If you’re running Google Ads, you’ve probably wondered at some point whether your budget is being eaten by fake clicks. Competitors clicking your ads, bots crawling through your campaigns, or people who click your ad every time they want to phone you instead of just searching your business name.
Click fraud is real. But the good news is that Google is doing a lot more about it than most people realise — and you can check exactly what they’re catching in your own account.
Not all invalid clicks are malicious. There are a few different flavours:
Accidental or habitual clicks — customers who google your business name and click your ad every time, even though the organic listing is right below it. Annoying and wasteful, but not deliberate.
Data scrapers and crawlers — bots that crawl the web gathering competitive intelligence. They trigger clicks as they go, but they’re not targeting you specifically.
Competitor clicks — the one everyone worries about. A competitor (or someone they’ve hired) deliberately clicks your ads to drain your budget. In its simplest form, someone clicking your ads a few times. At the more sophisticated end, automated bots generating hundreds of clicks.
The reality is that casual competitor clicking is more common than large-scale bot attacks. And Google’s systems are built to catch both.
Google doesn’t just charge you for every click and call it a day. Their Ad Traffic Quality team runs a multi-layered detection system that filters invalid clicks in real time — before they ever hit your billing.
Here’s how it works:
Real-time filtering — automated algorithms analyse every click as it happens, checking for patterns like repeated clicks from the same IP, suspicious device signatures, and known bot behaviour. Invalid clicks are filtered out before you’re charged.
Post-click analysis — Google’s systems continue analysing click data after the fact. If they detect invalid activity that slipped through the initial filters, they issue automatic refunds to your account — you’ll see these as “Invalid activity” credits on your billing statement.
Manual investigation — Google’s Ad Traffic Quality team also conducts manual reviews of click patterns. If you suspect fraud, you can request a manual review and Google will investigate.
Google reports that they catch billions of invalid clicks every year. In their most recent ad traffic quality report, they filtered out approximately 5.5 billion ads and suspended over 12.7 million advertiser accounts for policy violations. The system isn’t perfect, but it’s far more sophisticated than most advertisers give it credit for.
You don’t have to take Google’s word for it — you can see exactly how many invalid clicks they’ve filtered from your campaigns. Here’s where to look:
You’ll now see two new columns in your campaign data showing how many clicks Google filtered out and what percentage of your total clicks they represent.
A typical invalid click rate sits between 2% and 10% depending on your industry and how competitive your keywords are. If you’re seeing rates consistently above 15%, it’s worth investigating further.
Google catches most invalid click activity, but here are the signs that something unusual might be happening in your account:
If something looks off, you have a few options:
Check your invalid click data first. Google may already be catching and filtering the activity. If your invalid click rate is elevated but your costs are stable, the system is likely doing its job.
Review your IP exclusions. In Google Ads, you can exclude specific IP addresses from seeing your ads. If you can identify the source of suspicious clicks (check your server logs or analytics), you can block those IPs. You’re allowed up to 500 IP exclusions per campaign.
Request a manual review from Google. Go to the Google Ads Help Centre and submit an “Invalid clicks” contact request. Provide the date range, affected campaigns, and what you’ve observed. Google will investigate and issue refunds if they confirm invalid activity.
Talk to your ads manager. If your Google Ads are managed by an agency, they should be monitoring for this already. At ARK Advance, invalid click monitoring is a standard part of how we manage Google Ads accounts — we watch for click pattern anomalies, cost spikes, and conversion rate drops, and investigate when something doesn’t add up. If you’re managing your own account, the steps above will help you stay on top of it.
There are third-party tools that claim to detect click fraud that Google misses. Some are legitimate products that add an extra layer of monitoring. But a few things worth considering:
If you’re spending significant amounts on Google Ads and operating in a highly competitive industry (legal services, locksmiths, insurance), a third-party tool might give you peace of mind. For most businesses, monitoring your invalid click data and watching for warning signs is enough.
Click fraud exists, but it’s not the budget-draining crisis that some vendors would have you believe. Google catches the vast majority of invalid clicks before you pay for them, and they continue improving their detection systems.
If your account is managed by an agency, this kind of monitoring should be happening as part of the service. If you’re running your own campaigns, checking your invalid click data regularly and watching for the warning signs above will keep you informed — and if something looks wrong, Google’s manual review process is there to help.
If you’d like us to take a look at your account’s click data, or if you’re considering having your Google Ads professionally managed, get in touch. Whether it’s click fraud or campaign performance, we’re happy to have a straight conversation about what’s working and what isn’t.