- Three options. All day (24/7, the default), only during the hours in your Business hours field, or custom days and hours. Change it on Profile & budget, next to Ad schedule.
- Off-schedule means no ad. Outside your scheduled hours, Google says a free version of your listing may be displayed instead.
- Unanswered calls. Google charges unanswered calls only when they happen during your active ad schedule and within your business hours.
- Message and booking leads. Google points to these for nights and weekends, when you can't answer the phone.
If your account has moved into Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign with pay-per-lead goals, the schedule transferred automatically and sits in campaign settings. Business hours now sync from your Google Business Profile.
Then look at the budget for what it does
An LSA budget is a weekly target, not a promise to spend. Google says some weeks you'll spend less than your average weekly budget and some weeks more, but never more than the monthly max: weekly budget x 30.4 / 7. Reach it and the ad stops for the rest of the month unless you raise it. After migration, the weekly budget becomes a daily average (weekly divided by 7) with the same monthly cap.
On the setup call, this mentee had heard on YouTube that LSA only spends a small fraction of what you set, so you need a budget many times your target. Google publishes nothing like that. Its bidding page says a higher weekly budget means more leads you could get. And because LSA charges per lead, no leads means no spend.
That's what the follow-up call showed. The schedule was now 24 hours, every day. Impressions were up, 196 in the report we looked at, but there were no leads, so nothing had been spent. At that point the question is no longer budget or hours. It's which searches the ad matches and where it ranks.
The takeaways
- Google's default LSA schedule is All day. A business-hours schedule hides you from evening and weekend searches.
- We run all day by default. If the business insists on shorter hours, give it at least 12 and test whether impressions and leads follow.
- The weekly budget is a target, capped at a monthly max of weekly x 30.4 / 7. No documented rule says LSA spends a fixed fraction of it.
- LSA charges per lead. Raising an unspent budget won't fix visibility, matching or rank.
Common questions
Why are my Local Services Ads getting so few impressions?
Start with the ad schedule. Google offers three schedule types for Local Services Ads: All day, only during your business hours, or custom hours. All day is the default. If the ad runs only during weekday business hours, it isn't shown to people who search in the evening or at the weekend. Google's troubleshooting page also lists account status, location settings, the monthly budget limit and a suboptimal bid strategy as reasons ads may not run.
What is the default ad schedule for Local Services Ads?
All day. Google's Local Services Help says the default schedule type runs your ad 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The other options are only during the business hours in your Business hours field, or custom days and hours. You change it on the Profile & budget page by clicking the blue text next to Ad schedule.
Will Local Services Ads spend my whole budget?
Not necessarily. Google describes the average weekly budget as a target: in some weeks you may spend less, in others more, but you will never exceed your monthly max, which is your average weekly budget x 30.4 / 7. Because Local Services Ads charge per lead, spend depends on how many valid leads you receive, so an account with no leads spends nothing.
Should I set my LSA budget higher than I want to spend?
Google doesn't publish any rule that Local Services Ads spend only a fixed fraction of the budget. Its bidding page says a higher weekly budget means more leads you could get, depending on your bid strategy. The monthly max is a hard ceiling, so set a weekly budget you are comfortable reaching, and raise it if you hit the monthly max and want more leads.
Am I charged for calls that come in outside business hours?
Google's How leads work page says unanswered calls are charged only when they occur during your active ad schedule and within your business hours, which come from your Google Business Profile. Valid leads such as answered calls and messages are charged as normal. Outside your scheduled hours, Google says a free version of your listing may be displayed instead of the ad.