Local Services Ads or regular Search for a plumber: which one gets booked jobs?

LSA vs Search with call extensions comes up constantly for local services. On paper LSA looks cheaper, since you only pay for leads that match your categories and service area. In practice, lead quality swings a lot from one metro to the next, and disputed leads eat into the savings. It's worth a test if your trade is well covered, but don't judge it on lead count alone. Track booked jobs from both channels for a few weeks before deciding, because a cheap lead that never picks up the phone is still wasted budget. Has anyone found a reliable way to tie LSA leads to actual jobs in their CRM?

Tying LSA leads to jobs is the hard part, and I'd start with phone data before the CRM. LSA shows call and message details in its own dashboard, so have the office tag each lead as booked, quoted, or junk the same day and export that. Search with call tracking can give you the same split if each ad or campaign uses its own number.

A good rule of thumb is to compare cost per booked job, not cost per lead, and hold off on calling a winner until each channel has roughly 20 to 30 booked jobs. Below that, one large job can flip the result. Also take out any LSA leads that were disputed and credited back before you divide, since a refunded lead wasn't really a lead.

It's rough, but it keeps you from picking the channel that just looks cheaper on the lead line.

Same-day tagging is the right call, but lag can skew the numbers. A plumbing lead often turns into a booked job two or three days later, sometimes after a second call. If you pull the last two weeks, the newest leads haven't had time to convert, so whichever channel had more recent leads will look worse than it really is. Pick one fixed window, say 14 days from the lead date, and apply it to both channels before you count booked jobs.

Fair point on lag, and a fixed window is the right fix. How much it matters depends on job size. A plumbing callout usually gets booked on the first call, so the lag is short, but a bathroom remodel quote can drag past 14 days. Set the window to match your typical sales cycle.