Google Local Services Ads May Be Sending Calls to the Wrong Number. Here’s Why Home Service Companies Should Care.
For a home service company, the phone call is often the moment marketing becomes revenue.
That makes call tracking more than a reporting feature. It is the intelligence layer that tells you which campaigns are generating real opportunities.
That is why a recent change involving Google Local Services Ads deserves attention.
According to a September 25 report from Search Engine Roundtable, Google appeared to be routing some Local Services Ads calls to the phone number associated with a business’s Google Business Profile rather than the Google Ads call-tracking number advertisers had configured. Google reportedly confirmed that when both location and call assets are used, ads featuring specific business locations may direct calls to the phone number associated with that location instead of the number configured in the call asset.
For home service companies that depend on inbound calls, that creates a measurement problem.
The Number Matters More Than You Think
Google’s call reporting system is designed to make phone leads measurable. With call reporting enabled, Google can use forwarding numbers to identify calls generated by ads and provide information such as call duration, caller area code, and whether calls were received or missed.
That’s valuable because a marketing report shouldn’t stop at:
“We generated 87 calls.”
The better question is:
“Which marketing investment generated the calls that became customers?”
If Google is displaying or routing calls through a different number because of the interaction between location and call assets, that attribution can become harder to interpret.
And when you’re spending thousands of dollars every month on lead generation, bad attribution isn’t a minor inconvenience.
It can influence where the next dollar gets invested.
The Location Asset Complication
Google’s own documentation confirms that location assets can change how calls are handled.
When location and call assets are used together, Google says ads featuring specific business locations may direct calls to numbers associated with those locations rather than the phone number configured through the call asset. Google also recommends call reporting to measure performance across these interactions.
For a multi-location home service company, this becomes particularly important.
Imagine you operate several service areas and have different numbers connected to your locations. A homeowner searches for a plumber, sees your Local Services presence, and calls.
That call may absolutely be a legitimate marketing-generated opportunity.
But if your reporting doesn’t clearly connect that call to the source that generated it, you lose part of the intelligence needed to evaluate performance.
Don’t Optimize What You Can’t Measure
This is where the issue becomes bigger than a Google Ads setting.
Marketing decisions are often made from incomplete data.
One platform reports leads. Another reports calls. Your CRM tracks booked estimates. Your sales team tracks closed jobs. Revenue lives somewhere else.
If those systems aren’t connected, it’s easy to conclude that one channel is performing better simply because it reports more activity.
That’s dangerous.
A $75 lead that becomes a $7,500 customer may be far more valuable than a $35 lead that never gets answered.
The objective isn’t to generate the most calls.
It’s to understand which calls create revenue.
What Home Service Companies Should Do
Don’t panic. But do pay attention.
First, verify the phone numbers associated with your Google Business Profile, Google Ads call assets, location assets, and Local Services Ads.
Then test the customer journey yourself. Search for your services the way a homeowner would. Check the number displayed and confirm where the call routes.
Most importantly, compare what Google reports against what your CRM and call-tracking systems show.
If the numbers don’t reconcile, investigate before making major budget decisions.
Google’s reported issue may also change again. The original report noted that the behavior appeared inconsistent, with reports of the issue later reversing on some accounts and the possibility that Google had made a fix.
That uncertainty is exactly why monitoring matters.
The Bigger Mission
For home service companies, marketing isn’t simply about getting your phone to ring.
It’s about knowing why it rang, what generated the opportunity, whether the lead was qualified, whether your team converted it, and what revenue ultimately came from the investment.
Google can change how its systems handle calls.
Your measurement discipline shouldn’t change with it.
When your marketing is connected from lead → call → estimate → booked job → revenue, you have intelligence.
Without that connection, you’re making decisions from activity.
And activity isn’t the mission.
Revenue is.