Frequently Asked Questions

ProtectAds is a click-fraud detection and protection platform for paid advertising. It sits between your ads and your website, inspecting every click in real time to separate genuine prospects from invalid and fraudulent traffic.

When it spots a fraudulent click — from a bot, a click farm, a competitor or a repeat abuser — it automatically excludes that source at the ad-platform level, so it can no longer see your ads or cost you money. The result is a cleaner audience, lower wasted spend and far more accurate campaign data.

It works alongside Google Ads, Bing Ads and Meta/PMax without replacing anything you already use — think of it as a dedicated security layer for your ad budget.

Getting protected takes three steps: connect your ad account, add a lightweight tracking script to your site, and let ProtectAds start scoring your traffic.

From that moment, every click is analysed against dozens of signals, including:

• Network reputation — IP history, data-centre ranges, and VPN or proxy usage.
• Device fingerprint — browser, OS and hardware traits that expose spoofing and automation.
• Behaviour — click frequency, time on page, and mouse and scroll patterns.
• Context — geography, language and how well the click matches your targeting.

When a click crosses your protection threshold, the offending IP is added to your campaign exclusion list automatically, and the event is logged in your dashboard with the exact reason it was blocked.

Most advertisers are protected within five minutes. You don't need to pause campaigns or rebuild anything — protection layers on top of your existing setup.

The typical flow is simple: create your account, connect Google or Bing in a few clicks, install the tracking snippet (directly or through Google Tag Manager), and confirm it's firing.

ProtectAds begins analysing traffic immediately, and you'll usually see your first blocked clicks within hours rather than days.

No. The tracking snippet is a single line of code, and we provide guided, copy-and-paste instructions for every common platform.

For popular systems there are ready-made integrations or plugins, including Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Magento and BigCommerce. If you use Google Tag Manager, you can deploy ProtectAds as a tag without touching your site's code at all.

And if you'd still prefer a hand, our team can install and verify everything with you during onboarding.

ProtectAds fully supports Google Ads and Bing Ads (Microsoft Advertising), with protection across Search, Display and Shopping campaigns.

Coverage for Meta and Performance Max continues to expand. Because protection is applied through each platform's own exclusion and audience tools, it stays fully compliant with their policies and never interferes with bidding or automated optimisation.

ProtectAds works with any website that lets you add a small script to its pages — which, in practice, means almost everything.

We provide step-by-step guides and ready-made integrations for the most common platforms:

• E-commerce — Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce.
• Content & small business — WordPress, Wix and Squarespace.
• Custom & headless — Magento and any bespoke site via the universal snippet.

Landing-page builders such as Unbounce and Instapage are supported the same way: paste the snippet once and you're covered.

Yes. ProtectAds is designed to sit comfortably inside a normal marketing stack.

You can deploy the snippet directly in your HTML or as a tag inside Google Tag Manager, and it runs independently of Google Analytics, the Google Ads tag, the Meta pixel and any other tools you already run.

It doesn't modify or distort your analytics data — it simply observes clicks in order to score them, so your reporting stays intact.

No. The tracking snippet is a small, asynchronous script (under 5 KB) that loads in the background after your content, so it never blocks rendering.

It has no measurable impact on page speed or Core Web Vitals, and because it's served from a fast global network, visitors won't notice any difference.

Protecting your budget should never cost you conversions through a slow page, so performance is a deliberate design priority.

Click fraud is any click on your paid ads that has no genuine interest behind it — yet still costs you money. Because most ad platforms charge per click, every fake click is paid budget that can never convert.

It comes from several sources:

• Bots and automation scripted to click ads at scale.
• Click farms — low-cost human clickers generating volume.
• Competitors clicking your ads to exhaust your daily budget.
• Repeat and accidental clicks that quietly add up over time.

Beyond the direct cost, click fraud also distorts your data — inflating click counts, lowering conversion rates and misleading the bidding algorithms that rely on those numbers.

Google does filter some obviously invalid traffic and may issue credits for it — but it filters to its own definition of invalid clicks, not to optimise your return on investment.

Independent studies consistently show that a meaningful share of fraud still gets through, particularly sophisticated bots, competitor activity and click-farm traffic that mimics real users. Google also gives you limited visibility into what was filtered and why.

ProtectAds adds a dedicated, transparent layer on top: you set the rules, you see exactly what was blocked, and advertisers typically recover 15–30% of the spend that platform filters miss.

The detection engine covers the full spectrum of invalid traffic, including:

• Automated bots, crawlers and headless browsers.
• Click farms and coordinated manual clicking.
• Competitor clicks and repeat offenders.
• VPN, proxy and data-centre traffic used to hide identity.
• Device and user-agent spoofing.
• Abnormal click frequency and geographic anomalies.

The rules update continuously as new tactics appear, so your protection keeps pace with the threat instead of relying on a static, ageing blocklist.

Every click is scored in real time. Rather than relying on any single rule, ProtectAds combines dozens of signals into one risk score:

• Identity — IP and network reputation, plus VPN, proxy and data-centre detection.
• Device — fingerprint consistency and tell-tale automation markers.
• Behaviour — click cadence, engagement and session patterns.
• Context — location, language and alignment with your targeting.

You decide how aggressive protection should be. Clicks that cross your threshold are flagged and the source is excluded automatically, while borderline cases are logged so you can review them and fine-tune your rules.

Detection triggers an automatic, immediate response. The offending IP — or an entire range — is added to your ad platform's exclusion list, so it can no longer see or click your ads. That protects your future budget rather than simply flagging past waste.

Everything is recorded in your dashboard: which click was blocked, the reason, the source, and the estimated budget saved. You stay in control, and you can review, whitelist or adjust any rule at any time.

Pricing scales with the volume of clicks you protect, so a small business and a large agency each pay for what they actually use.

Every plan includes the core detection engine, automatic exclusions and reporting; higher tiers add capacity, more domains and advanced features. You'll find current plans on the pricing page, and the free trial helps you identify the tier that matches your traffic before you choose.

Yes. You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel whenever you like, directly from your dashboard — there are no lock-in periods and no cancellation penalties.

Upgrades take effect immediately so you're covered as you grow, while downgrades and cancellations apply from your next billing cycle, so you keep the service you've already paid for until then.

Payments are processed securely through Stripe, a globally trusted payment provider that accepts all major credit and debit cards.

Your card details are handled entirely by Stripe and are never stored on our servers. Invoices are available in your account at any time for your records and accounting.

The free trial is designed so you can evaluate ProtectAds fully — with your own campaigns and real data — before you pay anything, which removes most of the risk up front.

If something isn't right after you subscribe, contact our support team. We'll always look at your situation and work with you to make it right, rather than hiding behind fine print.

Yes — agency management is built in. You can add an unlimited number of sub-companies and switch between every client's domains, rules and reports from a single dashboard.

Each client is fully isolated, so their settings and data never mix, while you keep a bird's-eye view of your whole portfolio in one place.

Absolutely. Detection thresholds, blocklists, whitelists and rules are configured per website, so a cautious e-commerce client and an aggressive lead-gen client can each be protected exactly the way their account needs.

You can tune any client independently without affecting the others, and copy a proven configuration to new clients to onboard them in minutes.

Billing is consolidated. Instead of juggling separate subscriptions, you receive a single invoice covering your entire portfolio.

Volume pricing means your per-domain cost goes down as you add more clients, so growing your agency makes protection more cost-effective rather than less.

Yes. Security is fundamental to how ProtectAds is built. All data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest, hosted on enterprise-grade European infrastructure, and protected by strict access controls and monitoring.

Internally we follow the principle of least privilege, and we collect only the data we need to detect fraud — nothing more.

Yes. ProtectAds is built around GDPR best practices. We process only the minimum data required to identify invalid traffic, we're transparent about what we collect, and we never sell your data or your visitors' data.

IP and device signals are used solely for fraud detection, and our infrastructure is hosted within the EU.

Your data is stored on secure, enterprise-grade servers located within the European Union.

Keeping data in the EU supports GDPR compliance and data-residency requirements, and our infrastructure is backed by a 99.9% uptime commitment so your protection is always on.

You earn a commission for every customer you refer who becomes a paying, retained user — specifically, once they complete two full paid months on ProtectAds. This qualifying period keeps commissions tied to genuine, lasting customers.

The default reward is a flat €50 per qualified referral. High-volume affiliates can negotiate percentage-based rates instead, and your exact terms are always visible in your affiliate dashboard.

Once your referred customer completes their second successful payment, the commission is created and enters the approval queue.

After our team approves it, the payout is processed by bank transfer. You can follow every stage — qualified, approved, paid — in your dashboard, so there's full transparency and no guesswork about where a commission stands.

Your affiliate dashboard is your control centre. You get a unique referral link and real-time visibility into everything it generates:

• Clicks and sign-ups attributed to you.
• Each referral's subscription status and qualifying progress (month 1 and month 2).
• Commissions earned and their approval state.
• Your full payout history.

Attribution uses a 30-day, last-click cookie, so anyone who signs up within a month of clicking your link is credited to you.

You can reach our team any time at [email protected] or through the live chat on our website.

Whether it's a setup question, a billing query or help interpreting your reports, we aim to respond quickly and give you a real answer rather than a canned reply.

Yes. Beyond our step-by-step guides, our team can help you connect your ad accounts, install and verify the tracking snippet, and tune your protection rules for your industry.

The goal is to get you to value fast — seeing real fraud blocked from day one — rather than leaving you to work it out alone.