Case study: an Istanbul e-commerce brand cuts 38% of click fraud in 3 months
We reviewed the data of a furniture brand spending TRY 120,000 per month on Google Ads. Initial fraud rate, setup steps, 3-month results and four lessons learned.
About this case
Numbers here come from an actual wall.click customer, anonymized to protect identity and rounded for nominal values. The brand name is withheld but the category and overall scale are real.
Starting point
A mid-sized Istanbul-based furniture e-commerce brand was spending an average of TRY 120,000 per month on Google Ads. Campaigns followed a typical e-commerce structure: brand, generic, shopping, remarketing. No strong seasonality; running year-round.
The wall.click trial ran in observation mode for the first 7 days (no blocking, only reporting). That revealed the site's true traffic quality profile:
| Metric | Value | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Total clicks | 18,420 | 7-day period |
| From datacenter IPs | 14% | Bot scanning traffic |
| Residential proxy suspected | 9% | Trace of a professional fraud service |
| Click farm signature | 4% | Geo/language mismatch |
| Competitor frequency pattern | 2% | Repeat clicks from the same fingerprint |
| Estimated genuine users | 71% | Remaining traffic |
In short, roughly TRY 35,000 of the monthly TRY 120,000 was going to low-quality or fake traffic. That number is high for the vertical but not unusual; competitive e-commerce categories typically run at 25-35% fraud.
Setup process (Days 1-7)
- Day 1: wall.click snippet placed on every page (10 minutes)
- Day 1: Google Ads account linked via OAuth
- Days 2-7: Observation mode — the system learns, intervenes in nothing
- Day 8: First automated IP exclusion applied (47 IP blocks)
- Day 14: End of trial — moved to Pro plan
Important detail
Staying in observation mode for the first week was critical. Without it the system cannot learn the normal traffic pattern and may block too aggressively, affecting real users. The duration should be 5-14 days depending on vertical.
3-month results
| Metric | Before (monthly avg.) | After (month 3) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads spend | TRY 120,000 | TRY 118,000 | -2% (deliberately stable) |
| Click count | 78,500 | 54,200 | -31% (fake traffic filtered) |
| Average CPC | TRY 1.53 | TRY 2.18 | +42% (remaining traffic higher quality) |
| Conversion rate | 1.8% | 3.1% | +72% |
| Total conversions | 1,413 | 1,680 | +19% |
| Cost per Acquisition | TRY 85 | TRY 70 | -18% |
| Monthly Google refund credit | TRY 1,200 | TRY 8,400 | +7x |
Raw budget didn't change but its composition shifted dramatically. With fake and low-quality clicks filtered out, Google's auction system focused on real customers; CPC rose (more competitive, more expensive keywords) but conversion rate multiplied.
The most striking number: monthly Google refund credit rose from TRY 1,200 to TRY 8,400 because detailed reports (timestamp, IP, signal list) were now produced and attached to manual refund requests. Monthly refunds alone grew nearly 7x.
Four lessons
1. Don't panic when click count drops
Most advertisers panic when "clicks fell 30%, something is broken". Click volume is not the success metric; conversion volume is. Fewer high-quality clicks always beat more low-quality ones.
2. Rising CPC is a positive signal
When bots and low-quality traffic are filtered out, Google's bidding system focuses on auctions chasing real customers. Those are typically more competitive (and therefore pricier). That's not bad — money is now flowing to where it produces value.
3. Don't shut Smart Bidding off immediately
This campaign kept Maximize Conversions. After wall.click cleaned the traffic, Google's algorithm saw cleaner conversion data and within 6 weeks the strategy's efficiency rose visibly. Switching to manual CPC would have lost that learning advantage.
4. Make monthly refund requests a routine
wall.click produced the reports automatically, but a human still needs to file the request with Google. Assign someone to do this on the 5th-10th of every month (typically 30 minutes). Annual recovery can reach six figures.
Bottom line
Without growing the budget, applying a quality filter alone delivered +19% more conversions. Monthly net impact: roughly TRY 30,000 in value. wall.click offers a 14-day free trial — no credit card required.
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