Competitor ad clicks are draining your budget in 2025: Stop fraud with ClickPatrol

Competitor ad clicks are costing advertisers millions every year. These deliberate, fraudulent actions occur when rivals click on your paid ads to drain budgets, distort analytics, and undermine campaign performance.

In fact, research shows that up to 20% of clicks on paid ads in certain industries may be fraudulent, representing significant wasted spend.

ClickPatrol breaks down the statistics behind this growing problem, explains why competitor clicks happen, and demonstrates how our advanced IP-blocking technology lets you stop rival IPs before they waste another dollar of your ad spend.

This article will show you how to detect, prevent, and protect your campaigns from competitor ad clicks.

What are competitor ad clicks, and how do they work?

Competitor ad clicks happen when a rival or their hired bot network repeatedly clicks on your paid ads across platforms like Google or Meta, not to convert but to drain your daily ad budget.

Each fake click costs you money and damages campaign performance. When these clicks occur:

• Your CPC increases as poor engagement lowers ad quality scores.
• Your budget depletes early, stopping your ads from reaching real customers.
• Your analytics become distorted, making optimization decisions unreliable.
• Your genuine conversions drop, replaced by fake, wasteful traffic.

Competitor ad clicks vs. regular click fraud: Key differences

While click fraud generally refers to fake clicks created by bots, click farms, or automated scripts just to inflate ad engagement, competitor ad clicks are much more targeted and personal.

These clicks are from actual rivals, business owners, marketers, or hired agents deliberately clicking on your paid ads to drain your budget or gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Unlike generic fraud, competitor clicks are often harder to detect because they imitate real user behaviour. The intent is not revenue via fake traffic; it’s sabotage: to exhaust your daily ad spend, lower your ROI, and push your campaigns out of visibility so the competitor’s ads dominate instead.

The financial impact of competitor ad clicks on your campaigns

The financial impact of competitor ad clicks is far greater than most advertisers can fathom: billions of dollars lost every year from fake and malicious traffic that drains budgets and distorts campaign performance.

Global ad fraud losses are huge

• According to Juniper Research, ad fraud, including competitor clicks, will cost marketers US$84 billion in 2023, accounting for approximately 22% of global ad spend. Losses are expected to exceed US$170 billion by 2028.
• Juniper also reported US$68 billion lost in 2022, up from US$59 billion in 2021.

Invalid traffic is rampant

CHEQ State of Fake Traffic research showed that 11.3% of all online traffic in 2022 was fake or invalid, resulting in US$35.7 billion in ad spend waste.

The high-cost industry problem

This is most true for industries such as legal services, finance, and SaaS, where clicks cost $20-$100 or more. Just a few fake clicks a day can quickly translate into thousands of dollars in monthly losses.

While not all invalid clicks come from competitors, a significant number do, quietly siphoning off marketing budgets and distorting performance metrics.

High-cost industries that are most vulnerable to competitor ad clicks

Understanding how much advertisers pay per click shows why competitor ad clicks are so damaging in high-value sectors.

When every click costs tens or hundreds of dollars, just a few fraudulent clicks can destroy ROI within hours. Based on research from ClickPatrol’s 2025 CPC Report:

• Legal Services: Over US $150–$800+ per click, among the highest in the world.
• Insurance: US $60–$90 per click; highly exposed to competitor clicks.
• Finance & Banking: US $50–$100 CPC, with mortgage terms reaching US $100.
• SaaS & B2B Software: US$30–$70 per click, depending on the level of competition.
• Tech support & repair services: US$20–$60 per click.

Why competitors target your ads: Top reasons

Competitor ad clicks are not random; they are strategic.

• Budget drain: By fully utilizing your daily ad budget early, competitors make sure their ads stay visible while yours disappear.
• Performance sabotage: Repeated fake clicks lower your conversion rate and increase your CPA, signalling poor performance to algorithms like Google Ads, which may decrease your visibility or increase your CPCs.
• Market intelligence: Your competitors sometimes click to spy on your landing pages, prices, or offers, but every one of those “research” clicks costs you money.
• High-ROI sabotage: In expensive niches, a few malicious clicks can cause thousands in damage —an extremely low-cost attack for the competitor.

Competitor ad click case studies: Real dollars lost

Oliverson & Huss (U.S. Legal Firm)

• Daily Google Ads budget: US $700
• Actual spend frequently exceeded US$2,000, with a few conversions
• Patterns indicated repeated clicks from the same IPs/devices, often at unusual hours, likely competitor click fraud
• Action: Implemented ClickPatrol’s IP tracking and blocking solution

Results:

• Blocked suspicious traffic within weeks
• Saved approximately US $6,000 in wasted spending
• Redirected budget to genuine prospects, improving campaign performance

Wilson PC (Legal-Tech / Personal-Injury Law-Firm Service)

• Initial invalid click rate: 7.91%
• Identified 883 fake clicks using ClickPatrol
• Action: Blocked fraudulent IPs and filtered invalid traffic

Results:

• Invalid click rate reduced to 2.97%
• Saved roughly US $47,963 in ad spend
• Focused budget on real leads and optimized campaigns

Targeted click fraud, including competitor activity, can quickly drain high-CPC campaigns, but proactive solutions like ClickPatrol deliver measurable savings and improved ad efficiency.

ClickPatrol solution: Block competitor ad clicks effectively

ClickPatrol provides proactive protection by detecting and blocking competitor IPs before they can view or click your ads.

Advanced IP tracking and behaviour analysis

ClickPatrol tracks every IP, device, and session that interacts with your campaigns. It flags suspicious activity such as

• Multiple clicks from the same IP
• Visits without conversions
• Traffic from competitor regions

Automatic IP Blocking

After flagging, these IPs are barred from viewing or engaging with your advertisements. Competitor firms are unable to click on something that they do not see.

Real-time dashboard & alerts

Sees the patterns of clicks, blocked IPs, and approximate savings all on a single dashboard.

Custom rules & whitelisting

Control sensitivity, whitelist trusted partners, and adjust blocking levels to fine-tune for maximum accuracy.

ClickPatrol guards your budget by preventing fraudulent clicks before they occur, rather than fixing the damage after it’s been done.

Beyond cost: Hidden impacts of competitor ad clicks

Competitor ad clicks are not only a drain on your budget, but they also lead to a silent loss of your marketing performance and decision-making.

• Unfair advantage: Your rivals steal the visibility that you are paying for.
• Distorted data: Decisions throughout campaigns are made based on fraudulent measures and false performance indicators.
• Team frustration: Marketers waste time chasing optimization issues caused by sabotage, not strategy.
• Loss of confidence: Brands lose trust in their data and scale back budgets, giving bad actors more room to dominate
• The outcome: a vicious circle of rising expenses, deteriorating performance, and missed chances.

Spotting competitor ad clicks: Red flags to watch

If you suspect your ads are being sabotaged, watch out for the following signs of competitor click fraud:

• Budgets deplete early: Your daily ad spend runs out much faster than usual.
• High clicks, low conversions: Click volume increases, while true leads decline.
• Suspicious geographic clusters: A large number of clicks come from a single region or IP range.
• Recurring activity: The same IPs, devices, or user agents are continually clicking your ads.
• Low-quality: Traffic coming from regions with high concentrations of known competitors.

Protect your campaigns from competitor ad clicks with ClickPatrol

Competitor ad clicks are not just a nuisance; they are a silent killer of your profits, costing advertisers millions each year.

From increased CPCs to sabotaged performance metrics, the damage runs deeper than lost dollars; it undermines your entire marketing strategy.

You don’t have to take it lying down, though. ClickPatrol equips advertisers with real-time detection and intelligent IP blocking to provide full visibility into campaigns, so every click counts toward real growth, not fraud.

Protect your ad spend today, start your free ClickPatrol trial, and prevent competitors from stealing your budget before the next click costs you.

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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