To see which channels your Performance Max budget goes to, open the campaign in Google Ads, go to Campaigns, choose the Insights and reports dropdown and select Channel performance. The report splits cost, conversions and conversion value across Google Search, YouTube, the Display Network, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners, and flags channels that are limited or missing assets. Pair it with the Performance Max search terms report to see what people searched, then use Adstudio to analyze the campaign, adjust its asset groups and check the result against your other platforms in one conversation.
TL;DR
- The channel performance report is under Campaigns → Insights and reports → Channel performance, per Google Ads Help. Data is available for any date range after June 6, 2025.
- It has three parts: a performance summary, a Channels-to-Goals chart and a channel distribution table with a Status column and a download button.
- Search terms live in a separate view: Search terms → "Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max" (Google Ads Help).
- Google does not let you set a budget per channel. You steer the mix through assets, audience signals, search themes, negatives and placement exclusions.
- Judge each channel on cost per conversion or return on spend, not on its share of spend.
Where is the channel performance report in Performance Max?
Google first announced channel reporting for Performance Max on April 30, 2025, and it now has its own help page. The path, as of October 2026, per Google Ads Help:
- Open the Performance Max campaign.
- In the Campaigns menu, select Campaigns.
- Open the Insights and reports dropdown in the section menu.
- Select Channel performance.
The page shows seven channels: Google Search, Google Display Network, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners. You can pick any date range after June 6, 2025; earlier data is not in the report.
If you manage many accounts, set the date range to the last 30 days first. A single week is often too thin to tell a channel shift from noise.
What does the Performance Max channel report show?
The report is three stacked views, each answering a different question:
| Section | What it shows | Use it to answer |
|---|---|---|
| Performance summary | Actual ROAS or CPA against the average target, plus interactions, conversions, value and cost | Is the campaign hitting its target at all? |
| Channels-to-Goals chart | How each channel feeds your conversion goals, filtered by channel, format and conversion type | Which channel produces the conversions you bid for? |
| Channel distribution table | Every metric per channel, with a Status column, segments and download | Where exactly does the money go, and is any channel broken? |
Source: About the channel performance report for Performance Max.
Three dropdowns on the chart matter more than they look:
- Channel: one channel or all of them.
- Format: "Ads using product data" (Shopping-style ads on Search, YouTube Search, Maps, Search partners and dynamic remarketing on Display), "Ads using video", or "All ads".
- Conversions: "Conversions" means the goals the campaign optimizes for; "Results" includes every goal. Read it on Conversions first, because that is what the bidding sees.
The time series view lets you pick one channel and plot impressions, clicks and conversions together, which is the quickest way to see the day a channel's share changed. Line that date up with your change history: a new video, a feed fix or a budget change usually explains it.
How do I read the channel table without fooling myself?
The channel distribution table is the part people screenshot and the part most often misread. Our rules:
- Compare cost per conversion, not share of spend. A channel taking 40% of the budget is fine if it brings 40% or more of the conversions at your target. A channel taking 5% at three times the target CPA is the real problem.
- Check the Status column before the numbers. Google lists four statuses: Not eligible, Eligible (Limited), Eligible and Missing required assets. Hover a status or select View channel diagnostics to see why.
- Segment before you conclude. Add the "Ads using product data" and "Ads using video" segments, and the conversion action segment, from the table's segment icon. "YouTube is expensive" often turns out to be one video format or one secondary conversion action.
- Download with segments for anything you share. Use Download, then More options to include several segments in one file.
Two notes from Google's page change how you read the totals. All Performance Max conversions are included, offline and Floodlight conversions too. And store-level offline conversions are summed into the total column, so you cannot see them per channel for a single store.
Before acting on any channel, make sure the conversions themselves are right. If a primary action is double counting or carries no value, every channel looks wrong in the same way. Run our Google Ads conversion tracking checklist first.
Why is most of my Performance Max spend on Display or YouTube?
This is the question behind most searches for this report. Google's own explanations, from the channel report help page, point to inputs rather than to a hidden setting:
- Missing or weak assets. The diagnostics name examples such as a missing business name for Discover or a missing square image for Display. A channel that cannot show your best format serves whatever it can.
- Product feed or Merchant Center issues. If Shopping-style ads cannot serve on Search, the budget flows to channels that do not need the feed.
- Missing video assets. Without your own video, YouTube placements rely on what the campaign has.
- Budget limits. A constrained budget changes which auctions the campaign can afford. If the campaign is also limited by budget, read why your Google Ads campaign is limited by budget first.
The opposite case also has an explanation: Google says a channel with no spend and no diagnostics most likely means Performance Max is bidding on inventory it expects to return more.
Our view: high Display or YouTube spend is not a fault on its own. It is a fault when those channels convert above your target and the campaign keeps feeding them. That is what the cost-per-conversion comparison above tells you.
Can I exclude a channel or set a budget per channel in Performance Max?
No. Google's help page states that you cannot directly control budget allocation per channel. What you can do is change what each channel has to work with. These are the levers Google documents for Performance Max, as of October 2026:
| What you want | The lever | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Stop irrelevant Search and Shopping queries | Campaign-level negative keywords and negative keyword lists across several PMax campaigns | Google Ads Help |
| Check what a negative will cost before adding it | Negative keyword impact preview (Search keywords → plus → Preview impact) | Google Ads Help |
| Keep ads off certain sites, apps or videos | Content suitability settings and account-level placement exclusions | Google Ads Help |
| Block a topic on Display and Video | Excluded content keywords in the Content Suitability center | Google Ads Help |
| Limit devices or ages | Device targeting and age controls | Google Ads Help |
| Pull more spend toward Search | Up to 50 search themes per asset group, stronger audience signals and better text assets | Google Ads Help |
| Make YouTube spend earn its place | Upload your own videos instead of leaving the slot empty | Google Ads Help |
Google warns that suitability controls and exclusions can reduce reach, and recommends giving the campaign one to two weeks to stabilize after a significant change. Change one lever at a time, so the channel report tells you which one worked. If you want a clean read on a creative change, run it as an asset experiment in Performance Max instead.
Where do I find Performance Max search terms?
Channels tell you where the ad showed; search terms tell you why. The search terms view is separate from the channel report. Per Google Ads Help:
- In the Campaigns menu, open the Search terms report.
- Choose Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max from the dropdown.
- Segment by ad format to separate Shopping ads from text ads.
The report shows each term with its landing page and ad format, and data goes back to March 2023. Store visits and store sales conversions are not in it. If your campaigns also use AI Max, the related Search view is named differently; our guide to what AI Max is doing in your Search campaigns covers it.
Turn the bad terms into negatives. For Search and Shopping inventory, add them at the campaign or account level. If the same junk shows up across several campaigns, a shared list saves time; see how to add negative keywords to many Google Ads campaigns at once. For a broader sweep of terms that cost money and never convert, use our wasted ad spend guide.
A monthly Performance Max channel check, step by step
This is the routine we would run on every Performance Max campaign once a month:
- Set the date range to the last 30 days, compared with the previous 30.
- Read the summary. Is actual CPA or ROAS within reach of the target?
- Open the channel table on Conversions, and write down cost per conversion for each channel.
- Clear the Status column. Fix anything marked Missing required assets or Not eligible.
- Segment by format and look for one format dragging a channel down.
- Open PMax search terms and add negatives for terms with spend and no conversions.
- Change one lever, note the date, and come back after two weeks.
Steps 2, 6 and 7 are where Adstudio saves time, because each is a question in chat:
- "Analyze my Performance Max campaign for the last 30 days." Adstudio reads delivery, conversions and the asset group findings, including Ad Strength, and explains what changed.
- "Show me the assets in this asset group." Adstudio displays the creatives serving in the conversation, so you can see which channel is missing a format.
- "Add these three search themes to the asset group and replace this headline with the new one." Adstudio reads the asset group from Google first, shows the exact change on an approval card and applies it only after you confirm.
- "Compare cost per conversion for this campaign over the last 14 days against the 14 days before." Adstudio compares two periods of equal length, so the effect of your change reads as a movement, not a single number.
- "Compare cost per purchase for Google, Meta and TikTok this month." If YouTube is your video channel, see how it stands next to Meta and TikTok in one view, as in how to see Google, Meta and TikTok spend in one report.
FAQ
Where is the channel performance report in Google Ads? Open the Performance Max campaign, go to Campaigns, open the Insights and reports dropdown and select Channel performance. It covers Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners.
Can I turn off Display or YouTube in Performance Max? There is no per-channel switch or per-channel budget. You influence the mix with assets, search themes, audience signals, negatives, content suitability settings and account-level placement exclusions.
How far back does Performance Max channel data go? The channel report shows any date range after June 6, 2025. The Performance Max search terms report goes back to March 2023.
Can I download Performance Max channel data? Yes. Use Download on the channel distribution table, and choose More options to include several segments in the file.
Why does a channel show no spend in my Performance Max campaign? If the Status column shows no issue, Google says it most likely means the campaign is bidding on inventory it expects to perform better. If it shows a status such as Missing required assets, fix that first.
How long should I wait after changing a Performance Max campaign? Google recommends one to two weeks for the campaign to stabilize after a significant change. Compare equal-length periods before and after.
To run this check across all your accounts in one place, connect Google Ads to Adstudio on the free plan; paid plans are on the pricing page.
Google Ads behaviour described as of October 2026, per the linked Google Ads Help pages.