Local Services Ads charge per lead rather than per click, which is the whole appeal: you pay when someone contacts you, not when someone looks. The catch is what counts as a lead. A sales call from a software vendor, a homeowner forty miles outside your service area, and a person asking whether you are hiring all arrive as billable leads unless you do something about them.
Google has a dispute process. Most businesses either do not know about it or use it so loosely that their disputes stop being approved. Here is how to run it properly.
What Google will credit
Google's published lead policy lists the categories a dispute can be filed under. In plain terms, the leads you can usually get credited are:
Spam and solicitation. Vendors, robocalls, and anyone trying to sell you something.
Job seekers. People asking about employment.
Wrong service. The caller wanted a service you do not offer and is not listed on your profile.
Wrong location. The caller is outside your set service area.
Not a lead. Wrong number, hang-ups with no message, existing customers calling about an open job, and similar.
What you generally cannot dispute: a real prospective customer who did not book, a customer who chose a competitor, or a price shopper. Those are leads. The fact that you did not win them is not Google's problem.
The window and the process
Disputes are filed from the Leads section of the Local Services dashboard, per lead, by selecting a reason and adding a note. Google reviews the lead, including the call recording when the lead came by phone, and either credits it on a future invoice or declines.
There is a time limit. Google's policy specifies how many days you have from when the lead was received, and it is short. Check the current figure in your dashboard and build a weekly review into your routine so nothing ages out.
Running the review weekly
Every lead should have a status, and every lead that falls into a creditable category should be disputed with a specific note. The businesses that get consistent credits do three things:
They listen to the recordings. LSA records phone leads. The recording is what Google's reviewer will hear. If the caller says "I'm calling from XYZ Software," that is a credited dispute in ten seconds. If your note says "spam" and the recording is a real homeowner asking about a service, you have just damaged your credibility for every future dispute.
They write the reason in the note. "Caller asked about commercial refrigeration; we are residential HVAC only, and refrigeration is not on our profile." "Caller's address is in Springfield, outside our service area." Specific and checkable.
They do not dispute leads they should have won. A lead that went to voicemail and never called back is not disputable. A lead that booked with someone else is not disputable. Over-disputing gets disputes declined and, in our experience, gets them declined more often over time.
Reducing bad leads at the source
Disputes recover money after the fact. The better fix is fewer bad leads.
Tighten the service area. Set it to where your trucks actually go, by city or ZIP, not a generous radius. Every wrong-location lead you receive is a service area setting that is too wide.
Curate the services list. LSA lets you pick which specific services you offer within your category. Unchecking the ones you do not do cuts wrong-service leads directly.
Answer the phone. A large share of "not a lead" hang-ups are real callers who reached voicemail and moved on. Those are not disputable, and they are the most expensive bad lead of all because they were good. Every call answered live or by a voice agent is a lead you paid for and kept.
Set business hours honestly. If nobody answers at night, do not run LSA at night. Leads that arrive when you cannot respond convert poorly and are not creditable.
Reading LSA next to search ads
LSA and standard search campaigns serve different intents, and the cost per booked job is what matters across both. We compared them in Google Ads vs LSA: which should you run first. Once both are running, keep the dispute credits in your LSA cost calculation so you are comparing net spend, not gross.
LSA management, including the weekly dispute review, is part of the paid search work we run, and a CRM that logs every lead is what makes the review fast.
Frequently asked questions
Do message leads get recorded?
No, so Google's reviewer relies on the message text and your note. Screenshot anything relevant before disputing.
Can I dispute a lead from a customer who cancelled?
Usually not. They were a real prospect. A no-show or cancellation is a business outcome, not a lead quality issue.
How do credits show up?
As an adjustment on a later invoice, not a refund. Track approved disputes against invoices so you know they landed.
Should my agency handle disputes?
They can, but only if they listen to the calls. An agency that disputes from the lead list without hearing the recordings will hurt your approval rate. Ask how they do it.