Google Local Services Ads (LSAs) look simple: you pay per lead, Google delivers leads, your business handles them. What is not obvious to most local businesses is that a meaningful percentage of those leads are disputable — meaning you can request Google credit them back if they meet specific criteria. Most businesses do not know the criteria, so they pay for leads that should have been free.
Across the multi-location home services accounts we manage, we systematically dispute 12-20% of LSA leads and get roughly 60-70% of those disputes credited. That works out to a 7-14% net reduction in LSA cost per booked job with no change to lead volume or campaign settings. Pure margin recovery through knowing what to file.
What Google Actually Credits (Their Rules, Not Ours)
Google's official LSA lead dispute policy specifies six categories where leads are eligible for credit. Most local businesses know about spam and job-not-in-service-area. The other four are where the recoverable money hides.
1. Spam or Robocall
Obvious cases: the lead form was submitted by a bot, or the phone number rang through and it was clearly a robocall or telemarketer trying to sell you something. Google credits these consistently. Easy dispute — but only ~2-3% of leads typically fall in this bucket.
2. Job Not in Service Area
The lead came from a zip code outside your listed service area. This should not happen frequently if your service area is set correctly, but LSAs sometimes leak beyond boundaries — especially in metro areas with multiple close-in zip codes. Dispute these and Google typically credits.
3. Requested Service You Do Not Offer
This is where money starts to add up. A prospect calls asking for a service you do not offer — say, they wanted septic tank cleaning and you only do drain cleaning, or they asked for commercial HVAC and you only do residential. Every one of these is a valid dispute, and they happen far more than most businesses realize because LSA sometimes matches on the service category loosely.
The pattern: about 4-6% of leads for most home services accounts are for services outside the exact scope. Most businesses take the call, politely explain they do not offer that service, hang up, and never dispute the lead. Google keeps the money. Every one of those is a valid dispute.
4. Duplicate Lead
A prospect calls twice about the same job — say, once via LSA and once via your Google Business Profile phone number, or two calls in the same day from the same person. The second call is a duplicate. Both count as billable LSA leads unless disputed.
Duplicates are 2-4% of typical LSA lead volume. They are easily flagged by cross-referencing incoming phone numbers and email addresses across a rolling 30-day window. Most call center software can generate this report automatically.
5. Rate Quote / Info-Only Call
The prospect called just to get a quote or asked for pricing information but did not actually intend to book. Google's official policy: leads that are "purely for information" (not intent to hire) can be disputed. In practice, this is harder to prove because reps generally do not log call intent — but if your call recording software transcribes and tags, you can systematically identify these.
6. Wrong Number / Not the Right Business
The prospect thought they were calling a different business or reached the wrong number. Sometimes happens when Google Business Profile listings get confused across similar business names. Straightforward to dispute if it happens.
The Systematic Filing Process
The reason most businesses under-dispute is that filing individual disputes through the Google interface is slow. To make this economical, the process needs to be systematized:
- 1Every LSA lead gets logged in a spreadsheet or CRM within 24 hours of the call/form submission, with fields: date, service requested, service area (yes/no), call disposition (booked, no-service, spam, duplicate, info-only, wrong-number).
- 2Every 7 days, review the log. Filter to dispute-eligible dispositions.
- 3For each dispute-eligible lead, gather the specific evidence Google requires: call recording snippet, text of the SMS/email that came through, or a written note from the CSR handling the call.
- 4Submit disputes in batch through the LSA dashboard. Google's response time is typically 3-7 business days.
- 5Track credit rate. If Google is crediting <50% of disputes, the evidence submitted needs to be stronger. If crediting >75%, you can be more aggressive with borderline cases.
Why Most Businesses Do Not Do This
It is unglamorous. Filing lead disputes is administrative work — not marketing strategy, not campaign optimization. It requires call center discipline and consistent documentation. Most agencies do not include it in their scope because it is not what they think agencies do.
The math is straightforward though. On a $10,000/month LSA spend, a 10% net cost reduction is $1,000/month — $12,000/year — recovered without any change to lead volume, campaign structure, or strategy. Multiply across a 14-location franchise, and it is meaningful money that most operators are leaving on the table because nobody set up the process.