by Terry MacCauley - Posted 18 hours ago
Google has announced a significant update to its Personalized Ads policy, scheduled for December 12, 2025, and this one deserves the close attention of auto dealers. As privacy standards evolve and regulators pressure platforms to tighten control around sensitive data, Google continues to adjust what advertisers can and cannot use when building audiences. Automotive falls within a sensitive category because it touches credit, financing, consumer identity, and regulated activity. That classification now restricts several familiar tools.
These changes do more than revise policy language. They fundamentally alter how many advertisers structure their campaigns. Dealers who rely on traditional remarketing, custom targeting, or audience expansion will need to adapt quickly because several of the tools that previously supported strong performance will simply no longer exist. The goal of today's newsletter is to explain what is changing, why Google is making these shifts, how it affects the average dealership, and why an experienced agency partner becomes even more essential.
Google is eliminating the use of advertiser-curated audience data for any advertiser operating within a sensitive category. For dealers, this means several long-standing tactics will disappear entirely. Beginning December 12, advertisers in these categories will no longer be able to use:
Customer Match lists
First-party data segments
Lookalike segments
Custom segments
Custom affinity audiences
Audience expansion tools
For years, these methods formed the foundation of many higher-performing automotive strategies. VDP remarketing often depended on custom segments that tracked high-intent shoppers. Competitor targeting regularly used custom affinity logic or layered custom data. Lookalike segments helped identify audiences that mirrored previous buyers. Without these tools, the familiar playbook becomes thinner and less precise.
Campaigns that quietly depended on these structures may lose their strength unless they are redesigned. The change is mandatory, and it applies to all advertisers within sensitive categories across the United States and Canada.
Although Google is restricting advertiser-built data, it will continue to allow the use of its own predefined audience categories. These audiences are constructed using signals approved for sensitive categories and fall within Google’s internal privacy guidelines. Dealers may continue to use:
In-market audiences
Affinity audiences
Broad demographic categories, with exceptions
Detailed demographic categories, with exceptions
Life event targeting
Location targeting within approved limitations
These audiences can perform very well, but they do not behave like custom-built segments. They are broader, less granular, and often require stronger creative discipline, tighter landing environments, and more refined bidding models. Dealers who rely only on the default settings will not see the full benefit, especially during competitive periods.
This update reflects a broader global movement toward privacy protection, data minimization, and avoidance of any targeting methods that reveal or imply sensitive user characteristics. Google is attempting to reduce legal exposure by removing advertiser-controlled signals that could be connected, even unintentionally, to sensitive personal information.
The automotive industry, particularly Buy Here Pay Here and subprime credit advertising, naturally falls under heightened regulatory attention. This is especially true when targeting involves financing messages or credit considerations. Google’s restrictions are designed to prevent potential misuse while still allowing advertisers to reach customers through approved methods.
These types of changes are not isolated. They mirror earlier restrictions across Meta, TikTok, and other platforms. The industry is shifting toward more comprehensive, privacy-first advertising systems, and this trend is expected to continue.
As Steve Levine of Ignite Consulting Partners has emphasized for years, compliance pressure was always going to reshape digital advertising. Any dealership that is not leveraging Ignite’s remarkably affordable guidance is signaling that it is not taking compliance as seriously as today’s regulatory environment demands.
For dealers, the immediate impact will be felt in several core areas. Even if a dealership believes it is running simple in-market campaigns, many agencies have quietly layered custom segments or lookalikes behind the scenes to improve performance. When those layers disappear, results can shift quickly.
These changes directly influence:
Inventory-driven display ads
Credit-first messaging
Competitor conquesting
High-intent remarketing
Lower-funnel targeting
Google Display and YouTube efficiency
Any performance model built on first-party segmentation
If adjustments are not made, campaigns will automatically default to broader, less efficient audiences. Budgets will be spent, but buyers will not move through the funnel with the same consistency, and cost per lead will increase over time.
Every major Google policy update creates a separation between advertisers who adjust early and advertisers who discover the change only after performance declines. Big Time Advertising & Marketing closes that gap.
We monitor every update, interpret its impact on the automotive industry, test alternative methods, and rebuild campaigns before issues arise. Our relationship as a Google Partner provides advanced visibility and direct access to experts who clarify how these policy shifts apply specifically to dealers.
Our role goes beyond maintenance. We provide strategic interpretation, technical execution, and the ongoing discipline necessary to navigate a digital environment that is evolving at an increasingly rapid pace each year. Dealers who rely on outdated tactics or unmonitored setups face steep learning curves and unnecessary spending. Our responsibility is to ensure that our clients do not experience those setbacks.
This update does more than limit advertising tools. It increases the real value of organic visibility and high-performing websites. When Google restricts audience precision on the paid side, it places more weight on the elements it can still evaluate clearly: content quality, speed, structural integrity, and site experience.
A dealership website that loads quickly, adheres to clean technical SEO principles, and provides Google’s crawler with seamless access to its inventory will rise above competitors with outdated or bloated website structures. This is especially important for dealers using WordPress templates or plugin-heavy builds that slow performance, break on mobile devices, or create indexing issues.
Google’s algorithm rewards websites that are:
Fast
Accessible
Well-structured
Technically clean
Easy for crawlers to understand
This is one of the reasons Big Time Advertising has invested in modern frameworks with DaraCoreAI that avoid the common pitfalls of WordPress. Search engines reward cleaner architecture, more stable codebases, and sites that are built for performance rather than convenience.
Dealers benefit in three critical ways:
More free, high-intent traffic
As paid targeting becomes broader, organic strategy becomes the most predictable and cost-efficient channel for reaching ready-to-buy shoppers.
Improved paid campaign performance
A fast, technically sound site lowers bounce rates, strengthens Quality Scores, improves ad relevance, and reduces cost per click.
Protection from future platform restrictions
Privacy-first advertising will continue to expand. Dealers who own a strong organic foundation are far more protected from the next wave of limitations.
The tighter Google becomes with audience signals, the more essential it becomes to win through SEO, content, website speed, and overall technical strength.
Although Google is removing many familiar targeting methods, it is not removing the ability to reach buyers. Several effective strategies still exist, and many are already in place for Big Time clients.
We continue to maintain strong performance through:
Advanced remarketing sequencing
Inventory-driven strategies that comply with sensitive-category requirements
Competitor positioning through compliant placement methods
Strong creative frameworks that attract high-intent users
In-market and contextual audience layering
Alternative segmentation models that emulate past performance
Proprietary lower-funnel visibility strategies
We are not losing capability. We are evolving with the platform, and in many cases, these new structures outperform older techniques that depended on shrinking data pools.
The automotive market is highly competitive and expensive. Dealers cannot afford to operate without clarity, and every Google policy update turns the dial once again. Those who adapt quickly will remain profitable. Those who do not will see silent declines long before they understand the cause.
Big Time Advertising stays ahead of these shifts. We study them, test them, and proactively prepare strategies that protect dealer investment. The December update reinforces one essential truth: your agency partner must be informed, technical, and fully engaged in the day-to-day landscape of digital advertising.
If you would like to discuss how this update affects your dealership’s campaigns or how we can strengthen your strategy under the new rules, our team is ready to provide a clear and confident plan forward.
- by Terry MacCauley, Founder & CEO
News has emerged of a significant data breach involving 700Credit, a widely used credit and compliance platform that serves thousands of dealerships across the United States. Early reports indicate that the breach may affect up to 18,000 dealerships and potentially 5.6 million consumers. While details continue to develop, the situation deserves immediate attention from dealers, especially Buy Here Pay Here (BHPH) operators who rely on 700Credit every day for credit decisions.
Dealers now need to understand what happened, how it affects their customers, and how to respond in a calm and professional way.
700Credit has been working closely with NADA to satisfy FTC guidelines and has recently published this notice.
700Credit is deeply integrated into the retail and BHPH workflow. It powers credit pulls, ID verification, compliance checks, decisioning tools, and record-keeping processes. When a system like this faces a data compromise, the implications reach directly into customer trust, operational stability, and a dealership’s overall reputation.
For BHPH dealers, this is particularly serious. Many BHPH stores rely on 700Credit for their most crucial daily function: determining who qualifies for financing. A breach of this nature raises concerns about what customer information may have been exposed and what risks buyers may face in the coming weeks and months.
Customers who see news reports or social media posts may contact your dealership for clarity. Some will want basic information, while others may be anxious or upset. A prepared and united message will help manage these conversations.
State and federal regulators have already increased their focus on data security, especially for industries connected to credit and consumer identity. This breach will likely draw even more attention to dealership practices and vendor oversight.
Even though the breach occurred at a vendor level, customers will still look to the dealer for answers. They may ask how their information is stored, who has access to it, and what the dealership is doing to protect it.
Dealers may need to review internal practices for storing credit reports, driver’s licenses, income documents, or applications. Paper-based processes, unsecured computers, or unencrypted systems should be examined immediately.
Evaluate how your dealership stores sensitive information. Ensure digital records are encrypted, access-controlled, and properly managed. Transition away from unsecured or outdated storage methods.
Your team must be able to answer questions consistently and with confidence. A unified explanation prevents confusion and maintains trust with customers.
Monitor official communication from 700Credit as more verified details become available. Align your dealership’s messaging with their formal guidance.
A calm, respectful tone goes a long way when discussing sensitive issues. Dealers do not need to accept blame for a vendor’s breach, but they must communicate clearly and professionally when asked.
These responses help dealers communicate clearly without creating unnecessary alarm. They also reinforce trust and professionalism.
A: The breach occurred at a third-party service provider used by our dealership. The investigation is ongoing, and we are closely following every update. We will share accurate information as soon as it becomes available.
A: It is always wise to remain attentive when a credit-related vendor experiences a breach. We encourage customers to monitor their credit reports and financial accounts for unusual activity.
A: Our dealership follows strict data security practices. We secure all sensitive records, limit access, and use reputable systems for credit and identity verification. We are also reviewing every process to ensure that we meet the highest standards of protection.
A: No. Your financing and your relationship with our dealership remain secure. The issue is limited to a vendor system, and we are here to support you and answer any questions you may have.
A: Cybersecurity threats continue to evolve, and even well-established companies can be targeted. What matters now is responsible communication, careful monitoring, and strong support for affected customers.
Events like the 700Credit breach underscore an essential truth: compliance is no longer optional. It must be part of a dealership’s culture and operations. Dealers who overlook compliance expose themselves to unnecessary risk, especially in BHPH and credit-driven models.
Dealers are reminded that the full range of FTC Safeguards Rule requirements remains in effect, and every state has a breach notification requirement; the FTC’s acceptance of the 700Credit Consolidated Breach Notice proposal has no impact on state notification requirements. Therefore, it is important for dealers to consult with legal counsel to ensure they are in compliance with any applicable state breach notification requirements.
Industry leaders such as Steve Levine of Ignite Consulting Partners have warned for years that data protection, regulatory preparation, and vendor oversight are critical. Any dealership not using Ignite’s highly affordable expertise is choosing to ignore the level of compliance leadership that the modern automotive environment now requires. We are a proud strategic partner of Ignite Consulting Partners.
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