This week, Google sent an email to some Google Ads advertisers warning that they may lose access to use Customer Match with their ads cause harm to users or create a poor user experience. Google said they are updating their customer match policy effective January 13, 2025, to enforce this. Google also posted this over here.
Navah Hopkins posted about this notice on LinkedIn after she received an email from Google about this update. The email says:
On January 13, 2025, Google will update its Customer Match policy to state that customers may lose Customer Match access if their ads have the potential to cause harm to users or create a poor user experience. We may take the following considerations, among others, into account when making this determination.
What are those considerations? Google wrote:
- User feedback
- Prevalence or severity of abuse
- Repeated violations of the Customer Match policy
Google added that "violations of this policy will not lead to immediate account suspension without prior warning. A warning will be issued, at least seven days, prior to any suspension of your account."
Here is the email:
Navah Hopkins added, "Google customer match allows advertisers to take customer lists and apply them for targeting and seed purposes in Google Ads. This is a great way to ensure folks get exactly the right messaging as well as giving us an option to exclude our existing customers from prospecting campaigns."
She explained what harm might be:
The first and most important consideration is using someone's email without their consent. I would take this signal from Google that gambling with privacy rules is getting harder.
Second, ad creative needs to pass the "not a creep" check. This means:
1. You're not targeting kids.
2. You're not making it seem like the ad is for any one specific user.
3. You're not including people in a target list who outright told you they didn't want to see your ads.
Third, and most importantly, violating customer match rules will get your account suspended. Don't mess around with it.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
