Are my competitors clicking my Google Ads?

Possibly. Google lists advertisers who click on ads to waste a rival’s budget as one known kind of invalid traffic, and its filters are built to catch them before you’re billed. If competitors are clicking your Google Ads, the clicks Google catches cost you nothing, and ones it finds after billing are usually credited back. Check whether the clicks it misses are hurting your account. On a local service account, wasted spend more often comes from settings that let in the wrong searchers.

Owners usually search for this as “competitors clicking my Google Ads”. This guide shows where Google reports invalid clicks, how to spot a pattern that points to one person clicking, how to block them, and how to ask Google to investigate before the 60 day window closes. If you’d rather someone go through it for you, that’s part of what we do on our Google Ads management service.

Do I pay for clicks from competitors?

You don’t pay for the ones Google detects. Google’s help page on invalid traffic says automated filters continuously scan your traffic, a specialist Ad Traffic Quality team runs manual investigations, and you aren’t charged for invalid traffic detected before billing. Traffic found later through longer term analysis is credited automatically where possible. For charges you do not recognise at all, see why did Google Ads charge me?

You can see both numbers in your account:

• Filtered clicks: in Campaigns, click the Columns icon above the table, search for “Invalid clicks” and apply. These clicks were removed and not charged.
• Credits after billing: go to Billing, then Summary. Credits show as “Invalid activity” under Adjustments in the Month card.
• Both together by campaign: Campaigns, then Report editor, then the template gallery, and pick the Invalid Activity Credit Report: Search & PMax. It shows credited clicks and amounts, plus your cost and cost per conversion after credits.

Clicks in that column are ones the filter caught. The clicks that worry people are the ones that got through and were charged, and Google can’t show you those because, by definition, it didn’t flag them.

How can I tell if a competitor is clicking my ads?

Look for a repeated pattern from one source, because a single odd click proves nothing. Google’s own advice to advertisers is to start with a quick account check, since many traffic spikes have an ordinary cause such as a campaign change or new search terms.

Work through it in this order:

1. Check Change history for the dates the clicks jumped. A new keyword, a bid strategy switch or a bigger budget explains most spikes.
2. Open the search terms report for the same dates. If the clicks came from searches for jobs you don’t do, that’s a keyword and match type problem, and the fix is negative keywords.
3. Check the locations report. If clicks come from outside your service area, look at your location option (more on that below).
4. Segment clicks by hour and day of week. One person clicking tends to show up as clicks bunched into the same short window on several days.
5. Look at your own website and call data. For IP addresses, Google points advertisers to their own web logs, so check your site’s server logs or hosting dashboard alongside your form and call tracking. Repeated ad visits from the same IP address or device that last a few seconds and never call or enquire are the strongest sign of deliberate clicking.

What does a competitor clicking pattern look like? A worked example

The figures here are an example, not client data. An HVAC company runs a Search campaign in one metro area and sees 120 clicks in a week with fewer calls than usual. The Invalid clicks column shows 9, which Google already filtered and didn’t charge.

The owner exports the week’s ad visits from the website’s logs and sorts them by IP address. One address visited from an ad 14 times over four days, always between 7:00 and 7:30 am, each visit under ten seconds, no call and no form. Change history shows nothing changed that week, and the search terms are all normal “ac repair” searches.

That’s a pattern worth acting on. The owner:

1. Adds the IP address under the campaign’s IP exclusions.
2. Checks the location option is set to “Presence”, so people outside the area who merely search for it don’t see the ads.
3. Collects the dates, campaign name, keywords, IP address and the GCLID values from the landing page URLs in the logs (with auto-tagging on, Google adds a GCLID to every ad click’s URL).
4. Sends an investigation request to Google with all of it, well inside the 60 days.

Fourteen clicks costs little. The bigger gain is ruling click fraud out, so attention goes back to the search terms, which is usually where more money leaks. If the clicks look genuine and still bring no calls, our guide to Google Ads getting clicks but no calls covers the usual causes.

How do I stop competitors clicking my Google Ads?

Exclude their IP address, tighten your location setting and stop showing ads to people who are only interested in your area. None of them stops a determined person completely, though together they make repeat clicking much harder.

IP exclusions, as Google’s IP exclusion help page describes them:

• Account level, covering every campaign including Performance Max: click Admin, then Account settings, then the IP exclusions section, enter the addresses and save.
• Campaign level: Campaigns, then Settings, select the campaign, open Additional settings, expand IP exclusions, enter the addresses and save. Campaign level isn’t available for Performance Max, video, app, hotel or Smart Display campaigns.
• You can exclude up to 500 IP addresses per campaign. An asterisk can replace the last block of digits to cover a range, but a wide range can also block real customers on the same network.
• Exclude every version of an address, because Google notes IP addresses can appear in different versions.

IP exclusion works best against an office or a home connection. People on mobile data change IP address often, so blocking one phone rarely lasts.

Location option: Google’s guide to preventing clicks from outside your target locations says the default shows ads to people who are in, regularly in or interested in your locations. Change it to “Presence” under Campaigns, then Settings, then Locations, then Location options. For a plumber or electrician who only works locally, this removes a lot of out of area clicks whether they come from competitors or not.

Your own team: searching for your own ads to see if they’re running adds impressions and invites accidental clicks. Google’s Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool (Tools, then Troubleshooting) shows your ad as it appears in results without adding impressions. Excluding your office IP at account level helps too.

How do I ask Google to investigate and refund suspicious clicks?

Send Google an invalid click investigation request with as much detail as you can, within 60 days of the clicks. Google’s advertiser resources page says it isn’t liable for traffic received more than 60 days before the request, and that investigations may take several days. The request goes through the Click Quality Form linked from Google’s invalid traffic help page.

Google asks for at least:

• Your customer ID (the client account’s ID if an agency is sending it)
• A contact email that can receive mail from google.com
• The date range of the activity
• The campaign, ad group or keyword affected
• A short summary of why the activity looks suspicious

Helpful extras are IP addresses or subnets, GCLID values, user agents and referrer URLs. Google points out that most of these are in your web logs, and you can attach a document describing the pattern. If the investigation finds invalid clicks you were charged for, the credit appears as an Invalid activity adjustment in Billing.

Is click fraud protection software worth it for a small business?

Only once your own data shows suspicious clicks cost you more each month than the subscription would. Most of the pages ranking for this question are written by companies that sell click fraud software, so read their warnings with that in mind.

Work through this checklist before you pay for a tool:

• Your logs show repeat ad visits from the same IPs or devices that never call or enquire.
• The waste carries on after you’ve set “Presence” targeting, cleaned up search terms and added negatives.
• You can put a monthly dollar figure on the suspicious clicks, and it’s bigger than the tool’s price.
• You or your agency will act on the tool’s reports: exclusions, investigation requests and keyword changes.

If you can’t tick most of these, the same money and time usually does more on the search terms report. A good agency should be checking invalid clicks and search terms as routine; our post on how to know if your Google Ads agency is doing a good job lists what else they should be showing you.

Can competitors click my Local Services Ads?

They can, but clicking costs you nothing, because Local Services Ads charge per valid lead rather than per click. A competitor would have to call, message or book to cost you money.

Google assesses each lead when it arrives and doesn’t charge for ones it decides are invalid. Charged leads are reassessed over 30 days and may be credited automatically if found to be low quality, and you can report a poor lead through the feedback survey on the Leads page. Automatic credits aren’t available for health care, tax specialists or advertisers in EMEA and EEA countries, which includes the UK and Ireland, so owners there should report bad leads themselves.

Common mistakes when you suspect click fraud

• Pausing the whole campaign. You lose your real calls for as long as it’s off. Exclude the IP and keep running.
• Waiting to see if it stops. Google won’t look at traffic older than 60 days, so collect the evidence and send it while it’s recent.
• Blaming competitors for broad match waste. Check the search terms report first, because irrelevant searches are a more common cause of clicks with no calls.
• Excluding wide IP ranges. An asterisk range can block a whole neighbourhood of customers on the same internet provider.
• Clicking your own ads to check them. Use Ad Preview and Diagnosis instead.

FAQ

Do accidental clicks count as invalid clicks?

Some do. Google’s examples of invalid traffic include accidental clicks from poorly placed ads, and those are filtered or credited the same way.

Where do I see refunds for invalid clicks?

In Billing, then Summary, under Adjustments in the Month card, labelled “Invalid activity”. For a breakdown by campaign, use the Invalid Activity Credit Report in the Report editor template gallery.

Can I see which IP addresses clicked my Google Ads?

Google points advertisers to their own web logs for IP addresses. Match ad visits in your server logs or hosting dashboard by the GCLID that auto-tagging adds to the landing page URL. Those are also the details Google asks for in an investigation request.

Should I pause my ads if I think a competitor is clicking them?

Usually not. Pausing stops your genuine enquiries along with the suspicious clicks. Exclude the IP address, set location targeting to “Presence” and send Google the evidence.

Sources: 1. About invalid traffic (Google Ads Help). 2. About the Invalid Activity Credit Report (Google Ads Help). 3. Google Ad Traffic Quality. 4. Ad Traffic Quality resources for advertisers (Google). 5. Exclude IP addresses (Google Ads Help). 6. Prevent clicks from outside your targeted locations (Google Ads Help). 7. About the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool (Google Ads Help). 8. How Local Services Ads charges work (Google Ads Help). 9. About auto-tagging (Google Ads Help).