Key takeaways
- Freeze the scope before exploring data.
- Check data health before interpreting behaviour.
- Compare suspicious traffic with an appropriate baseline.
- Record actions and provider outcomes separately.
Preserve scope and readiness
Record the exact timezone, date range, account, campaigns, ad groups, keywords, landing pages, and conversion definitions. Note budget, bid, targeting, creative, site, consent, and tag changes. These changes can explain sudden patterns and are easy to lose after the fact.
Confirm landing pages returned successfully and campaign parameters survived redirects. Mark periods where telemetry was incomplete or delayed.
Build comparable cohorts
Compare the suspicious cohort with a relevant baseline: the same campaign before the change, another campaign with similar intent, or a matched time window. Segment by search term, device, location, schedule, network, visitor continuity, behaviour, and outcome without slicing until samples become meaningless.
- Look for agreement across independent signals.
- Check whether Google already reported invalid interactions.
- Retain benign explanations alongside risk hypotheses.
- Avoid exposing unnecessary visitor-level data in shared reports.
Decide the next permitted action
Possible next steps include campaign refinement, watchlisting, deeper review, a scoped provider action, or an invalid-traffic investigation request. State who approved the decision, the expected effect, expiry, verification method, and reversal path.
Limitations
What this guide does not claim
A checklist improves consistency but cannot establish intent or guarantee a provider outcome. Retention, privacy, and account permissions may constrain available evidence.
Evidence
Primary sources
- About invalid trafficGoogle Ads Help
- Clicks and sessions discrepancy troubleshootingGoogle Ads Help
- Invalid clicks: definitionGoogle Ads Help
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