TL;DR: Google has expanded Local Services Ads with more specific automotive categories, including Brake Shop, Oil Change Service, Tire Shop, Car Battery Store, and Transmission Shop. This is happening as Google begins moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads through specialized Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. Your existing LSA setup will eventually move with you, so now is a good time to review your business categories, job types, service areas, budget, and historical reporting instead of assuming everything is configured the way you want it.
I’ve been saying the same thing to shop owners for years: fix what’s broken before you build on top of it. It’s the same principle I built Shop Marketing Pros on. You don’t slap a fresh paint job on a car with a bad transmission, and you don’t stack new marketing tactics on top of an account nobody’s actually watching.
Google just rolled out a big change to Local Services Ads, including more defined categories to market for. This is great for shops because now you have more control over what services you’re marketing for on your LSA, but this also means your LSA account needs monitoring sooner rather than later. Google automatically mapped and applied these categories to LSA accounts, so if you haven’t looked at your account in a while, log in and make sure the categories match your service offerings and marketing goals.
Here’s what happened and what’s coming next for your auto repair shop Local Services Ads.
What Actually Changed in LSA
Until recently, automotive businesses were represented by a much smaller set of broad LSA business categories, including Auto Repair Shop and Auto Body Shop. Google has now expanded that list with more specialized automotive categories, giving shops another layer of control over how they identify the work they provide.
Shops could already select individual job types within their LSA category. What changed is that Google has made the top-level automotive category structure itself much more specific.
New Categories for Auto Repair
If you’re in general auto repair, you’ve now got access to:
- Brake Shop
- Car Battery Store
- Oil Change Service
- Transmission Shop
- Car Inspection Station
Other Automotive Categories Now Available
Google’s current U.S. LSA eligibility list also includes additional automotive specialties such as:
- Auto Air Conditioning Service
- Auto Spring Shop
- Car Inspection Service
- Tire Shop
- Towing
Availability and verification requirements can still vary by business and location, so confirm which categories are available in your own LSA account.
On its own, this is a smart move by Google. A customer searching “transmission shop near me” finally lands on a shop that actually does transmission work instead of a generic repair listing that might not touch it. That’s a win for the customer and a win for you, as long as your categories are set up right.
New Categories for Collision and Glass Work
- Auto Glass Service
- Auto Sunroof Shop
- Auto Window Tinting Service
What's Coming Next, and Why It's Bigger Than a Category List
This category overhaul isn’t a standalone update. It’s the opening move in something much bigger: Google is folding all of Local Services Ads into the main Google Ads platform through Performance Max, rolling out in phases into 2027.
Here’s the part that matters for your wallet. Once an account migrates, manual maximum-CPL bidding will no longer be supported. Google is also removing separate Target CPA settings at the business-category or vertical level within the same campaign. If multiple categories currently have different Target CPA settings, Google will consolidate them into a campaign-level Target CPA during migration. Google says advertisers that need different bidding rules for different business categories can use separate campaigns. Historical performance data doesn’t carry over either, so anything you want to keep for reference needs to be pulled before your account migrates. Your past customer lead history, including previous conversations and call recordings, will transfer. This ultimately makes the ads management dashboard and budgeting more like traditional Google Ads instead of the separate LSA dashboard.
Don't Let Google Auto-Pilot Your Ad Account
Here’s the part worth paying attention to. Google didn’t wait for shop owners to log in and choose their own categories. It auto-mapped categories across every account using its own best guess at what each business does. A reasonable starting point, but still a guess, and one worth checking against what your shop actually offers.
I talk to shop owners all the time who treat their online listings like they’ll just take care of themselves. I get it, you’re busy running a shop, not babysitting a Google dashboard. But letting a platform’s default settings sit there unchecked isn’t neutral. It’s a decision, even if you never clicked a single button to make it.
This isn’t only an LSA problem either. Your Google Business Profile categories, your service area settings, your ad targeting- any of it can drift from what your shop actually does if nobody’s checking the work. Platforms set defaults because it’s easier for them to launch that way. It’s not easier for you if those defaults are wrong, and nobody outside your four walls understands your business the way you do.
I see this same gap show up constantly in conversations about auto repair shop marketing. The shops that win aren’t the ones with the fanciest tools. They’re the ones who stay hands-on with the details, even the boring ones, because they know a platform’s automation will never care about their business the way they do.
What to Do About It Right Now
You don’t need to overhaul your whole marketing strategy over this. You need about fifteen minutes and your LSA dashboard.
- Log in and pull up your current categories and job types.
- Turn off anything Google added that you don’t actually offer.
- Add any new category or job type that fits work you already do but haven’t been getting credit for.
- Double-check your service area and hours while you’re in there.
- Save your historical LSA performance reporting before migration.
- Watch for Google’s migration notification, which should be received approximately 14 days before your scheduled transition.
That’s it. It’s not glamorous, but neither is torquing lug nuts to spec, and skipping that step causes problems down the road, too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to do anything myself, or will Google handle this automatically?
What is Performance Max, and why is LSA moving into it?
Performance Max is a campaign type inside Google Ads. For this transition, Google is creating a specialized Performance Max campaign designed specifically around pay-per-lead goals. Migrated LSA campaigns will still be keywordless, will still charge for valid leads rather than clicks, and will continue showing only in the existing Local Services placements on Google Search and Google Maps.
Are all of the new automotive categories available to every shop?
Will this change how much I pay for leads?
Should I turn off a category Google turned on if I don't offer that service?
We Already Handled This for Our Clients
If you’re one of our clients running LSA, you don’t need to go dig through your dashboard tonight. The Ads Team at Shop Marketing Pros already went through every single LSA account we manage, shop by shop, and updated the categories to match what each client actually offers instead of whatever Google guessed.
That’s what marketing for auto repair shops should look like. Not a set-it-and-forget-it dashboard, but a team that’s actually watching when the platform changes the rules on you. If you’re evaluating auto repair shop marketing companies right now, ask them the same question I’d ask anybody managing my ad spend: are they going in and fixing this stuff, or just letting the defaults ride?
That’s the difference between best auto repair shop marketing and someone just running your account on autopilot right alongside Google.
Book your free discovery call, and let’s make sure nothing in your marketing is running on autopilot, including the parts you can’t see.
And remember, in everything you do, Be a Pro.
