Competitors Clicking AdWords

Google advertisers often worry about the costs associated with competitors clicking on their AdWords ads. We've even spoken to business owners that are reluctant about advertising in Google because of this concern.

And yes, competitors do click on ads in the belief that this will frustrate their competitors advertising efforts by adding cost to their AdWords campaigns.

From our experience and looking across our customer base of advertisers, we see approximately 5 – 10% of campaign clicks as being invalid.

How do we know this?

Google AdWords incorporates a fraudulent click filter that identifies invalid click activity. These invalid clicks are automatically credited each month against your account so you don't pay for them.

So our advice is not to worry about those competitors that have nothing better to do than click your ads. Their activity is very unlikely to be damaging your campaign and adding additional cost.

If you are still concerned, it's possible to set up an IP address filter in AdWords campaigns that exclude IP addresses. So if you can identify the IP addresses of offending clickers, these can then be filtered out so they won't see your ads.

Unfortunately Google Analytics doesn't report website visitor activity at an IP address level. You could install a program like Clicky which would provide this level of detail for you.

If you would like to find out more about our managed Google Ads service, then please contact us on 0800 ADHESION (234 374).