Last updated: 8 July 2025

This article explains the difference between click fraud carried out by publishers and that committed by competitors. We also share strategies to help you stop competitors from clicking on your ads and wasting your marketing budget.

What is click fraud?

Click fraud is a form of online crime that costs advertisers billions of dollars every year. The majority of click fraud is carried out by publishers, and typically follows this pattern:

  • A scammer sets up a website and monetizes it with ads. They often choose large ad networks like Google Ads or Microsoft Ads because these platforms have vast ad inventories but relatively weak click fraud detection systems.
  • The criminal then programs bots to repeatedly visit their site and click on the ads. These bots are also designed to generate fake conversions-such as submitting spam leads-to convince the ad networks that the clicks are legitimate. To avoid detection, the bots route their traffic through residential and cellphone proxies, ensuring each fake click comes from a unique IP address.
  • Every fake click generates charges for the advertisers, with a share of the revenue going to the criminal through the ad network.

In contrast, click fraud from competitors is much simpler. This usually happens when a competitor searches for your company or services on platforms like Google or Bing, causing your ads to appear.

The competitor then repeatedly clicks on your ads, wasting your advertising budget. Often, they use a VPN to vary their IP address in an attempt to mask their identity.

Although competitor-generated fake clicks make up less than 1% of total click fraud, their impact can be severe, quickly draining your ad budget.

Am I charged for competitor click fraud?

Many advertisers mistakenly believe that ad networks don’t charge for competitor clicks-or only charge for the first one or two. This only applies if the clicks occur within seconds of each other. However, if your competitor spaces their fake clicks by one or two minutes, the ad networks treat them as valid clicks, and you will be charged. It doesn’t matter if the same IP address is used; as long as clicks are spaced a few minutes apart, they are considered legitimate.

How to recognise competitor click fraud?

As mentioned earlier, competitor click fraud tends to be straightforward, so there are several ways to identify if your competitors are clicking on your ads.

First, compile a list of the IP addresses clicking on your ads. Upload this list to IPinfo to check if the clicks originate from IP addresses belonging to the same VPN provider. Also, look for any repeated IP addresses.

Next, gather a list of the device fingerprints that have clicked on your ads. Look for devices that repeatedly click your ads, regardless of the IP addresses they use. This method is effective because most competitors use only a few devices for their fraudulent clicks. If your competitor is technically skilled and uses tools to randomise device fingerprints, Polygraph can detect this and even uncover the original device fingerprints.

How to prevent competitor click fraud?

Preventing click fraud from publishers usually involves stopping their fake conversions and re-training the ad networks to send you quality human traffic. However, stopping competitor click fraud calls for a different approach.

  1. If you notice the same IP address repeatedly clicking your ads, you can add that IP to your ad network’s exclusion list to block anyone using it from seeing your ads. That said, since most click fraud uses unique IPs, this method often isn’t very effective. For more details, see our article Why blocking IP addresses won’t protect your ads from click fraud.
  2. Competitors often click on your ads during specific times, such as afternoons or evenings. You can adjust your campaign’s ad schedule to exclude those time periods, preventing your competitor from seeing your ads when they’re active. Keep monitoring for competitor clicks, as you might need to update your schedule if their habits change.
  3. Using IPinfo, you might identify the city or cities where your competitor’s IP addresses originate. Then, through your ad network’s location settings, exclude those cities from seeing your ads.
  4. If your competitor repeatedly targets the same keyword, add it as a negative search term.

In summary

Competitor click fraud makes up only a small portion of the overall click fraud occurring daily, but its impact can be severe, draining your ad budget and hurting your sales.

With some investigative effort, you can identify whether competitors are clicking on your ads. From there, you can reduce and even stop future competitor click fraud by blocking their IP addresses, scheduling your ads to be off when they’re active, excluding their city from your ad targeting, and removing the keywords they focus on.