On September 21, Google Ads changes how Performance Max campaigns report network data. The single "Cross-network" row gets replaced by up to seven channel-specific rows. Any filter in your reporting that references "Cross-network" will stop returning data — not with an error, but silently. Empty table, no warning.
This is landing eight days before Q4 planning season peaks. Worth knowing now.
What Google changed
For the past few years, PMax campaigns compressed all delivery data into one Network dimension value: "Cross-network." One row, all channels lumped together. It made reports tidier but told you nothing about whether YouTube, Search, or Display was doing the actual work.
Starting September 21, Google Ads now returns the specific channel for each row: Search, Search Partners, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover, or Maps. One Performance Max campaign can produce up to seven separate network rows where before there was one.
Search Engine Land covered the change last week, noting it affects every tool that reads the Google Ads API — the connector providers, BI platforms, and Looker Studio templates all inherit the issue. Any reporting layer between your ad account and your dashboard needs attention.
The silent failure problem
The part that will actually hurt people: there is no error.
If your Looker Studio dashboard, Supermetrics report, or internal BI query filters on Network = "Cross-network", that filter will return zero rows after September 21. Not a warning. Not a red cell. An empty table that looks exactly like a campaign that stopped spending.
Most people will not notice immediately. They'll see blank data and wonder if something went wrong with the campaign itself. By the time someone traces it back to the filter change, a few days of PMax data will have been missed or misread going into Q4 planning.
An error would be better than silence here. Google is not giving you an error.
Historical data has a hard cutoff
Channel-level PMax data exists from June 1, 2025 onward. Any query spanning earlier dates will return "Cross-network" for those older rows and the specific channel name for rows after the cutoff. Your time series will have two different data shapes in the same chart.
If you're building year-over-year comparisons for September 2026 vs. September 2025, this matters. The older rows won't have channel breakdowns. Any analysis that assumes consistent data structure across the full date range will quietly produce wrong numbers.
Asset performance labels also disappear
Alongside the network change, Google is removing the asset performance label column from Search and Display campaign reporting. That column returns empty going forward. Performance Max and Demand Gen are unaffected — their asset labels continue working normally.
This is a smaller change but worth noting if your team tracks creative performance signals from Search campaigns through the asset label field.
What to fix before September 21
Audit your filters. Search every dashboard, saved report, and query builder for "Cross-network." Replace it with individual channel names, or remove the filter and accept all network rows. The seven channel values are: Search, Search Partners, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover, Maps.
Update your connectors. Whether you use Supermetrics, Funnel, Improvado, or direct API queries, the filter logic inside your reports still needs to change manually. The connector will handle the API response correctly — it's your filter that becomes invalid.
Set a June 1, 2025 historical baseline. That's the hard cutoff for channel-level data. Pre-cutoff PMax rows don't have channel breakdowns. Build your year-over-year comparisons around what the data actually covers.
Don't mistake higher row counts for a data error. After September 21, your PMax row count goes up — that's the channel split working correctly. If your reporting counts rows rather than aggregating spend, plan for the difference.
Why Google is doing this now
The channel split is part of the broader PMax transparency effort that gave advertisers asset group reporting and audience segment breakdowns over the past year. Google's case: you've been asking to see where PMax budget actually goes, so here it is.
What it doesn't give you is control. Seeing which channel absorbed most of your PMax spend doesn't mean you can redirect it. The allocation logic still sits inside the black box — Smart Bidding decides, and your levers are asset quality, feed data, and audience signals, not channel-level bids.
The timing during the mandatory AI Max migration month is worth noting. As more advertiser decisions move into automated systems, Google is giving back measurement transparency as partial compensation for lost control. Whether that tradeoff holds for your account depends on how much the channel data actually changes your strategy.
The Q4 implication
Q4 planning happens now. The September 21 deadline for this reporting change falls right at the point when most teams are pulling historical PMax data to set Q4 budgets and ROAS targets.
If your reports break silently before that planning work is done, you're making Q4 decisions on incomplete data. Check your dashboards this week.
If you want a clearer picture of how your PMax campaigns are actually configured heading into Q4 — what's set up correctly, what's missing, what's at risk — the free audit at Gromerce runs in about three minutes.
PMax reporting was always a black box. On September 21, Google opens one new panel. Make sure your reporting is ready to read it.
Sources: Search Engine Land, Google Ads Help documentation, September 2026
