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The hidden threat draining your PPC budget
Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads are often seen as one of the most cost-effective ways to drive leads. But only if those clicks are real.
What many businesses don’t realise is that fraudsters are cashing in, siphoning away ad budgets through fake clicks. Competitors, bots, and click farms inflate your costs without delivering a single genuine customer.
Why so much ad fraud?
Unethical competitors want to drain your budget, bots profit from ad networks, and click farms simply manipulate the system.
Without protection, your PPC spend is funding fraud – not results.
Find out if Click Fraud is silently killing your budget – ask us!
If you’re one of the many businesses investing in Google Ads and PPC campaigns but finding you’re paying for clicks that never convert, you’re wasting your ad budget and skewing your campaign data.
At the Heighton Agency, East Sussex UK, we understand the impact of click fraud on our clients’ campaigns and have taken proactive steps to combat this issue – further enhancing our Google Ads Partner Status.
On the Problem: competitors and click bots.
Picture this: while you’re diligently strategising and investing in Google & Facebook Ads to maximise your online visibility, your competitors are slyly clicking away at your ads, rapidly depleting your monthly budget.
Their motive? To elevate their own Adword campaigns by suppressing your visibility and driving your individual ad costs higher.
Click fraud orchestrated by competitors can wreak havoc on your advertising efforts, siphoning leads and sales from under your nose. To make matters worse, these competitors may employ bots that tirelessly scour the web, targeting your valuable keywords and continuously clicking on your ads whenever they appear.
Ad fraud is not only unethical. It also compromises the integrity of digital advertising AND hampers your chances of success. So, it’s essential to address this problem head-on and protect your Adword investments.
The first step? Implementing a robust Click Fraud Prevention strategy.
By employing advanced technologies and techniques, we can effectively identify and thwart the fraudulent activities of bots and competitors. Click Fraud Prevention software analyses various data points, including IP addresses, click patterns, and user behaviour, to differentiate genuine clicks from illegitimate ones.
It’s a proactive approach that ensures your ad budget is utilised efficiently and that your ads reach real potential customers who are genuinely interested in your products or services.
On the Evidence
Click fraud isn’t just an inconvenience – it’s a multi-million-pound menace that’s distorting analytics and draining ad budgets worldwide. Every day, businesses collectively lose an estimated £40 million to fraudulent ad activity, according to respected UK research firm Juniper Research. That’s money disappearing into the pockets of fraudsters, bots, and bad actors instead of generating real customer engagement.
A growing threat to digital advertising
Ad fraud has plagued the digital marketing industry for years, and it’s only getting worse.
In 2017, 1 in 5 ad clicks were classified as fraudulent – a number that continues to rise month after month. And it’s not just about wasted spend; fake clicks distort the data marketers rely on to make informed decisions.
- Over 50% of online ads go unseen by real users.
- Global advertisers lost £18 billion to ad fraud in 2019 alone.
- Projected losses could hit £25 billion by 2025.
Why it matters for your business
Every fraudulent click skews analytics, making it harder to track genuine engagement and optimise campaigns effectively. Marketing strategies built on compromised data lead to poor decision-making, wasted budget, and lower ROI.
Stop wasting ad spend.
Protect your analytics.
Maximise your marketing impact.
On Prevention: how we stop click fraud
Click fraud isn’t just an inconvenience – it’s a direct attack on your ad budget and campaign performance. At HeightOn, we use advanced tools and hands-on monitoring to detect, block, and prevent fraudulent clicks, ensuring your PPC spend reaches real customers, not bad actors.
“We saw that Click Fraud was a problem in the marketplace and how PPC Ad Budgets could be rapidly depleted. So, we dedicated ourselves to providing a solution that would protect our clients’ investments and ensure that their ads reach real, engaged users.“
Chris HeightOn
That begins with:
Identifying the problem
Whether it’s a competitor clicking your ads to deplete your budget or automated bots generating fake traffic, we identify the fraudulent interactions that are inflating your costs without delivering genuine leads.
Then:
Implementing smart solutions
As Google Ad Partners, we take a proactive approach. Our anti-click fraud solutions include:
- Fraud detection software: AI-powered tools identify suspicious activity based on IP addresses, click patterns, and user behaviour.
- IP blocking & VPN detection: We blacklist fraudulent IPs and block traffic from known VPNs that mask locations.
- Location filtering: Keeping your ads visible only to your target audience, ensuring genuine engagement.
- Human-led campaign analysis: Our team monitors trends, assesses traffic quality, and makes real-time adjustments.
We keep your PPC campaigns optimised and your budget protected by applying all these measures.
“Click fraud is a real threat to ad budgets, but we don’t just rely on automation. We take a proactive approach, by integrating advanced fraud detection software with human-led analysis, we track IP addresses, click patterns and user behaviour in real-time, ensuring only genuine prospects interact with your ads.”
Domonique HeightOn
On the Defence
Because click fraud is already a real and growing threat to PPC campaigns, we’re always exploring and investing in the best solutions for our clients. And that led us to find a leading fraud prevention tool endorsed by SEO expert Neil Patel.
The results? Game-changing.
We systematically focused on three key areas:
Location targeting
By refining our campaign settings to only target relevant geographic areas, we significantly reduced fraudulent clicks from irrelevant or suspicious locations. This meant ad spend was focused on real prospects, not wasted on click farms.
Bounce rate analysis
We closely monitored engagement levels to detect anomalies. High bounce rates can indicate non-human traffic or invalid clicks, helping us swiftly adjust campaigns and minimise budget drain.
VPN detection & blocking
Fraudsters often use VPNs to mask their true locations. Using advanced tracking, we identified and blocked clicks from known VPN servers—cutting down on fraudulent activity before it could damage campaign performance.
By implementing the tool across both client accounts and our own, we saw firsthand how effective this tool is at protecting ad budgets.
The outcome?
Cleaner traffic,
reduced wasted spend, and
stronger campaign performance.
At HeightOn, we take a proactive approach to PPC fraud prevention. As Google Ad Partners, we combine cutting-edge technology with expert oversight to ensure your ads reach the right audience – not bots, not competitors, not click farms.
On Results: cleaner ad traffic, better ROI
Ad fraud software that gets results
Since implementation, the impact has been remarkable. Our clients have witnessed substantial savings, preserving ££hundreds per week by effectively combating illegitimate clicks.
By eliminating click fraud, we’ve optimised ad budgets, ensuring that they reach genuine users who possess a genuine interest in their products or services.
The results speak for themselves with higher conversion rates, improved return on investment, and resounding campaign success.
Case study: property surveyors’ PPC success
For leading property surveying firm, Arnold & Baldwin, implementing our Click Fraud Prevention strategy resulted in:
- 72% cleaner ad traffic
- 26,899 fraudulent clicks blocked in 3 months
- £5,379 saved in wasted ad spend.
Case study: local business sees instant savings
A small blinds and curtain company we work with saw immediate results:
- £35 saved in the first week
- 66 fraudulent clicks prevented.
With every click redirected towards real customers, their ad performance – and return on investment – soared.
On Strategy: click fraud prevention as a competitive edge
Protecting your ad spend isn’t just about cost savings. It’s also about making your marketing more effective.
By ensuring that every click comes from a genuine prospect, you can:
- Improve lead quality
- Reduce wasted budget
- Strengthen campaign performance
- Increase conversion rates.
On Trust: why work with HeightOn?
We do much more than basic Google Ad management.
When it comes to finding a digital advertising partner, it’s not just about the services they offer – it’s about finding a small team of expert Google Ad Partners who truly understand your business goals.
We pride ourselves on being that partner.
Our PPC strategies integrate fraud detection, campaign optimisation, and data-driven insights to deliver maximum results. With years of experience in protecting businesses from click fraud, we ensure your ads reach the right audience – without the waste.
Ready to stop wasting your Ad spend?
Click fraud costs businesses billions globally. Don’t let your budget go to waste.
Partner with HeightOn to secure your PPC campaigns and maximise your marketing impact.
Get in touch today to protect your ads and improve your ROI.
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