Reactivated LSA After 6 Months: Losing Impressions and Rankings Every Day

[AlexBor]

I'm looking for some insights regarding a Google Local Services Ads (LSA) issue.
I own a moving company in Germany and had excellent LSA performance until about 6 months ago. At that time, we were generating around 40 leads per day, with roughly 25–30 being high-quality moving inquiries. We have 120 Google reviews with a 5.0 rating, Google Guarantee is active, response times are excellent, and our profile is fully optimized with photos and business information.
About 6 months ago, I paused the LSA profile completely. One week ago, I reactivated it.
Since reactivation, performance has dropped dramatically:

• Around 5 leads per day instead of 40
• Lead quality is extremely poor
• Daily impressions dropped from roughly 1,800 to around 150
• Absolute top impression rate dropped from 76% to around 8%
• Competitors with only 20–30 reviews and ratings around 4.5 stars are consistently ranking above us

What concerns me most is that performance is not improving — it is getting worse every day since reactivation.
Performance by day:
Day 1

• 600 impressions
• 36% absolute top position rate

Day 2

• 825 impressions
• 32% absolute top position rate

Day 3

• 270 impressions
• 27% absolute top position rate

Day 4

• 154 impressions
• 8% absolute top position rate

Day 5

• Similar performance to Day 4

Additional details:

• Same business
• Same service area
• Same category
• Same budget (already set to the maximum)
• Google Guarantee still active
• During the 6-month inactive period, 4 negative reviews were posted
• Since reactivation, we have received 3 new positive reviews
• No missed calls and all leads are answered immediately

What confuses me is that competitors with significantly fewer reviews and lower ratings are ranking above us, despite us having a long track record, 120 reviews with a perfect rating, and historically strong performance.
Has anyone experienced a similar issue after reactivating an LSA profile that had been paused for several months?
Could this be some kind of reactivation penalty/reset, an internal trust score issue, or has Google fundamentally changed how rankings are calculated within Local Services Ads?
Any insights would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Chris Barnard]

I have not personally experienced a similar issue after reactivating an LSA profile that had been paused for several months. It sure could be some kind of reactivation penalty/reset, or an internal trust score issue.

I do not think Google has fundamentally changed how rankings are calculated within LSAs, but I don't have any facts/data to prove that. From my own experience, I do know the environment is more competitive, and CPLs are generally up YoY. I still think responsiveness and reviews (velocity maybe more so than numbers) matter most.

In this dormant time, have there been any issues or major changes with the associated GBP, payment profiles, or billing methods? Is there much more competition?

I realize this is not much help, but here is what I'd try:

• Enable Direct Business Search temporarily to try to boost responsiveness
• Limit targeting to areas in close proximity to the LSA address/GBP, then add as/if volume builds
• Use auto bidding with no caps
• Set the budget super high
• Enable message leads if not enabled
• Enable booking (if applicable/use partner platform and not currently enabled)
• Go 24 hours
• Check Advertiser verification (in Google Ads) - if incomplete, complete it
• Check account/ads Policy (in Google Ads, not just the Policy manager in LSA dash)
• Continue notating leads that do come in, mark as booked/archive, rate (but don't overly negatively rate leads)