PPC click sabotage in 2025: Real cases of budget-draining fraud & how ClickPatrol protects your ads

PPC click sabotage, also known as click fraud, occurs when competitors or malicious actors deliberately click on your pay-per-click (PPC) ads to drain your advertising budget.

Around 14% of all clicks on sponsored search ads are sourced from fraudulent sources. Due to click sabotage, taking budget without producing conversions, SMEs can be especially hard-hit.

These firms usually have very tight budgets, where every ad click counts.

This article will discuss real-life cases of PPC click sabotage, how those situations unfolded, and the substantial financial impacts.

PPC click sabotage case studies: SMEs & large enterprises

Documented incidents of PPC click sabotage show how cunning and destructive the practice can be, regardless of industry and geography.

Below are some real examples, which show just how widespread and costly this problem is.

Motogolf.com vs. a Las Vegas competitor

Motogolf, an online retailer of golf equipment, filed a lawsuit against a Las Vegas-based rival for repeatedly clicking on its ads.

The competitor’s repeated, illegitimate clicks on Motogolf’s search ads depleted the retailer’s budget, resulting in at least $5,000 in direct ad spend losses and corrupting valuable demographic data for targeting.

The pattern shows intentional sabotage of repeated clicks to exhaust the ad budget, rather than generate conversions.

Palace Plumbers (UK)

Palace Plumbers is a UK-based plumbing business relying heavily on PPC ads, with around 80% of lead generation coming from this medium.

Their monthly PPC spend was around £3,000, largely wasted because competitors were intentionally clicking their ads repeatedly.

The result is poor ROI, wasted budget, and substantially reduced visibility for legitimate customers seeking emergency plumbing services.

High-profile ad tech disputes: Criteo vs. Steelhouse (now MNTM)

In a 2016 dispute where Criteo accused Steelhouse of inflating click counts using bots, a click-fraud scheme tied to retargeting ads for retailers, such as a shoe brand.

In the public record of the dispute, Steelhouse contended that about 52% of Criteo’s clicks didn’t emanate from any known site or publisher, while another 16% were duplicate clicks on the same ad within a 30-minute window, far above industry norms.

This resulted in Criteo losing major clients and revenue, proving that click sabotage can inflict multimillion-dollar damage even in large enterprises.

SME level impacts: On-demand services & waste disposal

According to industry analysis, click fraud is hitting on-demand service industries disproportionately hard; plumbing, pest control, locksmiths, waste removal, and photography have some of the highest invalid click rates.

Sectors such as photography had as high as 65% invalid click rates; pest control, 62%; locksmiths, 53%; plumbers, 46%; and waste removal, 45%.

These figures indicate that even small players, SMEs, are also favored targets of sabotage, as they often cannot afford to absorb such losses due to budgetary rigidities.

More extensive data around over $1.8 billion clicks worldwide indicates that about 14% of all clicks on sponsored search ads are fraudulent.

That often translates into big wasted spending and distorted campaign metrics in many of the affected industries, documented invisibly, unless well monitored.

Financial toll of PPC click sabotage on businesses

The financial toll of PPC click sabotage on businesses:

High global cost of ad fraud

According to research, approximately 14% of all PPC search ad clicks are fraudulent.

Fraud adjustment tool analyses suggest that, across digital ads, invalid traffic and fraud could cost advertisers billions annually.

Specifically, global ad fraud losses are projected to rise from an estimated $88 billion in 2023 to as high as $172 billion by 2028.

Wasted ad spend on fraudulent clicks

For a typical advertiser running 10,000 clicks a month, a 20% fraud rate would mean 2,000 invalid clicks, translating into a loss of $4,000 per month, or $48,000 per year, with zero conversions.

Especially vulnerable industries, e.g., e-commerce, plumbing, locksmithing, and waste removal, face invalid click rates that are far above average, as demand-service sectors show some of the highest fraud incidence.

Indirect costs: inflated CPAs, skewed analytics, poor optimisation

Fraudulent clicks drive up CPA because they don’t convert, while distorting key campaign performance metrics, e.g., CTR and conversion rate.

This leads to a cascade of misinformed decisions, such as cutting off profitable keywords or overinvesting in poor-performing ones.
As fraudsters drain the budget, genuine users are underserved, reducing long-term growth potential.

And over time, these distortions can add up: wasted spend now, plus misguided ad spend allocation and degraded ROI later.

Impact on smaller advertisers and SMEs

According to a 2024 trends report, a modest ad spend of $10,000 will easily translate into losses of $12,000-15,000 for small or medium businesses due to click fraud.

For highly competitive verticals, where CPCs are high and margins are thin, repeated invalid clicks could force SMEs to scale back or pause campaigns, directly harming growth potential.

Long-term systemic consequences: erosion of trust and strategic realignment. At hundreds of billions, global digital-ad fraud losses may erode confidence in PPC’s effectiveness among many businesses, prompting them to reallocate budgets, shift platforms, or spend less on ads.

According to industry insights, ad fraud losses are increasingly viewed as a “hidden tax” on the digital economy, hurting not just individual advertisers but the sustainability of digital advertising as a whole.

How ClickPatrol protects PPC campaigns from fraudulent clicks

ClickPatrol blocks competitor IPs and keeps your ads completely invisible to them. This can keep the visibility and clicks away, thus preserving budget for real users.

By using advanced detection, ClickPatrol spots suspicious patterns in real time, which helps run campaigns more smoothly.

Unlike simple filters, ClickPatrol technology adjusts to continuously evolving threats and protects advertisers with peace of mind.

By seamlessly integrating with platforms like Google Ads, it reduces sabotage risk and extends ROI and campaign lifetimes.

Safeguard your PPC ads: Advanced click sabotage protection with ClickPatrol

Real-life cases of PPC click sabotage, such as those listed above, show how quickly ad budgets can be drained, resulting in multi-million-dollar losses.

For businesses of all sizes, protecting campaigns from fraudulent clicks is no longer optional; it’s essential to maintaining ROI and staying competitive in digital marketing.

With an advanced tool like ClickPatrol, you can automatically detect and block malicious IPs, prevent competitors from even seeing your ads, and continuously monitor traffic for suspicious patterns.

This not only preserves your budget but also ensures your campaigns reach genuine customers, improve conversion rates, and provide accurate analytics.

By safeguarding your ads, ClickPatrol allows you to focus on growth, strategy, and sustainable success in a highly competitive online landscape.

Abisola

Meet Abisola! As the content manager at ClickPatrol, she’s the go-to expert on all things fake traffic. From bot clicks to ad fraud, Abisola knows how to spot, stop, and educate others about the sneaky tactics that inflate numbers but don’t bring real results.

View all posts by Abisola (Abisola)

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