Lead rating is the judgement a business records against a single enquiry after it arrives: was this lead worth paying for, and why or why not. In Google's Local Services Ads, the pay-per-lead format used by plumbers, electricians, locksmiths and other service trades, the rating is a short survey attached to each call or message. It gives Google outcome labels its matching models cannot observe, since the platform rarely learns whether a call became a booked job, and gives advertisers billed per lead a channel to flag spam, misdials and jobs they do not do. In customer relationship management (CRM) software, the same phrase describes something older and simpler: a Hot, Warm or Cold label on a sales prospect.

How a rating is recorded

Inside Local Services Ads, the path is short. An advertiser opens the Leads page, selects a lead and chooses "Rate this lead", which opens the Lead Feedback Survey, according to Google's Local Services Help Center. The same survey can be submitted programmatically.

The Google Ads API exposes the mechanics in detail. The ProvideLeadFeedback method of the LocalServicesLeadService, added in version 19.1 of the API in April 2025, takes three inputs: the resource name of the lead, a survey answer and a reason. The answer sits on a five-point scale: very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied.

Reasons depend on the direction of the answer. A satisfied rating can cite a booked customer, a likely booked customer, a service-related enquiry or a high-value service. A dissatisfied rating can cite one of six specific failures, as defined in Google's client library documentation:

  • Geo mismatch - the request came from outside the business's service area
  • Job type mismatch - the request was for a service the business does not offer
  • Not ready to book - the customer was not prepared to commit
  • Spam - bots, silent calls or scams
  • Duplicate - the same customer contacting more than once
  • Solicitation - job seekers or vendors selling to the business

Each side has an "other" option requiring a free-text comment. The response is a credit decision. Google returns one of four outcomes: bonus credit issued with the account still under a cap; credit issued and the cap now reached; no credit because the cap was already reached; or no credit because the lead was ineligible. A bonus credit, when granted, becomes usable in about two months, according to the API reference. Google does not publish the cap.

Where rating sits in the lead lifecycle

Rating comes last in a sequence Google largely runs itself. Leads are assessed at the moment of contact, and those judged invalid or low quality are not charged. The Leads report shows four statuses: charged, not charged, in review or credited.

What counts as chargeable is defined narrowly. Answered calls, returned calls that reach the customer, texts, emails, voicemails and booking requests in the United States and Canada qualify. Follow-up contact from the same number or email within 15 days of a charged lead is not billed again. From October 1, 2026, missed business-hours calls where the caller holds on for more than 20 seconds also became billable, with the timer starting after the first key press on menu-based phone systems.

After charging, Google's models keep reassessing. A lead later deemed low quality may be credited automatically, usually within 30 days, though the original charge still appears on the invoice, according to Google's documentation. That process, known as autocrediting, runs regardless of whether the advertiser rates the lead. The rating is a separate, optional signal layered on top.

A hypothetical roofing contractor receives a call from a homeowner 60 miles outside its service area. Before mid-2024 it could have disputed the charge as "geo not serviced". Google no longer credits geo or job type mismatches, so the remaining recourse is a very dissatisfied rating with the geo mismatch reason. That may inform future matching and may yield a bonus credit under the cap. It guarantees no refund.

Origin and evolution

Google began testing the format in 2015 as Google Home Services, according to Search Engine Land, rebranding it as Local Services by Google by 2017. Instead of auctioning keywords, the programme priced leads by job type and area and attached a "Google Guaranteed" badge to screened businesses.

For most of its first decade, quality control rested on disputes. An advertiser could flag a charged lead, pick a reason and wait for a human or automated review, with a credit typically following within days, according to Julian Diep, a consultant at Blue Grid Media, writing for Advertising Week in June 2026.

That model ended in 2024. On June 24 and 25 of that year, Google's Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin explained the change on X, according to Search Engine Roundtable. "Rather than waiting for advertisers to initiate disputes, we're proactively evaluating every lead that comes in," she wrote. She gave a reason: "We were seeing a very small number of advertisers dispute a high share of their leads." And she named the replacement: "we're opening an in-product Lead Feedback survey on every lead." Automated credits reached all eligible accounts from July 2024, and credits for geo and job type mismatches were withdrawn.

Exclusions followed. Health care verticals and advertisers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were never covered. On January 6, 2025, Google told tax specialists that autocrediting no longer applied to their vertical. API access to the survey arrived in April 2025.

The latest shift is structural. Google is folding Local Services Ads into Google Ads as a pay-per-lead Performance Max campaign type, starting with selected US home and storefront advertisers in August 2026, service-area businesses in late 2026 and non-US accounts in 2027. The new Leads table, found under Goals, Conversions and Leads, keeps the lead feedback form alongside charge status and lead type.

Why it matters for marketers

In a pay-per-lead model, lead quality is a billing question. The September 2026 CallMath model cited by PPC Land, using 40 calls a month and a $40 lead price, put the cost of the new missed-call charges at $230.40 a month for a business answering 70% of calls, falling to $38.40 at a 95% answer rate.

Diep argued that operators logging every lead outside Google's dashboard often find true cost per lead 20% to 30% above the reported figure. Ratings are the only structured way to tell Google which leads fell into that gap.

Automation raises the stakes. Local Services Ads introduced Target Cost Per Lead bidding in September 2024, and a bidder chasing cheaper leads without quality labels can buy more of the wrong kind.

Limitations and disputes

The central criticism is that a rating is not a dispute. Google describes the survey as a way to learn advertiser preferences, and Diep wrote that it does not reliably return money. The categories advertisers most often disputed before 2024, out-of-area and out-of-scope leads, are exactly the ones Google stopped crediting.

Sources disagree on whether rating carries any financial weight. CAMP Digital, a home services agency, wrote in July 2024 that the survey carried no credit component. Google's own help page and API now describe bonus credits for leaving feedback. Both can be read as accurate at different dates, but Google has not published when bonus credits began, how large they are or where the cap sits.

The process is opaque. Advertisers cannot see how a rating changes future lead delivery, and Google's remedy for unwanted leads, narrowing service areas, job types and categories, comes with its own warning that lead volume may fall. The October 2026 missed-call policy said nothing on dispute steps, voicemail handling or geography. And Google's filters, by its own account, do not stop every invalid lead.

Marvin's remark points to Google's side of the problem: labels from the paying party are an imperfect training signal, and uncapped credits would invite abuse.

Not the same as

CRM lead rating - a manual label on a prospect record. Salesforce's standard Lead object carries a Rating picklist with example values Hot, Warm and Cold. Microsoft Dynamics 365 stores the same idea in its LeadQualityCode column, displayed as Rating, with Warm as the default. These ratings are set by salespeople and never travel to an ad platform unless exported.

Lead scoring - a points-based or predictive ranking of prospects by likelihood to buy, built from fit and engagement data. PPC Land covers it in a separate explainer. Scoring predicts; rating records a verdict after contact.

Customer reviews - star ratings that customers give businesses. For Local Services Ads, review management moved to Google Business Profile on July 11, 2025. Reviews rate the advertiser; lead ratings rate the customer enquiry.

Autocrediting - Google's automated refund of charges it judges invalid, running independently of any rating.

Recent developments

The question of who rates a lead is moving toward Google. In May 2026 the company announced Lead Intent Scores among 42 lead generation launches, designed to flag which leads are most likely to close. A native leads screen added in June 2026 sorts form leads into raw, qualified, converted and lost. Since April 21, 2026, Google Ads has used AI to judge call quality from recordings in the United States and Canada.

Vendors are responding to the missed-call charges: Invoca released AI voice agents for home services on October 6, 2026, citing its own data that 52% of such calls reach a person. Service-area businesses migrate next.

Timeline

  • 2015: Google begins testing Google Home Services, the forerunner of Local Services Ads
  • 2017: The programme operates as Local Services by Google
  • June 24-25, 2024: Google announces automated lead credits and a Lead Feedback survey on every lead
  • July 2024: Automated credits roll out; manual disputes and geo and job type credits end
  • September 2024: Target Cost Per Lead bidding launches for Local Services Ads
  • January 6, 2025: Google ends autocrediting for tax specialists
  • April 2025: Google Ads API v19.1 adds ProvideLeadFeedback
  • July 11, 2025: Local Services Ads reviews move to Google Business Profile
  • April 21, 2026: Google Ads begins AI qualification of call leads in the United States and Canada
  • May 21, 2026: Google announces Lead Intent Scores at Google Marketing Live
  • June 1, 2026: Native leads screen reported in Google Ads
  • August 2026: Local Services Ads begin migrating to pay-per-lead Performance Max campaigns
  • October 1, 2026: Missed business-hours calls over 20 seconds become billable leads
  • Late 2026: Migration scheduled to reach service-area businesses without storefronts
  • 2027: Migration scheduled for non-US accounts

Summary

Who: Local service businesses advertising through Google's Local Services Ads record ratings; Google uses them in lead matching and bonus credit decisions. In CRM software, salespeople set the equivalent field.

What: A per-lead verdict on a five-point satisfaction scale with a structured reason, such as booked customer, geo mismatch, spam or duplicate, submitted through the Lead Feedback Survey or the Google Ads API.

When: Introduced on every lead in July 2024 as manual disputes were retired, opened to the API in April 2025 and carried into Google Ads during the migration that began in August 2026.

Where: The Leads page of Local Services Ads, now the Leads table in Google Ads, and the LocalServicesLeadService in the Google Ads API.

Why: Pay-per-lead pricing makes each lead's quality a cost question, and Google's models need outcome labels they cannot observe directly. Ratings supply those labels, though they no longer guarantee a refund.