Google Ads

Google Removes Search Subcategories from Ads API Search Term Report

January 29, 2025 at 6:16:07 AM

TL;DR Starting on March 3, 2025, the Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts will return all search subcategories as empty. The Google Ads UI has already removed this field, and the API is aligning with this change. It is expected that all values for segments.search_subcategory will be empty. If querying segments.search_subcategory in reports, ensure your code can handle empty values. It is recommended to remove segments.search_subcategory from your query.

Google Removes Search Subcategories from Ads API Search Term Report

Google has announced significant changes to its Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts search term insight reports, set to take effect on March 3, 2025. This update aligns the API functionality with the Google Ads UI, which has already implemented this modification.

The primary change affects the segments.search_subcategory field in the reports. Starting March 3, 2025, all search subcategories will be returned as empty values across both the campaign_search_term_insight and customer_search_term_insight reports.

Technical Implementation Requirements

Developers and advertisers using these reports should take two key actions:

Verify that their existing code can properly handle empty values in the segments.search_subcategory field. Since empty strings are already used as catch-all values, most systems should be equipped to handle this change.
Google recommends removing segments.search_subcategory from queries entirely, as this field will no longer provide actionable data.