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)

 

[AlexBor]

Hi,

thank you very much for your reply, I really appreciate it.

Most of the things you mentioned are already on my testing list. Interestingly, you also replied to one of my previous posts back in 2024 regarding another LSA issue we had.

At that time, the problem turned out to be that our moving trucks had our phone numbers printed on them. For whatever reason, the LSA algorithm appeared to penalize and effectively blacklist our account because of that. We never received any policy violation or explanation from Google, so it took quite a while to figure out.

We eventually fixed it by disabling the LSA account, creating a new one, and modifying the truck branding so that the phone numbers were no longer visible. After that, performance returned to normal.

That's one of the reasons I'm wondering whether there could be some kind of hidden trust score, reactivation penalty, or account history component involved in my current situation as well.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond and share your thoughts. I'll continue testing and monitoring the account.

 

[Chris Barnard]

Yeah, you bet - wish it was actually helpful/actionable info I could provide! LSAs are like throwing darts.

That's nuts about the trucks/phone numbers, so that was on the images in the LSA account, I'm guessing? I recall the image policy when there were no overlays/CTAs/phone numbers, but usually the flag/policy violation would be on the specific image and visible in the Profile.

Wonder how that plays out now that LSAs can be populated with images/services/reviews from GBPs.

 

[AlexBor]

Yeah, you bet - wish it was actually helpful/actionable info I could provide! LSAs are like throwing darts.

That's nuts about the trucks/phone numbers, so that was on the images in the LSA account, I'm guessing? I recall the image policy when there were no overlays/CTAs/phone numbers, but usually the flag/policy violation would be on the specific image and visible in the Profile.

Wonder how that plays out now that LSAs can be populated with images/services/reviews from GBPs.

Yeah brother, it was absolutely crazy. We basically spent 3–4 weeks with almost no advertising because LSA was our primary lead source. Google Ads and SEO never performed particularly well for us here in Germany or maybe we're just not very good at them yet, haha.

And come on, your advice is always helpful. At the end of the day, we're all figuring this stuff out together and getting a little smarter with every problem we solve.

By the way, do you run a marketing agency in the US?

 

[Chris Barnard]

No

Yeah brother, it was absolutely crazy. We basically spent 3–4 weeks with almost no advertising because LSA was our primary lead source. Google Ads and SEO never performed particularly well for us here in Germany or maybe we're just not very good at them yet, haha.

And come on, your advice is always helpful. At the end of the day, we're all figuring this stuff out together and getting a little smarter with every problem we solve.

By the way, do you run a marketing agency in the US?

No, I just work for the best local SEO agency on the planet. #dreamteam We do PPC/LSAs too.