How to block competitor IPs in Google Ads in 2025: Protect your PPC budget with ClickPatrol

Competitor click fraud is one of the most costly threats for Google Ads advertisers. Studies show 14–22% of all paid search clicks are invalid or fraudulent, costing businesses up to $7 billion annually.

Many of these clicks come from competitors, either to drain your ad budget or spy on your campaigns. Blocking competitor IPs is an effective way to prevent this.

In this article, you will learn why IP blocking matters, how to do it manually in Google Ads, its limitations, and how tools like ClickPatrol can automate the process to protect your ad spend.

Blocking competitor IPs in Google Ads: What it is and why it matters

Every device connected to the internet has an IP address that identifies it on the network.

With Google Ads, you can block specific IPs, and those users will not be able to view or click your ads. This helps you:

• Stop competitors from clicking your ads and draining your budget
• Keep agencies or competitors from tracking your keywords and ad strategy
• Block suspicious or fraudulent networks that waste your ad spend.
• Employ one of the easiest and most efficient ways of reducing click fraud once harmful IPs are identified accurately.

Why competitors target your ads and how it affects your PPC budget

Competitors click your ads for several reasons, each having a significant impact on your campaign performance and ad spend.

Drain your advertising budget

Other competitors intentionally click your ad multiple times, spending hundreds of dollars in a single day.

This lowers your daily budget and limits exposure to real potential customers.

Spy on your strategy

Clicking your ads lets your competitors monitor your promotions, analyze your landing pages, and gain insight into your messaging, pricing, and offers. This may give them an unfair competitive advantage in your market.

Manipulate your campaign performance

Invalid clicks distort key performance metrics, including:

• CPC (Cost Per Click) data
• Conversion Rates
• Smart Bidding signals

Step-by-step guide: Block competitor IPs in Google Ads

The steps include:

Step 1: Identify the IP addresses you want to block

Without knowing what IPs are suspicious, you cannot block competitor IPs. Google does not show the IP addresses directly in your Ads dashboard, so you’ll need a click-fraud monitoring tool like ClickPatrol to detect:

• Repeated clicks coming from the same IP
• Rapid-fire click patterns
• Brief visits without any engagement
• VPN or proxy traffic
• Bot-like behavior
• Competitors repeatedly viewing your ads

Step 2: Log in to your Google Ads account

• Go to ads.google.com and sign in.

Step 3: Select the campaign you want to protect

Since IP blocking works at the campaign level:

• Go to Campaigns
• Click on the campaign you want to modify

Step 4: Access IP exclusions

From the left-hand menu:

• Click Settings
• Scroll down to IP Exclusions
• Click Manage IP Exclusions

Step 5: Input the IP addresses to block

• Paste the suspected IP addresses into the field.
• Google allows up to 500 IP exclusions per campaign.
• Click Save, and those IPs will stop seeing your ads immediately.

Step 6: Monitor and update regularly

Blocking IPs is not a one-time job. Competitors often switch to:

• Devices
• Networks
• VPNs
• Mobile data vs. office WiFi
• Browser fingerprints

Why manual IP blocking is not enough

Manual IP blocking can help reduce competitor clicks, but it has significant limitations.

1. You can’t see IP addresses in Google Ads: Without a third-party tool, you cannot determine which IPs are malicious.
2. Google caps exclusions at 500 IPs, which is insufficient for businesses with aggressive competitors or high traffic.
3. Dynamic IPs make blocking ineffective: Many home or mobile networks rotate IP addresses, allowing competitors to return under new IPs.
4. Competitors can use VPNs and proxies: you can only block visible IPs, while rivals hide behind networks that are hard to detect manually.
5. Manual monitoring is impossible at scale: Tracking every click every day is impractical and time-consuming. That’s why automated tools like ClickPatrol offer a much better solution.

How ClickPatrol blocks competitor IPs on Google Ads

ClickPatrol is designed to detect and block competitors’ activity in real time, hence offering much better protection than manual IP blocking.

Automatic click fraud detection

ClickPatrol monitors every user action to identify:

• Malicious clicks repeated
• Suspicious activity patterns
• Competitor observation
• Bot and automation activity
• Known fraud networks

Automatic IP blocking

Suspicious IPs are added directly to your Google Ads exclusion list, preventing future clicks and budget waste.

Device fingerprinting

Beyond IP blocking, competitors can change IP addresses, but they cannot easily change their browser signatures or device attributes, and certainly not their behavioural patterns. ClickPatrol blocks devices, not just IPs.

Real-time protection

ClickPatrol stops fraudulent clicks in real time, so your budget isn’t drained before action is taken.

Saves hours of manual work

Automation eliminates manual click tracking, freeing your time while keeping your campaigns protected.

Proven strategies to protect your Google Ads budget from competitor clicks

Competitor clicks can waste your ad budget. Blocking IPs is just the first step; staying protected requires smart strategies and ongoing monitoring.

1. Effectively blocking competitor IPs is not just about adding addresses to your Google Ads exclusion list. True protection requires consistent monitoring, strategic updates, and multiple layers of defence to keep your campaigns safe.
2. IP addresses change frequently. Competitors can switch networks, use mobile hotspots, VPNs, or dynamic IPs, making previously blocked addresses invalid. To keep your protection solid, review your exclusion list weekly or biweekly for new suspicious activity, remove outdated IPs to free up space (Google limits exclusions to 500 per campaign), and use automated tools like ClickPatrol to detect and block threats in real time, saving a lot of manual work.
3. Early detection can save ad spend. Watch for sudden click spikes from unusual locations or odd hours, high bounce rates or extremely short sessions, repeated clicks from the same device or IP, and unexpected changes in CPC or conversion rates. Patterns like these often indicate competitor activity.
4. IP blocking is critical, but not enough on its own. Strengthen your defences by using device fingerprinting to catch competitors who switch IPs, implementing ClickPatrol’s automated fraud detection, monitoring analytics for suspicious clicks or conversion patterns, and configuring Smart Bidding to ignore invalid clicks. Training your team to identify and report suspicious activity adds an extra layer of protection.

Protect your Google Ads from competitor clicks

Safeguarding your Google Ads budget requires more than reactive fixes; it requires proactive defence. By leveraging smart IP exclusions, automation in detection, and advanced tools like ClickPatrol, you protect your campaigns, ensure high performance, and direct your ads to real customers, not competitors.

With ClickPatrol, you can prevent budget-draining clicks before they occur. Start using ClickPatrol today and protect your ads, recover wasted spend, and gain full control over your campaign integrity through real-time click fraud prevention.

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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