Google will now associate your booking links it finds in your Google Business Profiles automatically with your Google Local Service Ads. And when a searcher fills out that booking link, that will be charged to your ads account as Google would charge you for a phone call or message within Local Service Ads.
What is changed. Google said that starting yesterday, February 25, 2025, if Google detects a booking link associated with your Google Business Profiles, Google will start showing those booking links on your Local Service Ads.
Google said you will be charged for those bookings like you would be charged for calls or messages through Local Service Ads.
Why this is bad. I mean, if you want this, sure, this is a good thing. But this can be bad for advertisers for a few reasons:
(1) Google has automatically opted you in to this, and you need to manually opt out. So some advertisers might have no clue they were opted in (although emails did go out notifying them).
(2) Often, booking links are automatically associated to a Business Profile and those leads go no where. Meaning, the business has no clue they have a booking link and those bookings go into some blackhole that the business is unaware is available for them to check.
(3) You are being charged for these like you would be charged for a phone call, which is likely a lot less valuable than someone filling out a form.
More details. Anthony Higman posted about this on social media and shared the email, here is that email:
Why we care. If you do Google Local Service Ads, it would be wise to check to make sure that you are not being charged for these booking links leads by going to your settings section in your profile and budget page and turning off the feature.
Otherwise, make sure you treat those booking link leads like you would any LSA lead, because LSA leads can get pretty expensive.