Your Performance Max "Cross-network" Filter Is About to Return Nothing, and It Will Not Throw an Error
The short version
Newer versions of the Google Ads API no longer return "Cross-network" as the Network value for Performance Max campaigns. They return the actual channel: Search, Search Partners, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover or Maps. Any filter, saved query or dashboard rule written against "Cross-network" stops matching, and the API returns an empty result rather than an error, which a dashboard renders as a zero. Supermetrics moves to the newer API on September 21, 2026, and the older v22 API is sunset for everyone on October 7, so every connector and script flips somewhere in that window. The date to find is your vendor's, and the string to search for is "Cross-network".
What Google announced
Two Google dates and one vendor date, and the coverage has been blurring them. On January 27, 2026, Google Ads API v23 introduced channel-level reporting for Performance Max: the ad_network_type segment, which had returned a single mixed value for Performance Max, now returns the specific channel, at campaign, asset group and asset level, for dates from June 1, 2025 onward. Google Ads API v22 is sunset on October 7, 2026, after which all v22 requests fail. Any tool still on v22 must be on v23 or later by then.
The vendor date is the one that circulated this week. On September 7, Supermetrics published an advisory that its Google Ads connector moves to the newer API behavior on September 21, 2026, and stated that the change "affects every tool that reports on Google Ads, not just Supermetrics." The advisory covers three field changes arriving together: Performance Max Network splits into up to seven channel rows; the asset performance label goes empty for Search and Display campaigns, which used to return Pending, Learning, Good, Best or Low; and the click type segment is removed from the Customer asset, Campaign asset and Ad group asset reports. Google has published no advertiser-facing note tying these three together.
What it actually means
The channel breakdown is good news and this site said so in July when it covered the Partners alpha: Performance Max has been a black box by design, and per-channel spend is the first thing every practitioner asked for. Nothing in this brief argues against the change. The brief is about how it arrives.
It arrives as a silent empty set. A filter on Network equals "Cross-network" does not error when the value disappears. It returns no rows. In a spreadsheet that is a blank. In a dashboard tile that is a zero, styled the same as a real zero. The person reading the tile sees Performance Max spend collapse to nothing on a Monday and starts an investigation into a campaign that is fine. Supermetrics' own phrasing is the one to remember: "check your reports rather than waiting for something to look wrong," because nothing will look wrong. It will look like a result.
It multiplies rows. One Performance Max row can become seven. Any total built by summing rows still sums correctly, but anything that counted rows, capped rows, paginated on row count or budgeted data transfer on row volume moves. So do any joins keyed on campaign plus network that assumed one network per Performance Max campaign; those now produce duplicates.
It splits your history at June 1, 2025. Channel data does not exist before that date. A query spanning the boundary returns "Cross-network" for the older rows and a specific channel for the newer ones, inside one result set, with no flag. A year-over-year Performance Max report run in September 2026 against September 2025 is fine. Run it against May 2025 and half the rows are a different kind of thing.
It cannot be reconciled against the interface. Channel-level Performance Max data is API-only. The Google Ads interface does not show the same breakdown. So when the API-fed dashboard and the interface disagree after your connector flips, both are correct, and there is no view where you can hold them side by side. Anyone who reconciles by opening the account and eyeballing the campaign has lost that method for this dimension.
And September 21 is not the date. It is Supermetrics' date. Looker Studio connectors, Funnel, Adverity, Windsor, in-house Python, Google Ads scripts, the BigQuery Data Transfer Service and every agency platform each moved or will move on their own schedule, bounded by v23 in January and the v22 sunset on October 7. Some flipped months ago and nobody noticed because the filter happened to be on campaign type. Some will flip on October 6. The useful question is not "what happens on September 21" but "what API version is each thing I own on, and when does it change."
The filter does not break. It succeeds, and returns nothing, and the dashboard calls that zero.
Signal or noise: high if anything you own pulls Performance Max data through the API, no signal if you live in the interface
This is a reporting-layer change with no effect on delivery, bidding or spend. If every Performance Max number you look at comes from the Google Ads interface, close the tab. If a client dashboard, a warehouse table, a Looker Studio report, a script or a monthly export touches Performance Max through the API, this is a twenty-minute search that prevents a morning of false alarms, and the window for doing it quietly closes on your vendor's flip date.
The Monday-morning playbook
- Search everything you own for the literal string "Cross-network". Saved queries, dashboard filters, connector field mappings, scripts, spreadsheet formulas, warehouse transforms. Also search for
MIXED, which is the API enum the interface label maps to. Every hit is a filter that will start returning empty. - Replace the filter, do not patch it. If the intent was "Performance Max campaigns," filter on campaign type, which is stable. If the intent genuinely was network, list the seven channel values and keep "Cross-network" in the list for pre-June-2025 rows.
- Find the flip date for each tool. Supermetrics is September 21. For everything else, find the vendor's API version notice or ask. In-house code: check the version string in the client library. Anything still on v22 has a hard stop of October 7.
- Decide where Performance Max history starts. If you need channel-level data, June 1, 2025 is the earliest it exists. Either cut reports there or add a column that labels pre-June rows as unsplit, so a reader knows why 2025 looks different.
- Check row-count assumptions. Pagination limits, row caps, transfer quotas, and any join on campaign plus network. One Performance Max row becoming seven is where deduplication logic quietly starts double-counting.
- Handle the other two field changes in the same pass. If any report filters or groups on asset performance label for Search or Display, those rows disappear. If any asset-level report uses the click type segment, it is gone from the Customer, Campaign and Ad group asset reports.
- Warn whoever reads the dashboard before the flip, not after. One line: on this date the Performance Max rows split by channel, totals are unchanged, and a zero in the network tile on that morning is a filter problem, not a spend problem.
- On the flip date, open the report and look. Supermetrics' advice is correct: nothing will error. The only test is a human comparing the Performance Max total before and after and confirming it did not move.
The bottom line
Google gave practitioners the Performance Max channel breakdown they had asked for since 2021, and did it through an API field change that every reporting tool has to absorb on its own schedule between January and October. The change itself is welcome. The failure mode is a filter that succeeds and returns nothing, on a date that is different for every tool you own, in a dimension you cannot check against the interface. Search for the string this week. It is the cheapest audit on this site.
Frequently asked
Why does my Performance Max report show zero after filtering on Cross-network?
Because the value no longer exists in newer Google Ads API versions. From API v23, released January 2026, Performance Max campaigns return the specific channel for the Network field (Search, Search Partners, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover or Maps) instead of the single Cross-network value. A filter written against Cross-network matches nothing, and the API returns an empty result rather than an error, which most dashboards render as zero. Replace the filter with a campaign type filter for Performance Max, or with the seven channel values.
Why does the Performance Max channel breakdown not match the Google Ads interface?
Because channel-level Performance Max data is only exposed through the Google Ads API. The Google Ads interface does not show the same breakdown, so an API-based report split by channel cannot be reconciled against the interface line by line. Channel data also exists only for dates from June 1, 2025 onward; a query spanning earlier dates returns Cross-network for the older rows and specific channels for the newer ones, so a single date range can contain both kinds of value.
Is the September 21, 2026 Google Ads reporting change a Google date?
No. September 21 is the date one major connector, Supermetrics, moves to a newer Google Ads API version. Google's own dates are January 2026, when API v23 introduced channel-level Performance Max reporting, and October 7, 2026, when API v22 is sunset and every remaining tool must have upgraded. Each connector, script or platform flips on its own schedule between those dates, so the date to check is the one your vendor publishes, not September 21.
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