What is Click Fraud in PPC Advertising?

If you've ever looked at your Google Ads dashboard and wondered why clicks keep going up while conversions stay flat, you might be dealing with click fraud. This is one of the biggest drains on PPC ad spend.

So, what exactly is click fraud?

Click fraud happens when someone (or something) clicks your paid ads without any real interest in your business. These clicks aren't from potiential customers they're from competitors, bots, or even publishers trying to make a profit.

Each fraudulent click costs you money and skews your campaign data, making it harder to tell what's working and what's not.

Common sources of click fraud

• Competitors: Some advertisers click on rivals' ads to exhaust their budgets early in the day.
• Bots: Automated scripts that generate fake clicks at scale.
• Click farms: Low-wage workers hired to manually click on ads to inflate metrics or revenue.
• Accidential clicks: Mobile users tapping the wrong spot or mis-clicking on banner ads.

While not all invalid clicks are malicious, every wasted click chips away at your ROI.

How to recognize it

You might be experiencing click fraud if you notice:

• High click volume with little or no conversions
• Unusal spikes from certain IP addresses or regions
• Short session durations and 100% bounce rates
• Ads depleting their budget much earlier than usual

If this sounds familar, you're not alone and it's not something you have to accept as the cost of advertising.

What you can do about it

Platforms like Google Ads automatically filter some of their invalid clicks, but they don't catch everything. The most effective protection comes from monitoring your own data and setting up systems to block bad traffic before it drains your spend.

Start with small steps:

1. Audit IP addresses and exclude suspcious ones.
2. Review placement reports for irrelevant sites or apps.
3. Use automated rules or tools to monitor unusual patterns.

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