What is click fraud and why does it matter?

What is click fraud?

Click fraud is clicking an ad without genuine buying intent. The goal is either to drain the advertiser's budget (competitor attack) or to profit from fake traffic.

These clicks can be made manually by a person or by automated bots. Either way, you pay per click and get no value in return.

Who does it?

Competitors: to exhaust your budget early and push you out of the results.

Bots: automated scripts and click farms.

Disgruntled people or accidental repeat clicks.

How much does it cost?

It varies by industry, but 10-20% of clicks can be invalid. For a business spending $2,000/mo, that's $200-400 wasted monthly.

In high-CPC industries (legal, healthcare, insurance) the damage is much larger.

Doesn't Google already block it?

Google filters some invalid traffic automatically and issues credits. But it can't fully catch what it calls "sophisticated invalid traffic" (SIVT). That's where the real budget loss is — and it needs extra protection.