How to Stop Fake Clicks on Google Ads Like an Expert 2026
These clicks will consume all of your Google Ad spending rapidly without producing any real outcome for your business. Be it caused by bots, accidental clicks or repetitive visits, the low quality of traffic may affect your return on investment and prevent you from evaluating campaign efficiency. To eliminate fake clicks in Google Ads, you should use click fraud protection, traffic filtering and continuous monitoring of your campaigns.
What Are Fake Clicks?
As the name suggests, fake clicks are those clicks that do not show actual users' engagement. They can be caused by numerous factors such as bots, repetitive clicks, accidental clicks on a mobile device, etc.
Even though Google does some automatic filtering of invalid clicks, there still is a need for an advertiser to monitor the performance of his campaigns, since all the invalid clicks are not caught right away.
Some of the reasons why there are fake clicks are the following:
Bots
Repeated clicks by one user
Poor-quality traffic
Click farms
Inadvertent mobile clicks
Knowing the source of your traffic is the first step to optimising your campaign.
Why Fake Clicks Matter
All advertisements have budget restrictions. When a large number of clicks come from potential visitors that are not expected to convert, it is difficult to determine the success of the campaign.
Click fraud may result in:
Increased costs of the advertising campaigns
Decreased conversion rates
False information about the campaign
Decreased return on ad spend
Poor optimization choices
Tracking of the traffic quality allows for making smart choices based on accurate information.
Use Traffic Filtering to Improve Traffic Quality
Among the best methods that can be used to cut down the volume of unwanted traffic is traffic filtering. Traffic filtering allows one not to treat all visitors identically but to analyse their activity and detect the signs of low-quality activity.
The modern systems of traffic filtering take into account a number of factors, such as:
IP reputation
Device type
Location
Behavior
Browser
Frequent visits
This helps advertisers see which visitors bring the greatest value.
Strengthen Your Click Fraud Protection
Click fraud prevention does not only include blocking of IP addresses but monitoring visitors' behaviour in real time and spotting suspicious patterns which might point to fraudulent clicks.
In case there are several clicks coming from one source within a small period of time and without interaction, there can be a need to take extra measures.
Benefits of using a click fraud protection tool for an advertiser include:
Traffic Quality Control
Budget Wastage Reduction
Improving Reporting on Campaigns
Focusing on Real Customer Interaction
It allows identifying suspicious clicks before they occur.
Why Bot Traffic Detection Is Important
However, not all website visitors are humans. Bots regularly visit websites for indexing, analysis, or other reasons. Although there are legitimate bots, some can have a negative effect on the success of advertisements.
Bot traffic detection is a technique that detects automated traffic through behaviour analysis, browser attributes, request rate, and other technical data.
Being able to detect such traffic can help advertisers understand their campaign effectiveness.
Best Practices to Reduce Fake Clicks
To enhance the quality of the campaign:
Review the search terms.
Remove irrelevant locations if needed.
Look for anomalies in traffic.
Use conversion tracking to quantify results.
Analyse the behaviour of the visitors rather than just clicks.
Consistently review the campaign statistics.
Even small changes in traffic quality make a big difference in advertising effectiveness.
Advanced Techniques to Minimize Fake Clicks
However, in addition to basic techniques of campaign optimisation, experienced advertisers use complex approaches to increase the traffic quality. The key method is the combination of analytics and automation. Rather than using only one parameter, you should control such parameters as the clicks pattern, time of engagement, bounce rate, and conversions.
The analysis of the campaign report can help find any strange increases in clicks by particular device, region or time. Such an approach will help to detect traffic for analysis more easily.
Another helpful method is the segmentation of the audience. Through the analysis of the audience's behaviour with the ads, you can spend your budget on converting users while minimising the low-quality traffic exposure.
Monitor Campaign Performance Regularly
However, there are many other aspects that most marketers focus on simply because of the number of clicks generated by their ads.
Make sure to keep track of the following data:
Conversion rate
Cost per conversion
Bounce rate
Duration of the average session
Number of pages viewed during one visit
Performance by geography
Performance by device
If your clicks are increasing but conversions stay the same, it might be time to reassess your traffic sources.
Best Practices for Long-Term Success
Protecting your advertising budget is an ongoing process rather than a one-time task.
To maintain healthy campaigns:
Review Google Ads reports every week.
Optimise keywords based on performance.
Exclude low-performing placements when appropriate.
Improve landing page relevance.
Test different ad creatives.
Monitor traffic quality regularly.
Update targeting as customer behaviour changes.
Combine analytics with automated monitoring tools.
These habits help create more efficient campaigns and support better long-term results.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I stop fake clicks on Google Ads?
The most effective approach is to combine campaign optimisation, traffic monitoring, conversion tracking, and click fraud protection to identify unusual traffic patterns before they affect your advertising budget.
Does Google Ads automatically detect fake clicks?
Google Ads automatically filters many invalid clicks. However, advertisers should still monitor campaign performance because understanding overall traffic quality remains essential.
Why is traffic filtering important?
Traffic filtering helps evaluate incoming visitors using multiple signals, allowing advertisers to better understand traffic quality and make more informed campaign decisions.
What is bot traffic detection?
Bot traffic detection identifies automated visitors by analysing behavioural patterns, browser information, request frequency, and other technical indicators.
Can fake clicks affect campaign performance?
Yes. A large number of low-quality clicks can increase advertising costs, reduce conversion rates, and make campaign data less reliable for optimisation.
Final Thoughts
Learning how to stop fake clicks on Google Ads is about more than reducing wasted ad spend. It's about improving the overall quality of your advertising campaigns. By combining click fraud protection, traffic filtering, and bot traffic detection with regular performance analysis, advertisers can make smarter decisions based on meaningful data rather than click volume alone.