Key takeaways
- Most junk moving leads get in through four settings: job types, service area, schedule and budget on dates your crews are already sold out.
- Leads for job types or areas you do not serve are no longer credited, so your settings are the filter, not the dispute button.
- Three questions on every call (move date, where from and to, how many rooms) sort a bad lead before anyone books a survey.
- Judge LSA on cost per booked move after cancellations, and only after a full month on clean settings.
Bad leads from Local Services Ads cost a moving company twice: once for the lead, and again for the estimator time spent on a move you were never going to run. Most of that junk comes in through settings, not bad luck. Tighten job types, service area, schedule and budget first, because Google now credits fewer bad leads than it used to.
Why junk leads happen
Junk leads happen because LSA matches a search to what your listing says you do, where and when, and most moving listings say too much. Someone who types "movers" might want a full-service crew, a rental truck, two hours of loading help or a storage unit. Google routes the lead to eligible businesses that rank well for it (how LSA leads work), and it cannot tell a three-bedroom family move from a single dresser.
| Junk lead | How it gets in | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| "Do you rent trucks?" or "How much is a storage unit?" | Job types left broad, and a listing that reads as self-service | Switch off job types you do not sell, and say "full-service moving" in your profile text |
| A move that starts hundreds of miles away | Someone moving into your area searches for local movers before they leave | Screen it on the call; quote it only if you run long-distance work |
| One couch from a store to an apartment | Small-job types left on | Switch them off, or state your minimum clearly in your profile |
| Calls for the last Saturday of the month when every crew is booked | Budget runs at full speed on sold-out dates | Lower the budget or pause before dates you cannot serve |
| Lead sellers and "partnership" pitches | Your number is public | Note them, do not mark them booked, and move on |
One kind of call is not junk, even if it feels like it: the customer comparing four or five movers. Moving customers are cautious, and comparing quotes is what careful customers do. Those calls are won with a fast, clear estimate, not filtered out.
Sorting a bad lead
What kind of bad lead was it?
- Invalid Not charged Google assesses invalid leads automatically
- Wrong job or area You still pay Tighten job types and service area
- Real but missed Answer faster List only hours you can answer
Cutting them
- Prune job types. Open the job types Google lists for your category and switch off every one you do not run, or do not want at your current prices. If you only run local moves, long-distance work should be off.
- Draw the area around where moves start. Your crew loads at the customer's old home, so set the service area to the places you will load from, not every town your trucks have ever unloaded in.
- Make the schedule honest. Leads arrive as calls and messages. If nobody picks up at 9 p.m., the customer phones the next mover, so either cover those hours or take them off the schedule.
- Pace the budget to the calendar. Lower the weekly budget ahead of month-end weekends and peak summer dates once they sell out, and raise it when you have mid-month weekdays to fill.
- Screen every call with three questions. Ask for the move date, where from and where to, and how many rooms. The answers sort a truck-rental shopper or a one-item delivery in under a minute and tell you whether the date is open.
- Record the outcome of every lead. Mark leads booked or not, rate them, and note why the poor ones failed. After a month, the notes show which job type, day or area is leaking money.
Credits and disputes
Credits are now a weak safety net. Google assesses leads automatically and does not bill the ones it treats as invalid, such as spam (how lead credits work). "Job type not serviced" and "geo not serviced" were retired as credit reasons, so the truck-rental call and the move that starts four hours away are your cost if your settings let them through.
Keep the recording and your note on each poor lead anyway. They are not for winning disputes. They are the evidence for which setting to change next.
Where you manage all this is changing too. LSA is being folded into Google Ads as pay-per-lead Performance Max campaigns, and movers without a storefront are in a later wave than the first trades (the transition). When your account moves, budgets and lead replies move with it. Fix the job types, area and schedule now, so the settings that carry over are clean ones.
When to shift budget
Shift budget only when LSA's cost per booked move stays worse than your other channels after a full month on clean settings, and that month should include a month-end. A slow mid-month week tells you nothing.
Count booked moves, not leads, and take out every move that fell through before the truck was loaded. A channel that books well but cancels often is weaker than it looks.
If LSA still loses after that, move part of the budget to search campaigns, where you choose the exact words you pay for and can send long-distance searches to an inventory quote page. Work out each channel's number the same way, using the cost per lead guide for moving companies. LSA eligibility depends on category and location (Google's requirements), and the Local Services Ads guide for movers covers setup.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We audit your job types, service area, schedule and lead history against the moves you actually booked and ran, then cut the settings that let junk in before the next summer peak. The account stays in your name, the cleanup runs as a project with a finish date, and we report cost per booked move by channel. Bring a few months of lead history to a growth consultation and we will show you where the waste is.
Sources
- About automated Local Services Ads lead credits, Google Local Services Help
- How leads work, Google Local Services Help
- Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, Google Ads Help
- Local Services Ads requirements, Google Advertising Policies Help