Published: September 27, 2026 · Last updated: September 27, 2026
TL;DR: Google Ads API v25.2 went live on September 23 and it is a genuinely useful release for agencies and advertisers building their own reporting tools. The headline addition is a BenchmarksService that exposes percentile data showing where an advertiser ranks against competitors, plus a new method that auto generates Performance Max drafts from existing Smart campaigns. Version 25.2 stays supported until August 2027, with v26 due in October.
Most API version bumps are housekeeping. This one is not, mainly because of one addition: Google is now letting developers pull competitive benchmark data programmatically instead of forcing everyone to eyeball it inside the Google Ads interface one account at a time.
What BenchmarksService Actually Gives You
The new BenchmarksService returns percentile data showing where a given advertiser sits relative to competitors in the same category. Developers can pull this with category filters, comparing a specific account against an “all advertisers” baseline rather than manually screenshotting Google’s own benchmarking reports. For agencies running client dashboards, that turns a task that used to require a human checking each account against public benchmark data into something that can populate automatically, in real time, alongside every other metric already flowing through the API.
Performance Max Gets an Upgrade Path
The Performance Max additions are aimed squarely at advertisers still running older Smart campaigns. A new API method can automatically generate a Performance Max draft directly from an existing Smart campaign, which removes a genuinely tedious manual migration step that has slowed a lot of accounts from making the jump. Alongside that, Google added asset group level controls for tracking templates, custom URL parameters, and final URL suffixes, giving advertisers finer control over individual asset groups rather than being stuck with settings that apply to an entire campaign.
The Smaller Changes That Still Matter
A handful of quieter additions round out the release. Google’s Content Creator Insights service can now search by YouTube channel handle instead of requiring a channel ID, a small change that removes an annoying lookup step for anyone building creator partnership tools. Bidding recommendations now flag when a Target CPA or Target ROAS setting looks too restrictive, catching a common self inflicted performance problem before it tanks a campaign. Travel advertisers get expanded reporting dimensions covering booking windows, length of stay, and date selection types, plus new metrics for price differences and tier information.
None of these individually would justify a headline. Together, they represent Google steadily handing more of its internal advertising intelligence to developers through the API rather than keeping it locked inside the dashboard UI, which is the real trend worth tracking across the last several API versions, not just this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to update my integration immediately?
Not urgently. Version 25.2 remains supported until August 2027, giving developers plenty of runway, though anyone wanting the new BenchmarksService or Performance Max features needs to upgrade to access them.
When does the next version arrive?
Google has version 26 scheduled for October 2026, so this will not be the last update advertisers see this year.
Does the BenchmarksService cost extra to use?
Google has not announced separate pricing for the benchmarking data, and it functions as part of the standard API access most developers already have.
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Bottom Line: The Performance Max migration tool will get more attention because it saves obvious manual work, but the BenchmarksService is the more consequential change. Competitive percentile data used to live behind a UI you had to check by hand. Now it is a field in an API response, which means every agency reporting tool built in the next year is going to start including it automatically, and clients are going to start expecting it.
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