What is Cross-network in GA4?
Google’s definition: “Cross-network is the channel by which users arrive at your site/app via ads that appear on a variety of networks (e.g., Search and Display).”[1] It includes Demand Gen, Performance Max and Smart Shopping.[1]
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What lands in Cross-network
For Google Ads traffic, Google’s rule is:[1]
- the Google Ads ad network type is Cross-network or Google owned channels, or
- the Google Ads campaign type is Performance Max, App, Smart, Demand Gen or Local.
For links you tag yourself, the rule is a campaign name that contains “cross-network”.[1]
How to read it
GA4 works out Google Ads channels from the source platform, the ad network type and the campaign type.[1] So Cross-network tells you which kind of campaign brought the visit, not which screen the ad was on. To compare a Performance Max campaign with the rest, look at it by campaign, not by channel.
How Convertlyft labels this
Convertlyft has no Cross-network channel. It labels a paid visit by what the link carries: a Google Ads click id (gclid) is Paid search ads, a social ad click is Paid social ads, a paid campaign named for shopping is Paid shopping ads, and a paid tag from a source none of the rules knows is Other paid ads.
Convertlyft has no Google Ads connection, so it cannot read a campaign’s type the way GA4 does. The examples in this section run through our labeller in a test on every change. More GA4 terms.
Questions
Is Cross-network the same as Performance Max?
Performance Max is part of it. Google says Cross-network includes Demand Gen, Performance Max and Smart Shopping, and its rule also takes App, Smart and Local campaigns.[1]
Why do I see Cross-network when I do not run Performance Max?
Any of the other campaign types in the rule can put traffic there, and so can a tagged link whose campaign name contains “cross-network”.[1]
Can I split Cross-network into Search, YouTube and Display?
Not in the default channel group, which can’t be edited. You can create a custom channel group with your own rules.[1]
Sources
- Google Analytics Help, “Default channel group”, support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891, checked 8 November 2026.
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