Google Local Services Ads charges you per lead, not per click. That is usually a good deal, right up until you get billed for a call from a customer you already have, who rang to move an appointment.
Those charges are often disputable. Filing the dispute is part of the job.
How it works, in plain terms
Local Services Ads is built to charge you for new potential customers looking for work. A call that is clearly not a new job inquiry is often not billable, and can often be disputed.
The rule underneath it
If it is not a new customer asking about a new job, it is usually worth disputing.
That means the work is listening to your calls. There is no way around that part, and it is the whole of how you protect your spend.
What counts, and what does not
What you can dispute
- Existing customers calling about an active or past project
- Customers asking for a specific employee or project manager
- Scheduling changes, warranty questions, or general follow-up
- A wrong number, or a call for a service you do not offer
- Internal transfers and other non-sales calls
What you cannot
- New callers asking about pricing, timelines, or availability
- First-time callers asking for an estimate or an inspection
- Calls where the intent is clearly a new job, even if they first found you somewhere else
That last one catches people out. It does not matter how the caller heard about you. If they are calling about a new job, the lead is billable.
How to file one
- Log in to Google Local Services.
- Open the call you want to review.
- Choose Dispute lead, where it is offered.
- Pick the reason, such as Existing customer or Not a new job inquiry.
- Add a short note explaining why.
A note that works reads like this:
Copy this
Caller was an existing customer asking to speak with their project manager about an ongoing project.
What to expect
Google reviews disputes and credits approved ones back to your Local Services Ads balance. Disputes are not always granted, and the option is not offered on every lead.
When to dispute
Within about thirty days, as a working habit rather than because a clock is running out.
We are deliberately not publishing a deadline. The figures in circulation disagree with each other, we could not confirm one from Google’s own documentation, and the one we were able to test did not hold. Work to the window your own account shows you.
It is a good habit anyway, for reasons that have nothing to do with deadlines:
- It teaches Google what a good lead looks like for your business, which shapes what you get sent.
- You get credited while the campaign is still running, rather than after the budget is spent.
- Disputing regularly means you are in the profile regularly. Google’s system favors accounts that are actively managed. That third reason is our recommendation rather than something Google documents.
Keep a log
Keep a simple record of the questionable ones: date, caller, a one-line summary, and whether it was a new job. It takes seconds per call. The disputes get easier to write, and the pattern in what you are being charged for starts to show.
Seeing a lot of existing-customer calls in your first months is normal rather than a sign something is broken. Disputing the right ones is part of running Local Services Ads properly, not a complaint about it.