Quick answer
A Google LSA message lead is a customer who writes to your business through your Local Services Ad instead of calling. About one in four LSA leads arrives this way. Most include a Google-provided number you can call, and nearly half arrive outside weekday business hours, so a fast reply in the conversation and a follow-up call both matter.
Most Google Local Services Ads advertisers think of LSA as a phone channel. The calls are what they watch, what they answer, and what they measure. Message leads get checked when someone remembers to open the lead inbox, and some advertisers switch messages off entirely.
That leaves real leads on the table. Here is what LSA message leads are, what they give you, and how to handle them.
What Is an LSA Message Lead?
A message lead is a customer who contacts your business by writing to you through your Local Services Ad, instead of tapping to call. The message arrives in your LSA lead inbox, and you reply in the same Google conversation.
Google lets you switch message leads on or off. In your Local Services Ads lead inbox, open the menu, select Profile & budget, and use the message leads toggle.
What Message Leads Look Like in Practice
These figures come from Google LSA leads handled by Casey for home service businesses between August 14 and November 12, 2026, with spam excluded.
| Message leads | Call leads | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of all LSA leads | About 1 in 4 | About 3 in 4 |
| Arrive outside weekday 8am–5pm | 48% | 23% |
| Arrive in the evening or overnight | 37% | 13% |
| Arrive on a weekend | 19% | 13% |
Two things stand out.
Message leads are an after-hours channel. Nearly half of them arrive when most offices are closed, twice the rate of calls. A customer who writes at 9pm is often someone who could not call: they are at work, the kids are asleep, or they just found the leak. If nobody answers until the next morning, they have usually already heard back from someone else.
Most message leads come with a number you can call. About 7 in 10 of the message leads in this sample included a phone number from Google. It is a Google-provided number, not the customer's own, but it connects you to them. That means a message lead is not text-only. You can reply in the conversation right away and follow up with a call.
Does Turning On Messages Help Your LSA Placement?
You will hear this from other advertisers: switch messages on and Google ranks you higher. It is a popular theory. It is not proven, and Google does not say it in its documentation.
What Google does say:
- Responsiveness matters. Google recommends responding to leads as soon as they come in, and says a consistently fast response time could improve your ad's ranking.
- Lead likelihood is part of the auction. How likely your ad is to result in a lead is one of the factors that decide where it shows.
Neither statement says that having messages switched on helps on its own. The honest version is narrower: if you switch messages on, you get a second way for customers to reach you, and a second place where your responsiveness is visible. If you switch them on and then answer slowly, you have given Google more evidence of slow replies, not less.
How to Handle LSA Message Leads
- Switch message leads on, if someone will actually answer them.
- Reply in the Google conversation first. The customer wrote to you there, so that is where they are looking for an answer.
- Answer the actual question. A customer who asks "how much to replace a water heater?" wants a range and a next step, not "thanks, we will be in touch."
- Call the number Google provides. A quick call after the first reply often turns a message into a booked job.
- Cover evenings and weekends. Message leads arrive after hours twice as often as calls. That is where an unanswered inbox costs the most.
- Keep the conversation history. If a lead turns out to be invalid, a full record makes a lead credit request easier.
How Casey Handles LSA Message Leads
Casey replies to LSA message leads right away in the Google conversation, day or night, using what it was trained on about your services, prices, and service area. It qualifies the job, works toward booking it, and hands off to your team with the full conversation when a person should take over.
The message leads sit in the same inbox as your LSA calls and your leads from Yelp, Angi, Thumbtack, Meta, and website forms. One login, one inbox, and one place to see which lead sources are paying back.
If you are still choosing how to automate LSA follow-up in general, see our buyer's guide to AI platforms for Google LSA, or the Google LSA solution page for platform specifics.
The Bottom Line
Message leads are a smaller share of LSA than calls, but they are the share that arrives when your phones are quiet, and most of them come with a way to call the customer back. Switching messages on will not move your ranking by itself, whatever you may hear. Answering them quickly and well is what counts.