The Local Services Ads reporting dashboard is where every optimization decision starts, and it is also where most home-service owners stop looking too soon. They glance at total spend, see a number of leads, and close the tab. The dashboard actually holds a small stack of numbers that, read together, tell you whether your Google Local Services Ads (LSA) budget is buying booked jobs or just buying noise. This guide walks through each field, what it means, and how to turn a screenful of data into a weekly decision.
Since Google retired the standalone LSA mobile app in January 2025, all of this lives on the web. You reach it by signing in to the Local Services Ads interface, where you will find a summary strip across the top and an itemized Leads tab underneath.
The four numbers on the summary strip
Before you drill into individual leads, the summary gives you the period-level totals. For a chosen date range you typically see:
- Leads — the count of calls and messages that met Google's definition of a lead.
- Charged leads — the subset you were actually billed for.
- Total spend — dollars charged in the period.
- Average cost per lead — spend divided by charged leads.
Read those four together and you already know two things: what a lead cost you, and how much of your volume was billable. Industry references often cite an average cost per lead around $53, but the real range runs roughly $12 to $180 depending on trade and metro, so your own dashboard number matters far more than any benchmark.
The Leads tab: where the story actually is
The Leads tab is the itemized list. Each row is one lead, and the columns are where you separate a healthy account from a leaky one. Pay attention to:
- Lead type — phone call, message, or booking. Phone and message leads behave very differently and often convert at different rates, so you want to be able to filter by type.
- Status / charge — whether the lead was charged, and whether it was disputed or credited.
- Job type and location — the service the customer requested and where they are. Mismatches here are the leads Google will not credit.
- Timestamp — when it came in, which lets you connect volume to your ad schedule and answer rate.
The single most useful habit is tagging the outcome of each lead yourself. Google tells you a lead was charged; it does not know whether you booked the job. That last mile is yours to record, and it is the difference between measuring cost per lead and measuring cost per booked job.
Reading charged versus total leads
The gap between total leads and charged leads is not waste by itself — it includes free leads and credited leads. But if that gap is large and growing, dig in. A rising share of uncharged leads can mean Google is auto-crediting genuine junk (good), or that a chunk of your volume is being filtered before it ever becomes billable. The dashboard shows the counts; your job is to ask why the ratio moved.
| Dashboard field | What it tells you | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Leads | Raw demand your ad captured | Track trend vs. budget and season |
| Charged leads | Billable volume | Compare to total to gauge quality |
| Avg cost per lead | Efficiency of spend | Watch direction, not the absolute |
| Lead type mix | Phone vs. message balance | Route staffing and follow-up |
| Dispute / credit | Recovered spend | Reconcile against closed invoices |
Why the dashboard never matches your invoice on the same day
This trips up almost everyone. The dashboard shows leads by the date they happened. Credits, however, arrive on a delay: Google's automated model typically assesses a lead within about 72 hours and posts the credit within roughly 30 days. So a lead that reads as "charged" today may be credited two weeks from now. Always reconcile spend against a closed billing period, not a live view, or you will chase phantom discrepancies.
Turn the dashboard into a weekly ritual
A dashboard you check reactively teaches you nothing. Checked on a fixed cadence, it becomes a trend line. Once a week, record leads, charged leads, spend, cost per lead, and your own booked-job count. Four weeks of that and patterns appear that no single snapshot can show: a creeping cost per lead, a Tuesday spike you are not staffed for, a job type that never books. The numbers were always there. The cadence is what makes them mean something.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find the Local Services Ads reporting dashboard?
Sign in to the Local Services Ads web interface. The Leads tab lists individual leads, and the summary area shows total leads, charged leads, and spend for the date range you select. Google retired the standalone LSA mobile app in January 2025, so reporting is web-only.
What is the difference between leads and charged leads on the dashboard?
Leads counts every phone call and message that met Google's lead criteria. Charged leads is the subset you actually paid for. The gap reflects leads that were free, disputed and credited, or otherwise not billed, so comparing the two tells you how much of your volume was billable.
Why does my LSA dashboard total not match my invoice?
The dashboard shows leads by the date they occurred, while credits post later — usually assessed within about 72 hours and credited within roughly 30 days. A lead shown as charged today may be credited next week, so reconcile against a closed billing period rather than a live view.