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Hey, happy Monday!

Welcome to the First Edition of ScaledOn Insider - Your Exclusive Blueprint to Beat the Chaos of Digital Marketing.

Our Promise: Every week, we’ll cut through the noise and deliver high-impact insights, game-changing strategies, quick-win tactics, and exclusive tools used by our top-tier digital talent to help you outsmart the competition and scale smarter, not harder.

🚀 No fluff. No jargon. Just actionable, real-world tactics that turn disruption into your advantage!

⚠️ 41% of Digital Ad Traffic Is Fake — And That’s Just the Beginning

In a week when tech stocks are jittery, ad platforms are under pressure, and new tariffs are threatening to disrupt global markets — one thing is clear:

💰 Every marketing dollar now has to work harder than ever.

But here’s the kicker: 41% of digital ad traffic is fraudulent without proper protection [WSJ]. That’s not a scare stat — it’s a silent leak in your budget.

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📉 Almost half your media spend could be going to bots, click farms, or spoofed domains — not real buyers.

In today’s high-cost, low-trust ad environment, ignoring ad fraud is like running paid campaigns with the windows down, tossing cash out as you drive.

With platform accountability dropping, ad fraud protection isn’t just an optimization tactic — it’s your first line of financial defense.. 😱

💡 Quick Tips - Fast Wins

Stuff you can implement in less than 1 hour and see a difference

✅ 1. Block Bad Traffic with IP Exclusions

Why it matters:

Bot traffic often originates from known IP ranges or suspicious geos (e.g. data centers, proxy networks, high-fraud countries).

Fast Fix:

  • In Google Ads, go to Settings > IP Exclusions — start by excluding data center IPs (many lists are public).

  • Analyze “Geographic” and “User Location” reports → Block countries or cities with high bounce & $0 conversions.

Pro Tip: Use tools like IPinfo.io to research sketchy IPs.

✅ 2. Audit Your Placements — and Exclude Garbage Domains

Why it matters:

Display ads often end up on low-quality sites running invisible pixels or fake traffic — burning your budget with no ROI.

Fast Fix:

  • In Google Ads, go to Reports > Placements. Sort by CTR and Conversion.

  • If you see strange domains with 0% conversion and high spend → block them manually or create a Placement Exclusion List.

Pro Tip: Add exclusions like mobile app categories and parked domains (e.g., adsenseformobileapps.com).

✅ 3. Add reCAPTCHA to All Lead Forms and Landing Pages

Why it matters:

Fraudsters use bots to fill out forms — wasting your sales team’s time and inflating CPL metrics with fake leads.

Fast Fix:

  • Install Google reCAPTCHA v3 or v2 on your forms (HubSpot, Typeform, WordPress, etc. all support it).

  • This blocks bot traffic at the point of conversion, cutting down on fake leads by up to 90%.

Pro Tip: Combine this with hidden “honeypot” fields that bots fill but humans don’t — those entries can be auto-deleted.

💡 Pro Insight

If a single placement has $500 in spending and less than 0.01% conversion, it’s not underperforming; it’s likely fraudulent.

🔍 Deep Dive: Ad Fraud Management — The Smart Marketer’s Playbook to Protecting PPC Spend

Ad fraud is no longer a niche concern — it’s a risk on your media budget. Whether you’re managing $5K/month or $500K/month in PPC, fraud eats into ROAS, distorts campaign data, and silently drains profits.

And in a climate of rising media costs, platform volatility, and global economic uncertainty, letting bots burn your ad budget is not an option.

💣 The Scope of the Problem:

  • 📉 $22 billion estimated global loss to digital ad fraud in 2024 (Juniper Research)

  • ⚠️ Up to 41% of open programmatic ad impressions are invalid without proper protections

  • 🧠 Most fraud goes undetected without active defense measures

Ad fraud is the dark underbelly of digital marketing — and it’s costing advertisers billions every year. If you’re not actively protecting your campaigns, you’re likely leaking budget to fake clicks, invisible impressions, and junk leads.

🧩 How We Prevent Ad Fraud

Here’s how we approach ad fraud prevention for our agency clients — and how you can apply it to protect your campaigns immediately.

✅ Step 1: Audit Your Ad Traffic Quality (Weekly)

Start with your data. Fraud often hides in plain sight.

What to check:

  • CTR spikes without conversions → Possible click fraud

  • Traffic from unknown or irrelevant geographies

  • High bounce rates or low session durations (<3s)

  • Unusual devices (e.g. 100% Android traffic or outdated browsers)

How to do it:

  • Google Ads: Predefined Reports → Geography, Device, Placement

  • GA4: Traffic Acquisition + Engagement Reports

  • Meta: Breakdown by Device, Platform, Age, Placement

Pro Tip: Document suspicious traffic weekly in a shared spreadsheet.

🛡️ Step 2: Implement IP and Geo Exclusions

Once you’ve identified problem areas, shut them down.

Actions:

  • Block IP addresses tied to data centers or click farms

  • Exclude geographies with high invalid traffic (e.g., certain regions in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe — unless relevant to your market)

  • Add to your Google Ads IP Exclusion and Geo Exclusion Lists

📚 Google Support: How to Exclude IP Addresses

🧰 Step 3: Use Ad Fraud Detection Software

Automated protection tools are essential, especially for always-on campaigns.

Recommended Tools:

These tools:

  • Block suspicious traffic in real time

  • Give you reports on fraud attempts

  • Help improve campaign ROI and data integrity

👁️‍🗨️ Step 4: Clean Up Your Placements (Especially on Display & YouTube)

Programmatic ads (Display, YouTube, Native) are where ad fraud thrives.

Actions:

  • Pull Placement Reports weekly

  • Block domains/apps with:

    • 0% conversion rate

    • High spend

    • Suspicious names (e.g. “flashgames.free” or app spam farms)

  • Turn off automatic placement expansion options

  • Exclude Kids YouTube channels if they are not relevant to your business.

📚 Google Ads: Manage Where Ads Can Appear

🔐 Step 5: Lock Down Your Forms

Form fills = prime fraud target, especially for lead gen campaigns.

Tactics:

  • Add Google reCAPTCHA to every form

  • Include “honeypot” hidden fields to trap bots

  • Use server-side validation on form data (e.g., IP, user agent checks)

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Bonus: Connect CRM lead scoring to ad platform signals to feed back quality, not just volume.

🧠 Step 6: Secure Tracking & Attribution Systems

While technical, secure measurement protects you from attribution fraud — and gives cleaner performance insights.

Best practices:

  • Upgrade to GA4 with enhanced measurement

  • Use server-side tagging (Google Tag Manager Server Container) to minimize spoofing

  • Set up Meta Conversions API (CAPI) with platforms like Shopify or via your backend

    Tip: Even if you don’t have a dev team, services like Stape.io or Northbeam can help automate this.

🛠️ Resource of the Week

A step-by-step guide to help you spot fake traffic, block bad placements, and protect every dollar of your ad spend. Whether you’re running Google, Meta, or programmatic ads, this checklist gives you the essential tools to keep bots out and conversions in.

Get the checklist

💡Bonus

Want a walkthrough of how to read your Google Ads placement report and clean it up? Hit reply, and we’ll send you our video tutorial and a list of YouTube Kids Channels to exclude.

💰 Why This Matters: The ROI of Ad Fraud Defense

📈 Real Case:

A DTC brand we worked with was losing ~$4,500/month on fake traffic in Google Display. After blocking bad placements and using ClickCease, their blended CPA dropped 28% in 3 weeks.

🧠 ROI Snapshot:

  • Clean traffic = more conversions

  • Real leads = better sales data

  • Accurate reporting = better decisions

In short: The cost of ignoring ad fraud is always higher than the cost of prevention.

Protect My Ads