Click Fraud Prevention: 8 Manual Defenses for Your Google Ads Budget

What Click Fraud Is

Click fraud occurs when your ads receive clicks from non-genuine users with no intention of becoming customers.

Primary Sources

1. Competitors

Motivation: Competitors click your ads to:

• Waste your advertising budget
• Drive up your costs
• Discourage you from advertising
• Increase their own impression share
• Lower their own CPCs as competition decreases

Industries Most Affected: High-CPC industries (legal, insurance, finance), local services with concentrated competition

2. Bots and Click Farms

• Automated programs simulating human clicks
• Warehouses with hundreds of phones/devices clicking systematically
• Distributed bot networks spread across thousands of IPs

Detection Difficulty: Modern bots can simulate human behavior (mouse movements, scroll patterns, time on page), making them harder to identify.

The Impact of Click Fraud

Financial Waste

Scenario	Impact
Industry CPC: $15
100 fraudulent clicks/day	$1,500/day wasted
Monthly waste	$45,000
Annual waste	$540,000

Data Corruption

When fraudulent clicks enter your data:

• Bots inflate engagement from certain IPs, locations, devices
• Google thinks these sources are valuable
• Algorithm puts more ads in front of similar (fraudulent) sources
• Performance degrades as budget shifts toward fraud

The Scale of the Problem

• Conservative estimates: 5-10% of clicks
• Aggressive estimates: 15-20% of clicks

Some advertisers experience virtually no fraud; others see 30-50% fraud rates depending on industry and targeting.

Indicator #1: Clicks Spike Without Conversion Spike

Normal: Conversions correlate with clicks. If clicks increase 50%, conversions increase proportionally.

Fraud: Clicks increase 50%, conversions stay flat. Conversion rate crashes.

Why: Fraudulent clicks don't convert because they aren't real prospects.

Indicator #2: Unusually High CTR from Specific Locations

Normal CTR: 2-8% (varies by industry)

Fraud Pattern: One city/country shows 15-25% CTR while others show normal 3-5%

Why: Click farms or competitor locations generate artificial engagement from concentrated areas.

Indicator #3: Repeated Clicks from Same IP

Normal: Most IPs click once, occasionally 2-3 times over several days while researching.

Fraud: Same IP clicks 10+ times in a day, never converts. Multiple IPs from same location showing identical patterns.

Indicator #4: Spike in Bounce Rate or Short Sessions

Normal Bounce Rate: 40-70%

Fraud Pattern:

• Bounce rate suddenly spikes to 85-95%
• Average session duration drops from 2 minutes to 5 seconds
• Pages per session drops to 1.00

Why: Bots load your page briefly to register the click, then immediately leave.

What Google Does

Google's systems attempt to identify and filter:

• Duplicate clicks from same user
• Bot-like behavior patterns
• Clicks from known fraudulent sources
• Unusual activity spikes

Where to See This: Navigate to Billing > look for "Adjustments" or "Invalid Click Credits"

Why It's Not Enough

Issue	Reality
False Negatives	Sophisticated bots mimic human behavior
Conservative Filtering	Google errs on counting clicks (they profit from volume)
Legitimate Multi-Clicks	High-consideration purchases involve multiple clicks

Common Experience:

• Advertiser spends: $10,000
• Google credits: $50-$200
• Advertiser suspects fraud cost: $1,500-$3,000

Google's systems catch perhaps 10-30% of actual fraud, leaving 70-90% unaddressed.

Strategy

Manually block specific IP addresses from seeing your ads after identifying repeat fraudulent clickers.

How to Implement

Step 1: Identify Suspicious IPs

Low Volume (<500 clicks/month): Manually review click logs, look for IPs clicking 5+ times without converting.

High Volume: Use third-party click fraud detection tools that automatically flag high-risk IPs.

Step 2: Add IP Exclusions

Account-Level (Recommended):

1. Click Admin (gear icon)
2. Select Account Settings
3. Scroll to IP Exclusions
4. Enter suspicious IP addresses (one per line)
5. Click Save

When This Works Best

• High-CPC industries where 10 fraudulent clicks cost hundreds
• Local businesses with identifiable competitor locations
• Small campaign budgets where every click matters

Limitations

• Dynamic IPs change frequently
• VPNs and proxies allow fraudsters to rotate IPs
• Time-consuming for high-volume accounts

Effectiveness: Can eliminate 10-30% of fraud in targeted scenarios.

Strategy

Exclude or reduce bids for locations with disproportionately high fraud rates or low conversion rates.

Why Certain Locations Have More Fraud

• Click farm concentration in specific countries
• Regions with less digital fraud enforcement
• Countries where VPN/proxy services concentrate

How to Implement

Step 1: Analyze Location Performance

1. Navigate to Locations report
2. Sort by Conversion rate (ascending—worst first)
3. Identify locations with high clicks + low conversions, abnormally high CTR, or zero conversions despite substantial clicks

Step 2: Exclude or Adjust Bids

Option A: Complete Exclusion

In campaign settings → Locations → Advanced search → Search for problematic location → Click Exclude

Option B: Bid Reduction

If some legitimate traffic comes from these locations, add -50% to -80% bid adjustment instead of complete exclusion.

Balance

Don't exclude markets purely on assumption—use your data. Some "high-risk" countries may surprise you with genuine, valuable customers.

Strategy

Run ads only during hours when real prospects are active, avoiding overnight bot activity.

The Bot Activity Pattern

Time Period	Bot Clicks %
9 AM - 5 PM (Business Hours)	~5%
10 PM - 6 AM (Overnight)	~20%

Why: Bots run 24/7, but real users don't. During low-traffic hours, bots become a larger proportion.

Implementation Options

Option	Schedule
Conservative	Mon-Fri 9 AM - 5 PM only
Moderate	Mon-Fri 7 AM - 10 PM, Sat 9 AM - 8 PM
Data-Driven	Exclude only worst-performing hours based on your data

Bonus Benefit

Ad scheduling also improves lead response time for businesses that can't answer inquiries 24/7.

Strategy

Reduce or eliminate budget for devices associated with higher fraud rates.

Device Fraud Patterns

Higher Fraud Risk	Lower Fraud Risk
Cheaper Android devices (click farms)	Desktop computers (genuine B2B)
Tablets (automated setups)	Premium mobile (iPhones, high-end Android)

How to Implement

1. Navigate to Insights & Reports → When and Where Ads Showed
2. Click Devices
3. Review conversion rates by device type
4. Apply bid adjustments: -50% to -100% for high-fraud devices

Defense #5: Negative Keywords for Bot-Triggered Searches

Some bot traffic comes from automated searches. Review search terms for patterns like:

• Unusual query lengths
• Repeated identical queries from different users
• Queries with unusual characters

Defense #6: Landing Page Honeypots

Add hidden form fields that bots complete but humans don't see. If completed, flag as bot and exclude IP.

Defense #7: Conversion Value Tracking

Track conversion values to identify patterns. Fraudulent traffic shows clicks without any downstream value—even micro-conversions.

Defense #8: Third-Party Click Fraud Tools

For high-spend accounts, consider dedicated tools:

• ClickCease
• PPC Protect
• ClickGUARD
• TrafficGuard

What They Do:

• Automatic IP blocking
• Real-time fraud detection
• Detailed fraud reporting
• Bot behavior analysis

When Worth It: If you're spending $5,000+/month and suspect 10%+ fraud, the tool cost ($50-$500/month) is easily justified.

Weekly Fraud Prevention Routine

• ☐ Review click vs. conversion trends
• ☐ Check for CTR anomalies by location
• ☐ Review bounce rate and session duration
• ☐ Add new IP exclusions if patterns identified
• ☐ Update negative keywords for bot patterns

Monthly Deep Dive

• ☐ Full location performance analysis
• ☐ Device performance review
• ☐ Hour-of-day performance analysis
• ☐ Comparison to Google's invalid click credits
• ☐ ROI calculation on fraud prevention efforts

When to Request Google Refund

If you have clear evidence of click fraud:

1. Document the evidence (screenshots, data exports)
2. Contact Google Ads Support
3. Request investigation and potential credit
4. Provide specific date ranges and campaigns affected

Success Rate: Varies, but documented cases with clear patterns have better outcomes.