Google Ads Click Fraud Refund Evidence

Start with the vocabulary, because it shapes expectations. Google's invalid traffic documentation states that clicks determined to be invalid result in adjustments or credits, not a refund. When Google's monitoring systems find invalid activity after you have been billed, the amount comes back as a credit labeled "invalid activity", which appears on subsequent invoices and in your transaction history as a negative value. Google's Ad Traffic Quality team also notes that credits can reach back beyond the current billing period: money found to be invalid is often credited for the previous month as well. None of this arrives as cash; it offsets what you owe. So when this guide says refund, read it as an invalid-activity credit or adjustment, and when you write to Google, use their terms. A request written in their vocabulary, around their actual process, is easier for a reviewer to act on.

Google's "About invalid traffic" help page lists what to gather before you submit, and it is more specific than most advertisers expect.

Account and scope: your 10-digit Google Ads Customer ID, the exact date range when you noticed the suspicious activity, and the specific campaigns, ad groups and keywords affected.

Click-level records: web server logs covering the affected period, including IP addresses, user agents and GCLIDs, the click identifiers Google appends to your landing page URLs when auto-tagging is on.

A brief explanation of why you believe the traffic is suspicious. Not a feeling, a pattern: what you saw, where it concentrated, and why it cannot be genuine interest.

That list is the request. If you keep those fields for every paid click as a matter of routine, an investigation request becomes an export instead of an archaeology project.

One odd click proves little. Build a pattern: repeated clicks from the same IPs or networks, datacenter or proxy sources, off-target geographies, abnormal timing, and clicks that produced no engagement or conversions. Summarize what makes the activity clearly invalid.

Patterns also survive review better than volume does. Fifty suspicious clicks with a shared fingerprint say more than five hundred clicks that merely look expensive. Lead with your strongest cluster.

Before requesting anything, see what Google's automatic filtering caught. Google states that it tries to filter invalid clicks from reports and payments automatically, and that you won't be charged for them. Add the "Invalid Clicks" column to your campaign reports to see the filtered count per campaign.

For billed activity caught later, Google Ads also provides an Invalid Activity Credit Report in Report Editor (currently for Search and Performance Max campaigns), showing credited clicks and amounts by campaign and network. Focus your request on suspicious activity beyond what these already cover; pointing reviewers at traffic they have already credited weakens the rest of your case.

The timing rules are strict. Google's documentation states that automated reviews for invalid traffic cover traffic received over the last 60 days, and that investigations are limited to the past 60 days as well. Suspicious activity older than that is effectively out of reach.

The practical consequence: don't wait for a quarter-end reporting cycle to raise a claim. If you spot a suspicious spike, start assembling the evidence the same week, and file while the bulk of the affected clicks are still inside the window.

Package the affected campaigns and date range, a short description of the pattern, and the click-level evidence. Then submit an investigation request through Google's Click Quality Form (sign-in required), which is the route Google's own help pages point to for invalid-click issues.

Keep the write-up concise. State the Customer ID, campaigns and dates, describe the pattern in a few sentences, and attach the log-level detail rather than pasting it inline.

Credits are reactive and discretionary. Google decides case by case. The reliable long-term move is continuous monitoring so the evidence is always ready. Didva records IPs, timestamps, user agents, campaigns and patterns for every click, in the same shape Google's checklist asks for, so each request starts from an export instead of a scramble.