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Does Fraud Blocker help to get me a refund from Google Ads?

Mike avatar
Written by Mike
Updated over 4 months ago

Unfortunately not.

There are several reasons for this:

  1. Only the ADMINS of the Google Ads account can submit this form. We are not admins of your account.

  2. The success rate is very low (it's not in Google's best interest to give a refund or acknowledge fraud exists on their platform) and it would reflect poorly on our ability to service our customers properly.

  3. Google requires documents from your advertising activities that we do not have such as server logs, website analytics and Google Ads performance data.

You can submit our click fraud reports with your refund request to Google, but we are unable to help with the process beyond that.

So then how does Fraud Blocker help prevent fraud?

By using Fraud Blocker, you’ll avoid the need to submit refund requests to Google Ads since we block many of the malicious sources from clicking your ads.

Fraud Blocker prevents your ad from appearing to bots, competitors and other fraudulent sources by excluding their IP address in your Google Ads campaigns. Read more about how it works.

Nonetheless, if you wish to submit a request to Google for click you believe are invalid or fraudulent, here's the steps you need to take.

Does Google Ads automatically give refunds for invalid clicks?

Partially.

They use these criteria for invalid clicks to be considered eligible for an automatic refund:

  • Accidental clicks that have no value, such as the second click of a double-click

  • Manual clicks meant to increase someone’s advertising costs

  • Manual clicks meant to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads

  • Clicks and impressions by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software

  • Impressions meant to artificially lower an advertiser’s clickthrough rate (CTR)

Google Ads provides this information inside your dashboard and they are viewed by adding "invalid clicks" as a columns to your standard campaign reports.

These automated refunds are periodically shown as credits in your billing transactions of your Google Ads account. Here's an example of that:

invalid clicks refund example new

Note: Google may only partially refund you for the invalid clicks they detect. Fraud Blocker helps prevent invalid clicks before they happen.

Steps to take to request a refund from Google Ads for invalid clicks

If you believe there are additional clicks that are invalid or fraudulent, beyond what Google may have automatically refunded you as noted above, then you can follow these steps:

  1. Go to Google's refund form - In order to file a claim, you will need to complete Google’s Click Quality Form. Note: only the ADMINS of the Google Ads account can submit this form.

  2. Add documentation - The form asks for a lot of detailed information on the traffic so Google can analyze it themselves. This includes information such as IP addresses, web logs, tracking or analytics issues, a summary of the findings and more.

  3. Submit form - Once you complete the form and submit it, you may need to wait a while (it can often be weeks before you receive a response).

Also, keep in mind, Google states on their website that not all traffic that appears to be invalid, is necessarily invalid. Bad leads and poorly performing traffic could be the result of broken or poorly designed landing pages, incorrect final URLs, poor targeting, no product-market fit, etc.

There’s no assurance that Google will give a refund, but it can be worth trying. Just make sure the issue you’re experiencing is not a problem on your site, but is truly the impact of bots or accidental clicks, etc. It’s also worth remembering that suspicious traffic and bad ad performance might be caused by a variety of legitimate problems with one’s website, landing pages, campaigns, or ads.

Again, you can submit our click fraud reports with your refund request to Google, but we are unable to help with the process beyond that.

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