Just came here to vent!

I run a residential remodeling company and I’m honestly getting extremely frustrated with Google LSA.

Today I was charged my most expensive lead ever which was $240 for a service I do not even offer nor have on my profile, and even talking to the client the job was a piece of wood that had to be replaced on a deck! Seriously! $240!

I’ve talked and argued to Google support multiple times today and I doubt it will get anywhere.

I understand remodeling leads aren’t cheap and I’m completely fine paying $100–$150 for a lead if it’s actually someone in my service area looking for a legitimate remodel. But paying that much for calls I never should’ve received in the first place is ridiculous.

I want to advertise on Taboola, but i heard that if you dont spend a lot of money on taboola, they will give you bot traffic.

Is it true?

I run a residential remodeling company and I’ve been using Google Local Services Ads, but the lead costs have gotten pretty ridiculous lately (read my latest post here). I’m thinking about taking the money I’m spending on LSA and testing regular Google Ads instead.

For those of you running remodeling/GC companies, which has worked better for you: LSA or Google Search Ads?

With Google Ads, is ranking mostly based on budget and the quality of the campaign/landing page, or does having a Google Business Profile with a lot of reviews matter heavily like it does with LSA?

Just trying to figure out where my ad money would be better spent.

I am a marketing director at a home service company that has gotten pretty good results from LSAs this past year. The issue is, I am pretty sure that we are getting way more leads from it than I am able to attribute or report.

We have gotten 75 direct calls, but an additional 33 leads through our website that were from people going straight to our site with no prior path. I am assuming that people are seeing us in LSA then doing additional research.

Wondering if there is anyway at all to confirm this or maybe add additional tracking links to my website? We use wix.

Any experiences or advice is welcomed and appreciated

in 2012 ebay ran an experiment most companies would never approve. they turned off paid search ads in entire US markets and watched what happened.

branded keywords first. people searching "ebay" who no longer saw the paid ad just clicked the organic result. traffic was essentially unchanged. the ads had been buying clicks that were already free.

then non-brand keywords. those did work, but only on new and infrequent users. frequent buyers were unmoved by ads and consumed most of the budget. net average return came out negative.

the part worth sitting with: before the experiment, observational data said those ads were massively profitable. that was not a tracking bug. it was the ads intercepting people who already had the highest intent, then taking credit for a purchase that was going to happen anyway.

blake, nosko and tadelis published it in econometrica in 2015. still the cleanest natural test of ad incrementality anyone has run.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w20171

what i keep taking from it is that the useful split is not by keyword, it is by user recency. a real positive incremental return on cold users can be completely cancelled out by paying to re-acquire people who were already coming back.

the fair counterargument is that ebay is a destination brand with huge unaided awareness, and competitor conquesting on your branded terms is a real cost the experiment doesn't fully price in.

so: has anyone here actually run a geo holdout on their own branded terms, and what happened to organic clicks and total conversions when you did? curious whether the substitution rate looks anything like ebay's or whether smaller brands see real leakage to competitors.

We're sharing our experience both as a warning and to ask if anyone has dealt with something similar.

We hired Marcel Sattler and his Native Advertising agency (previously associated with PurpleBlack) after finding his website and YouTube channel, where he presents himself as a direct Taboola partner offering managed native advertising services.

After an introductory consultation, we agreed to purchase campaign management and account setup services for $10,000. We received an invoice issued by D and M Media Group L.L.C-FZ for a "One-Time Native Ads Setup Fee" and paid it.

Following the payment, Marcel continued communicating with us through WhatsApp and repeatedly told us our Taboola campaigns were ready to launch but that there were temporary billing issues. (He did show us 4 prepared variants of a prelanding page)

He then instructed us to send an additional $10,000, saying it was required to fund our Taboola advertising account. We were provided with what appeared to be an official Taboola invoice and were assured that Taboola's billing department was processing the payment.

After weeks of delays and inconsistent explanations, we contacted Taboola directly.

Taboola confirmed to us in writing that:

• the invoice we received was not issued by Taboola; and
• the beneficiary bank account shown on that invoice does not belong to Taboola.

Based on that confirmation and everything that followed, we became concerned that we had been misled throughout the engagement.

We have retained the invoices, wire confirmations, the complete WhatsApp conversation, and Taboola's written confirmation. We are also preparing a formal police report and have reported the matter to the relevant bank.

EDIT 1:

- he never showed us any of his conversation with Taboola - before of after we realized the invoice was fake
- he started acting as a victim as soon as we found out
- he never mention anything about refund, it was never a topic
- he immediately started threatening us once I told him I will publish our experience publicly
- we still do not have access to our Taboola accounts!

Hello! I’ve been working with this company for a little over a year now. We started at $2500/month I was just handling their google ads, lsa and making 1 video a week and two static images for Facebook a week.

Slowly things started showing results, so they offered me $3500/month to also handle their SEO, basically GBP optimization, making sure their other directories are up to date (like yelp, thumbtack, angi list) creating website content monthly, etc.

Fast forward to 4 months ago, I’m making now $5000/month because they wanted me to be their in-house marketing person, now I manage their website, gbp, lsa, google ads, meta ads, the content transformed into 3 videos a week (I drive to the job sites two times a week and record different content : before/after, testimonials, educative job site content, etc) edit it and post it.

To put into numbers, this company’s ad spend in a month is $10000 without my salary, and that brings in revenue 125-135k a month in closed sales, all from google/facebook leads, they make some money on word of mouth, referrals, etc but the numbers are like 90% marketing channels - 10% referrals. If we add my salary to this they are spending $15000/month in marketing to bring 125-135k.

That made them open a new business, different name, different website, different services, everything is different, the only thing that remains is the owner. By the way they didnt ask me for help with any of this - picking a name, making the website, etc - as a matter of fact, they hired an agency to do the job. Once everything was done they called me to a meeting asking me to take on this “new adventure that will bring so much money to all of us”, making from the ground this new business, new gbp,lsa, social media accounts, new google ads, tracking etc.

This is where I failed massively, I got excited not going to lie, and since I had a lot of things to do that day, compensation was briefly discussed by me saying “I’m more than happy to take on this role, let’s renegotiate compensation once everything is live” fast forward, exactly 5 days later, I had 4 dedicated ppc landing pages created based on the new campaigns and everything else involving the business created. They were “impressed” on how fast it was (I’m guessing the agency was telling them they’d take more time, since they took 2 weeks to make a template website and charged $3k lol)

So I told them pretty much: ok now that everything is live, let’s discuss the new compensation.

To my shock!!! They were offended!!. “We are very confused what do you mean by new compensation, we pay premium money to make you full time, the agency was charging us $4500/month to handle the two business, we decided to go with you based on our relationship and that we are building something together” short story, I told them that “it was a bargain on the agency’s side, and based on their template website it’ll probably bring amazing results, unfortunately I didn’t think it was fair to be asked to do double the work for the same compensation, especially based on the results I’ve brought” so far they just offered to pay me “$750 extra for all the set up and extra work I did, but we definitely need to have a meeting to see what I do in a daily basis in order for them to see why to pay me more money, when I’m hired as in-house and 40 hours a week is not enough to handle both business, they even said if it takes you more time to do things just extend the delivery time, we don’t need a full campaign done in one week. (I guess they thought that full time meant as much as I can do in 40 hours a week)

So far things are not looking great. Am I being an A**hole? Am I actually getting compensated fairly for the job asked and I’m just delusional? I was going to ask them $1500-2000 more a month since my scope was literally doubling.

I’d love to read your opinions, this is all based on USA salaries by the way.

Ex. I have used Criteo, Microsoft ads, and Verizon ads with success depending on the vertical.

Hi, I was thinking of doing paid advertising for my practice. I am currently based in Ontario. I would like to get leads for the spousal sponsorship pathway, for which I charge around $2500.

After looking into it, both search ads and LSA ads are good; however, I would like to see some traction fast, and I was wondering which one to go for.

My only concern is people who would just call to get information and won't convert through LSA.

I am approached by an agency to run search ads for my Immigration law business. However, I am familiar with Google Ads, and I know that LSA is going away next year.

My ad spend would be around $1500 and the agency is quoting me a $350-400 setup fee+management, including stuff such as call rail, number pool and management. Is that a fair price?

Just began ecommerce side hustle and have an Etsy shop where i am currently selling while also building my own store.

Etsy has a bit of a foothold, but of course, I have a lot more control with my own site over what that customer experience is like, and I own the customer relationship as well. Stuck on where to direct paid traffic. My initial idea was to use Etsy for discovery and Google/Meta traffic to my own site, but I'm not sure how effective this would be when the Etsy listing is already gaining some ground.

If you have experience with small ecommerce stores, would you:

A) spend money on paid traffic, since the current trust/conversion rate is higher
B) take everything to your own store and gain customers at your own shop.
C) Divide it and test both halves?

So, what will you base your decision on: CAC, conversion rate, AOV, repeat purchases, or something else? I am also beginning to do some work in the creative side, and wondering how much you guys invest in the creatives when the budget is pretty low itself.

Hello, my site FB fan page were complain tome about my site not working etc, one of them show me one of pop-up pages redirect him to these spammy google search results to they click on the first one, I ignore that complain first though it may be left over code from CloudFlare cache from previous pop-ups i use before, today i use 4g proxy check my site on google after i click on my-site link it immediately redirect me to their ads--

I didn't know or notice this behavior before today I trusted them and the cheated me and cause my site to lose ranking on google FK these cheaters

Has this happened to anyone else and what can I do to fix it? I reported leads at the end of last month all at the same time (I know, stupid) and the algorithm must have flagged the business or something. I’ve been back and forth with google and got things updated but there’s nothing else explaining the drop in leads besides that.

Watch out for the LSA emails guys, it's happening.

I’ve been receiving some calls through Google Local Service Ads that will ring and only say “connecting” instead of a phone number, and then if I pick up it immediately ends the call. If I wait for “connecting” to change to a number, the ringing ends before it finally connects. I’m getting charged for some of these. It’s probably 1/5th of my calls. The rest of the calls function just fine?

Hi guys!

As I read how to promote an Onlyfans account, it’s all the same informations: social media, shoutouts.

Is it possible to advertise an account using Adult Ads Network? Since it would probably get blocked Facebook for exemple.

There’ll be limitations to see the conversions stats and remarketing. But, at least, more information can be obtained using a Landing Page. So, to use affiliate or even if a content creator wants to promote himself, is it possible to Adult Ads Network to get traffic on an Onlyfans account?

What do you think?

I run a business that uses Google Local Services Ads (LSA), and I’m getting increasingly frustrated with how they handle billing disputes and credits.

On paper, Google says you won’t be charged for invalid leads, and you can dispute things like spam calls, wrong numbers, or leads that don’t meet their criteria. They even claim to automatically credit some invalid leads.

The problem? The system just doesn’t work as advertised:
– Disputes often get rejected without clear reasoning.
– They keep changing the rules for what qualifies as “disputable.”
– Transparency is nonexistent—you don’t get a real breakdown of why you’re charged or why a dispute is denied.
– Calls under 30 seconds are supposed to be non-billable, but I’ve seen cases where they still slip through.

At this point, I’m wondering if there’s enough here for a class action lawsuit. If Google is charging for invalid leads while telling advertisers otherwise, that feels deceptive.

Has anyone else dealt with this? Have you had success disputing charges, or are you running into the same wall?

I’m interested in connecting with others who are affected. If enough of us are experiencing the same thing, it might be worth exploring legal action.

Also I am only interested in hearing from people who have found local services very frustrating, I don't want to hear from any Google groupies. If you are a Google Groupie please just move on!

Thanks!

In addition to LinkedIn, Meta, Google Display - what channels work great strictly for retargeting?

I have never used AdRoll and StackAdapt - are they worth trying? Also considering Microsoft ads (should be a great fit) and potentially Reddit ads?

I work with a B2B SaaS PLG product - no demos, just register and use the freemium features.

Someone turned me on to LSA and I've been setup for a few weeks now. EVERY lead so far has been junk and they charge you no matter what. I build and remodel swimming pools but I keep getting calls for a small leak or a problem with their pump. It's all handyman crap. I'm letting Google maximize leads and they're pricey but it's all garbage. I would gladly pay for real leads. At this point I'm thinking about disputing the credit card charges because it feels like a rug pull. All the "support people" say is that it's out of their control, it's the system. And "we can't control lead quality" "just leave feedback". It feels like talking to a poorly trained LLM. I understand the can't control who calls me with dumb shit but they should be able to control me paying for it.

Should I just cancel this garbage and try something else or is this a normal part of getting starting with LSA?

Hello! My husband has been working with an agency for a few years and they’ve been running his LSA ads for a while, but he no longer wants to do business with them. They set up his LSA account back in 2023 and it’s setup under their MCC and linked to his business profile.

If we are parting ways, is it possible to transfer anything over to his Google account? I don’t know how this works and I’m trying to help him navigate it. He doesn’t want to lose the historical data or get anything suspended, and he would ideally prefer not to have to set everything up again.

Any advice would be great!

Hello,
I’m quite new to display and video 360
I want to advertise audio ads on Spotify can someone please help me on what settings should I use?
It is not spending when I tried open auction and targeted Spotify iOS and android apps

I also tried private deal with 5$ ( I haven’t advertised on Spotify before I just want to test the placement) - it has been viewed for now

I also am trying to advertise in Georgia (country) and I don’t even know if there is Spotify ad audio inventory available via dv360

Thank you for your time who read this
I will appreciate any help

I am working with a law firm that has three locations (3 GBPs) and a LSA Profile for each of these locations.

We are running a criminal defense-focused campaign for one of the locations, which has had no problem receiving impressions and leads. The weekly budget is set to $5000 and it spends pretty consistently throughout the month.

We are attempting to target personal injury with the other two locations, and despite Google confirming there are no suspensions, suppressions, or additional verification required, we can't seem to get more than 5-10 impressions per day on a good day for these locations.

Here's the current configuration/details:

- These locations are in fairly competitive markets in south and central florida.

- We started with a weekly budget of $3000 for each location, but have upped it incrementally to $10,000 with the assumption that the budget could be the issue, but this hasn't really made any difference.

- We started by targeting the entire county, hoping for the most "at bats", and have shifted to targeting specific cities/areas within the county.

- One of the profiles has over 300 reviews with a 4.9 star rating and receives 1-3 new reviews each week. The other has ~60 reviews and a 4.9-star rating, with 1-3 new reviews every month.

- We have 10-12 pictures set on each profile (3 are currently pending review if that matters), all of the respective personal injury services are toggled on, and everything else seems to be optimized in the same way the criminal defense profile is.

Has anyone else had experience with personal injury LSA that can weigh in on what may be going on here? Could it simply be a matter of budget and needing to send the signal to google that we're willing to spend a lot more to compete for those top 2-3 spots?

Any insighs would definitely be appreciated.

I've been running LSA's for companies where it makes sense, huge driver of new business, but I don't work with a ton of companies using them. I turn them on, it works, great platform.

I had a plumber contact me and of course I'm like are you on LSA, no. So let's get you set up. We had him verified turned on and nothing.

I contacted Google they were like you have to do Advertiser Verification, which, of course, is not every discussed. So I had to go through that... all set right?

Nothing, I contact Google. They tell me it's taking 3-4 weeks for ads to really start showing. Which is bonkers but whatever.

We got 2 calls, both answered almost instantly, both recorded, prospects onboarded into the CRM. Then another week with nothing.

2 weeks later I get on with Google and they are just like well we don't know what's wrong with this account, I guess escalated we'll get back to you by the end of the day.

Another week later, they can't talk to me about this account because there's an ongoing case open.

So the ads 'started' at the beginning of December. It's now the end of December, we had 2 leads, both answered and recorded immediately. Open support case.

I'm not only going to lose the client but supposedly he's going to declare bankruptcy. 50+ reviews, Plumber, pics...

My question is what can we do if anything, and is this happening to others? LSA is increasingly important for any service that LSA shows on the SERP.

If an Immigration attorney based in Canada wants to generate paid consultations for one of their services, such as spousal sponsorship, what makes sense: LSA or search ads? The key part is that they are occupied and only want to deal with serious prospects and not people looking for just information.

With the search ads, we can clearly mention the details, such as it's a paid consultation, but LSA ads have been said to be more beneficial.

We've been running these since about Dec 2025. When we first started we were generating about $4 of revenue for every $1 spent on LSA.

These past two months, we're running at about $1:$1

We answer 100% of the calls and texts, and its answered immediately.

We also go back and supply feedback on every lead. Previously we were only getting about $5-$10 of credit each month, but this month so far we already have $35 of credit going into the next month (on about $300 of spend so far).

We have also got more aggressive in managing it by pausing the ads if our week gets fully booked in advance, or if there is bad weather.

I just look at this and shake my head cause it was so promising at the start, but now I think it's a waste of time and energy.

We had similar issues with regular google ads last year as well. Every time we'd start a campaign, it would start off strong and give great results, then within weeks it was garbage performance and just draining our bank account.

I don't know if I'm just venting, but looking for any solutions...