Maximise Paid Media Profit with Click Fraud Prevention

Click fraud in eCommerce refers to invalid or non-incremental interactions with paid ads that do not contribute to real revenue. This includes competitor bots scraping prices, automated scripts inflating clicks, reseller bots targeting product launches, and returning customers repeatedly clicking paid ads instead of using organic channels. These interactions consume budget, distort optimisation signals, and reduce paid media profit across Shopping, Search, and Performance Max campaigns.

Click fraud impacts profitability by inflating CPCs, misdirecting automated bidding, and diverting budget away from net-new customer acquisition. Even when ROAS appears stable, profit per order often declines as spend is absorbed by non-incremental users and automated traffic. Without ecommerce ad fraud prevention, campaigns scale inefficiency rather than growth, making margin erosion difficult to detect until budgets increase.

Shopping and Performance Max rely heavily on behavioural signals such as clicks, product views, and conversion paths. When these signals are driven by bots, scrapers, or repeat users, automated bidding systems optimise toward behaviour that looks successful but does not scale profitably. Once polluted, these optimisation models can take weeks or months to recover.

Returning customers often use paid ads as a shortcut to revisit a site rather than navigating organically. While they may convert, this behaviour is non-incremental and increases re-acquisition costs without adding new revenue. Over time, automated bidding systems prioritise these easy conversions, raising CPCs and limiting reach to new, higher-value shoppers unless ecommerce ad fraud prevention controls are applied.

eCommerce brands can stop price-scraping bots by using ecommerce ad fraud prevention tools that block invalid traffic in real time, before clicks reach the site. Unlike basic IP exclusions, advanced solutions analyse behavioural patterns and network signals to prevent scrapers from inflating CPCs, extracting pricing data, or forcing unnecessary bid escalation.

Google Ads and Performance Max apply basic invalid traffic filtering, but these systems are designed to optimise for volume and spend, not profitability. They do not reliably identify price scrapers, non-incremental users, or behaviour that becomes unprofitable over time. Ecommerce ad fraud prevention tools address these blind spots by stopping harmful traffic before it influences optimisation models.

eCommerce marketers should look for solutions that provide real-time prevention, user-level validation, cross-channel coverage, and transparent reporting. Reporting alone does not protect optimisation. Effective ecommerce ad fraud prevention stops unprofitable behaviour before spend is wasted and ensures bidding decisions are based on genuine shopper intent.

Losses vary by category, but many eCommerce brands see between 15% and 30% of paid traffic driven by bots, scrapers, or non-incremental users. Without ecommerce ad fraud prevention, this waste increases as automation expands across Shopping and Performance Max campaigns.

No. Small and mid-sized eCommerce brands are often more exposed because their budgets are concentrated in high-CPC Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. Even modest volumes of invalid traffic can materially impact efficiency and margin when budgets are tightly controlled.

Initial improvements are often visible within days, but full optimisation recovery depends on learning cycles and campaign volume. Ecommerce ad fraud prevention significantly shortens recovery time by preventing polluted signals from accumulating in the first place.

Lunio primarily focuses on identifying and excluding invalid traffic after it has occurred. TrafficGuard takes a prevention-first approach, blocking invalid and non-incremental behaviour before it reaches the site or influences optimisation. For eCommerce brands running Shopping and Performance Max, this difference matters because preventing polluted signals early reduces recovery time and protects paid media profit.

Learn more on how TrafficGuard compares with Lunio

ClickCease relies largely on IP-based blocking and post-click exclusions, which can limit effectiveness against sophisticated bots, repeat users, and price scrapers. TrafficGuard uses behavioural and user-level validation to prevent unprofitable clicks in real time. This allows eCommerce brands to protect optimisation signals across Search, Shopping, and Performance Max rather than reacting after spend has already been lost.

Learn more on how TrafficGuard compares with ClickCease