The Hidden Cost of Click Fraud on Your Analytics & Marketing ROI
See how click fraud affects your ad spend across platforms like Google & Meta. Learn how to protect your ROI and analytics.
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How to Stop PPC Click Fraud in Your Google Ad Campaigns
- June 30, 2025
Every click costs you. But not every click is real.
If you’re running PPC campaigns on Google Ads, chances are a portion of your budget is being burned by bots, competitors, or click farms. These fake clicks don’t bring conversions. They don’t bring leads. They just quietly drain your spend and distort your Google Ads performance data.
The worst part? You often won’t know it’s happening until thousands are gone.
In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to detect and prevent click fraud in your Google Ads PPC campaigns before it eats into your results.
What is PPC click fraud?
PPC click fraud is the act of generating fake clicks on pay-per-click ads, and the goal is to waste your advertising budget or skew campaign data. The leads in PPC click fraud don’t come from real potential customers, but instead from bots, competitors, click farms, or shady affiliates.
Read more: What is click fraud?
How much click fraud is in PPC campaigns today?
Our research shows that 11.7% of all clicks on Google Ads are invalid. This data comes from an analysis of 49,000+ Google Ads accounts and over 57.7 million clicks.
Put another way: out of $57.7 million in ad spend across those Google Ads accounts, $6.75 million was wasted on invalid clicks (clicks from bots, competitors, and other non-genuine sources.)
An independent study by Juniper Research also found that 22% of all digital ad traffic is fraudulent, costing marketers up to $84 billion per year.
Note: Invalid clicks include both malicious and accidental clicks, and ad fraud is bigger than just fraud in PPC campaigns.
However, the takeaway is clear: PPC click fraud is eating a significant portion of ad budgets.
Read more: What are invalid clicks?
What are the types of PPC click fraud in Google Ads?
In Google Ads, PPC click fraud doesn’t always look the same. Some are simple and some are more advanced. Here’s what to watch for:
- Competitor clicks: A direct competitor sees your ad and clicks just to waste your budget. High competitor clicks are common in high-cost niches where dozens of clicks can quickly blow up your budget.
- Bot traffic: Bot traffic is created by automated scripts or programs set up to click your ads repeatedly, racking up your spend.
- Click farms: Click farms are low-wage workers paid to click on ads manually. Human involvement makes this harder to detect, meaning they can generate fraudulent traffic en mass without triggering security measures.
- Affiliate fraud: Affiliates click on their own ads to trigger commissions without making real referrals. Affiliate fraud is one form of PPC click fraud that’s financially driven.
- Incentivized clicks: These fraudulent clicks occur when users are offered money or points to interact with your PPC ads. bypass click fraud filters and even seem like real traffic, but they are fake leads, there’s no interest behind them.
You can read about the many other types of click fraud here.
PPC click fraud detection: 6 warning signs to watch
With PPC click fraud, the signs aren’t always on the surface. But once you know where to look, the patterns stand out.
- Repeated clicks from the same IPs or devices: If you’re getting multiple clicks from the same IP address without any conversions or meaningful engagement, that’s a major red flag. Most users don’t click your ad five times a day.
- High number of clicks from one location: If most of your clicks suddenly come from a specific city or country, especially if you’re not targeting that area, it’s worth investigating. Fraudsters often operate from clusters of known IPs in certain regions.
- Click-to-conversion ratio doesn’t match: A spike in clicks without a matching rise in conversions is usually a bad sign. If people are clicking your Google Ads but not taking action, even when the offer and targeting are solid, it could be PPC click fraud.
- Sudden traffic spikes: Legit campaigns usually grow gradually. If your account sees an unexpected surge in clicks or ad spend overnight, without changes on your end, dig deeper. Bots and click farms tend to dive in all at once.
- High click volume, zero engagement: Real users scroll, browse, and click around. If traffic from a Google Ads campaign lands and leaves in seconds, you’re either dealing with poor targeting, poorly designed landing pages, or PPC click fraud.
- Server logs show patterns platforms don’t: Dig into your raw logs. Look for unusual user agents, the same IPs hitting multiple campaigns, or strange time stamps. Ad platforms don’t show all this data, but it’s often where fraud leaves its trace.
8 steps to stop PPC click fraud in your Google Ads
Avoid “Made-for-Advertising” (MFA) websites
MFA sites exist to rack up ad revenue. Your PPC ads may technically get clicks here, but they’re rarely from real prospects. They are often part of ad networks. so you need to look out for them. Use placement exclusions to block low-quality domains in your Google Ads display campaigns, and tighten your display network targeting.
Learn more about MFA websites.
Use IP exclusions in Google Ads
If you spot IP addresses that repeatedly click without converting, block them. Google Ads lets you exclude specific IPs from seeing your ads. It’s one of the simplest ways to stop repeat offenders, especially if you’re seeing patterns in your logs.
Follow these steps to exclude IPs from your Google Ad campaigns.
- Click “Campaigns” in the left navigation menu
- Select “Campaigns” again in the second navigation menu
- Select “Settings” in the tab menu at the top (note: you must select a Campaign in the top menu to see this option)
- Choose “Additional Settings” at the bottom of the page
- Open the “IP exclusions” section
- Enter the IP addresses you want to exclude
- Hit “Save”
Learn more about excluding IPs in Google Ads
Run remarketing campaigns
Remarketing focuses on users who’ve already visited your site. That means your Google Ads are shown to people familiar with your brand, not random bots or competitors clicking to drain your spend.
But keep in mind that remarketing isn’t bulletproof. If bots hit your site and get cookied, they can still enter your remarketing audience and click again. This strategy helps tighten targeting, but don’t rely on it as your only line of defense.
Use conversion tracking to reduce fake engagement
Clicks alone don’t tell the full story. What matters is whether those clicks lead to meaningful action. Set up conversion tracking in Google Ads to measure what really drives business outcomes, like purchases, qualified leads, or booked demos.
But here’s the key: don’t just track conversions. You must also assign them correctly with Primary and Secondary conversion actions.
- Set your true business outcomes as Primary conversions (e.g., purchases for ecommerce, trial sign-ups or SQLs for SaaS).
- Label lower-value actions (like page views, button clicks, or email signups) as Secondary conversions.
This helps Google optimize toward real results, not just vanity metrics. It also makes it easier to spot PPC click fraud. If a campaign is driving lots of clicks and Secondary conversions, but zero Primary ones, that’s a red flag worth investigating.
Remove Display Network from Search campaigns
By default, Google runs your Search ads on the Display Network too, which opens the door to low-quality traffic. Go into your Google Ads campaign settings and uncheck “Display Network.” This one move can cut out a major source of fake clicks.
Be cautious with AI-based campaign types
Campaigns like Performance Max and Demand Gen spread your ads across tons of inventory, including low-quality placements. We’ve seen these drive lots of activity, but little value. If you’re seeing click spikes with poor conversion performance, test scaling these campaigns down or segmenting them.
Use an independent PPC fraud detection tools
Google does have filters and will even refund you for invalid traffic, but it doesn’t catch everything. Third-party tools can detect competitor clicks, block known botnets, and give you better visibility into suspicious patterns. It’s extra protection that gives you more control.
Block PPC click fraud with Fraud Blocker
Fraud Blocker helps you stop PPC click fraud in Google Ads before it drains your budget. Our solution tracks IP addresses, device fingerprints, VPN usage, and dozens of real-time signals to detect bad traffic then blocks it automatically so your ads don’t show to bots and competitors, or generate fake traffic.
Want to prevent waste in your PPC campaigns? Start a 7-day free trial and find out how much you’re actually spending on PPC click fraud.
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