Why am I getting Local Services Ads leads for work I don't do?
Because job types are coarse buckets, the customer self-selects one, and Google matches loosely on query intent. A homeowner who picks the closest-sounding option gets routed to you even when the actual job is out of scope. Pruning job types reduces the mismatch and also reduces volume, so the right move is to measure booking rate and average ticket by job type before you start turning things off.
The matching is looser than the interface implies
The job type list looks precise. It is not. A customer describing a problem in their own words is mapped into a bucket by Google, and homeowners are not good at diagnosing their own systems. “No heat” covers a thermostat, a control board, a failed compressor and a system that should be replaced. All four arrive labeled the same way.
So some mismatch is structural and permanent. The goal is not zero mismatch; it is knowing which buckets consistently produce work you want.
Measure before you prune
The instinct after a bad week is to switch off the job types that produced the annoying calls. That often removes profitable volume, because the annoying calls and the good calls came from the same bucket.
- Booking rate by job type. The share of leads in that bucket that became scheduled work.
- Average ticket by job type. A bucket with a mediocre booking rate can still be your best if the jobs are large.
- Dispute rate by job type. High dispute rate with low booking rate is the only clear case for turning something off.
- Completion rate by job type. Booked work that cancels tells you the expectation set on the phone was wrong, which is a script problem, not a targeting problem.
Some mismatch is a business decision in disguise
A recurring pattern worth checking: leads categorized as out of scope that your company could actually do, but that the person answering the phone has no authority or confidence to quote. Commercial work, unusual brands, jobs at the edge of the service area. Those get turned away and sometimes disputed as mismatches when the real constraint is internal.
You will only find this by listening to what was actually asked for. Call analysis that tags requested service against your service catalog separates “we do not do that” from “we did not want to,” and that distinction is worth real money in most shops.
Coordinate job types with service area
The two settings interact. A job type you are happy to take five miles out may be a loss forty miles out once drive time is counted. Rather than disabling the job type everywhere, tighten the geography where the economics break — see LSA setup for how the two settings should be tuned together rather than in isolation.
Topics: job types · lead quality · service categories · configuration
Have a version of this question about your own business?
The useful answer usually depends on which systems you run and how they're connected. That's a conversation, not a blog post.