Google already credits the obvious invalid clicks automatically. The sophisticated fraud — competitor clicks, click farms, AI bots — slips past its filters, and that's the spend you keep paying for. ClickSambo turns your click data into the forensic, IP-level evidence Google's Click Quality team needs, and hands you a ready-to-upload report in one export.
Illustration of the ClickSambo dashboard. IP addresses are masked example data.
Google Ads runs its own filters and, when it catches obvious invalid activity, it credits your account automatically. The problem is what those filters miss — and the fact that reclaiming it requires evidence the average advertiser can't produce.
General Invalid Traffic (GIVT) — accidental double-clicks, simple bots and crawlers — is filtered in real time and returned as an automatic credit. You can confirm it by comparing Served Cost and Billed Cost in your billing reports.
Competitor click fraud, click farms and AI-driven bots that mimic human behaviour (SIVT) routinely bypass the automatic filters. This is the traffic that quietly drains your budget while your conversions stay flat.
The official Click Quality Form asks for a specific list of suspicious IP addresses, timestamps and tracking data. Claims built on circumstantial signals like a high bounce rate or low conversions are easily dismissed, so most never succeed.
ClickSambo scores every click in real time across hundreds of data points and logs the forensic detail Google's team needs, then packages it into a single Google-ready report you attach to your claim.
Open your Google Ads Billing & Invoices tab and compare two numbers. This tells you whether there's still budget left to reclaim manually.
You can reclaim the difference from Google with the evidence reports ClickSambo provides.
Pick your date range and ClickSambo compiles every invalid click it flagged into a format Google's Click Quality team can review — no correlating server logs against your Ads account by hand.
The Click Quality Form has a fixed set of requirements. Here's what each one asks for — and how the ClickSambo report supplies it.
Four steps, from a leaking budget to a filed claim backed by evidence Google can act on.
Add ClickSambo to your site and link your Google Ads account. It starts logging and scoring every click in real time.
Repeat clickers, data-centre traffic, proxies, click farms and competitor patterns are caught and recorded with full forensic detail.
Choose your date range on the refund screen and export the Google-ready report in a single click.
Submit Google's Click Quality Form with the report attached. Only an account admin can file — approvals typically arrive as Invalid Activity Credits.
Step-by-step walkthroughs of the Google Ads refund process, straight from our team.
A practical, step-by-step help article for filing your claim inside Google Ads.
Read the guide GuideEverything you need to know about reclaiming wasted ad spend, start to finish.
Read the article GuideHow invalid traffic works and how to turn the evidence into an approved refund.
Read the article ReportClickSambo's data report on invalid-traffic trends across Google Ads.
View the report GoogleGoogle's official overview of how it detects and filters invalid traffic across its ad network.
View on Google GoogleGoogle Ads' official help article on how invalid traffic is detected, filtered, and credited.
Read on Google GoogleGoogle's official form to request an invalid-traffic investigation for the last 60 days.
Open the formStart protecting your ads in real time, build the evidence trail from day one, and reclaim the invalid clicks Google's filters missed. Not sure how much you're losing? Run the free ad-spend calculator first.
7-day free trial · Monthly & annual plans · 24/7 support
It refunds some. Google's automated filters catch General Invalid Traffic — double-clicks, simple bots, sudden-burst IPs, blacklisted IPs — and credit your account automatically. Sophisticated Invalid Traffic, such as AI-driven bots and deliberate competitor clicks, bypasses those filters. The manual refund process exists for exactly this remaining gap, and it's the part you have to prove yourself.
Google only investigates activity from the last 60 days from the date you submit the form. That's why real-time tracking matters — the evidence has to already exist inside the window.
More than a hunch. The Click Quality Form asks for a list of suspicious IP addresses, the affected campaigns, ad groups and keywords, date ranges, and supporting tracking data. Strong claims also include user-agent strings, time-to-click and session depth. ClickSambo records all of it automatically and formats it for the form.
Most approved refunds are issued as Invalid Activity Credits that appear on your billing statement and apply to future ad spend. Direct refunds to the original payment method are rare and usually tied to closed accounts.
No. Filing a legitimate invalid-traffic claim signals that you're an active, data-driven advertiser. Removing fraudulent clicks from your data actually helps Google's Smart Bidding focus on real users, which tends to improve performance over time.
Once you submit the form with a proper evidence report, Google's team typically completes an initial investigation in about 3 to 5 business days. Large-scale or complex cases can take up to around two weeks.
Because filtering is reactive and incomplete. ClickSambo blocks known-bad IPs in real time before they cost you again, catches sophisticated fraud that slips past Google, and produces the forensic report you need to recover what still got billed.
Refund outcomes depend on Google's review of the evidence submitted. ClickSambo supplies the tracking data; approval is at Google's discretion. The refund process and its terms are set by Google and may change at its discretion.
Other Advertisement Analytics Performance 
