Google appears to have made a confirmed change to how Local Services Ads handle phone numbers. When an advertiser has told the platform to use the Google Ads tracking number, LSAs are instead displaying the Google Business Profile number. This is not a configuration error on the advertiser's side. It is a platform-level change, and as of the time of writing, Google has not reverted it.
The practical effect is that call data generated through LSA clicks is no longer flowing through the Google Ads call reporting infrastructure in the way advertisers set it up to do. That is not a minor footnote. For any business that relies on phone leads, this is a direct hit to the accuracy of their attribution.
Why the Tracking Number Matters
Google Ads assigns dynamic call forwarding numbers to ads so that calls can be attributed back to specific campaigns, ad groups, or keywords. When someone clicks an LSA and calls the number shown, the Google Ads number acts as the intermediary - recording that a call happened, how long it lasted, and allowing it to be counted as a conversion.
The Google Business Profile number does none of that for paid attribution purposes. It is the business's actual phone number, pulled from their GBP listing. Calls made to it are not tracked inside Google Ads. They do not feed conversion data. They do not register as leads against the campaign.
If your LSA campaign is running right now and calls are going to your GBP number, those calls are invisible to your Google Ads account. Your reported cost per lead will be artificially high. Your lead volume will appear lower than it is. And if you are feeding that conversion data into Smart Bidding - which you should be - the bidding algorithm is working with incomplete information.
The Smart Bidding Knock-On Effect
LSAs operate on their own bidding model, separate from standard Google Ads campaigns, but the principle holds across the board: automated bidding depends on conversion signal quality. When calls that should be counted as conversions are not being recorded, the system cannot accurately judge which placements, times, or targeting attributes are generating results.
Over time, degraded conversion data distorts how any automated system allocates budget. The algorithm optimises toward what it can see. If calls are missing from the picture, spend may shift toward enquiry types or channels that look productive simply because their data is intact - not because they are genuinely outperforming.
This is why conversion signal accuracy is not just a reporting concern. It sits at the foundation of how budget is spent. A tracking error that looks like an admin issue is, in practice, a bidding strategy problem.
What to Check in Your Account Right Now
If you are running Local Services Ads, the first step is straightforward: check which phone number is currently showing on your live LSA listings. Compare it against your GBP number and against the forwarding number in your Google Ads account. If they match the GBP number rather than the Ads number, this issue applies to you.
Next, look at your LSA call volume data against any call tracking you may have set up independently - whether through a CRM, a telephony platform, or call whisper records. If your Google Ads account is showing fewer calls than your independent records suggest, the gap is likely explained by this change.
If you have separate call tracking infrastructure that sits outside Google Ads - recording calls to your main business number regardless of source - you may be better positioned than advertisers who rely solely on Google's native tracking. This is one of the situations where having a layer of tracking that Google does not control gives you resilience when Google's own systems change under your feet.
The Broader Attribution Risk
This incident is a reminder that attribution built entirely inside a single platform carries platform risk. When Google makes a change - intentionally or otherwise - and that change affects how calls are tracked, advertisers who have no independent data layer have no way to detect it quickly. The numbers in their account simply look different, and without a baseline to compare against, the cause is not immediately obvious.
The answer is not to distrust Google Ads as a channel. It is to maintain enough of your own data infrastructure - whether that is a CRM recording inbound calls by source, server-side tracking for web conversions, or a telephony system with source attribution - that you can cross-reference what Google is reporting. When platform data and independent data diverge, you have a signal to investigate.
For lead generation businesses where phone calls are a primary enquiry type, this is especially important. A week of miscounted calls in a busy LSA campaign can meaningfully skew cost-per-acquisition figures and feed bad data into reporting that informs budget decisions. The quicker you catch it, the less damage it does.
What Google Has and Has Not Said
According to the reports circulating in the search marketing community, this is a confirmed change on Google's side. What is not confirmed is whether Google intends to revert it. As of the time this was reported, the behaviour had not been corrected and there was no clear timeline for a fix.
That ambiguity is the uncomfortable part. Advertisers cannot plan around a change if they do not know whether it is permanent or temporary. If Google does not revert this, it raises questions about the long-term reliability of LSA call tracking as a metric for paid campaign performance - and whether advertisers need to build their call attribution assumptions around GBP data rather than Ads data going forward.
For now, the practical position is to monitor closely, check your own records against your Ads data, and avoid making significant budget or bidding decisions based on LSA call conversion numbers until the situation is resolved. If you manage LSAs for clients, flag this proactively rather than waiting for them to notice the discrepancy in their monthly report.