How I stop Google Ads from sending fake clicks to my WhatsApp buttons

I'm spending around $100 per day but getting only 10–15 junk clicks.

That's a quote from someone on Reddit. They went on to explain...

... I'm tracking WhatsApp button clicks. So the thing is, some people (competitors, I guess) are clicking on ads and then the WhatsApp button but not sending a message, and Google thinks it's a good-quality audience. Yesterday I received 0 messages, but data shows there were 4 conversions, and for the past few days, I've been seeing this continuously...

Obviously, we want to pay to show ads to people who are likely to buy, not competitors, spammers, or bots. Here's one way of doing this. It's a three-step process.

Step 1. Find out which ad targeting causes both real and fake clicks on your WhatsApp buttons.

Ad targeting includes things like:

• Location (country, city, etc.)
• Keyword
• Network (search, search partners, display, etc.)
• Device (mobile, computer, tablet, etc.)
• Ad schedule (time of day)

Knowing this is important because it'll guide the decisions you make in the next step. Without it, you're like a doctor prescribing medicine sans a diagnosis.

Step 2. Calculate the trade-offs of removing targeting that causes fake clicks.

Turning off targeting removes both fake and real clicks.

If search partners only brought fake clicks, you could disable it safely. If all clicks from midnight to 6 a.m. were fake, you could stop ads during that time without losing good leads.

But it's not always this simple. Some of your targeting gives a mix of legit and fake clicks. You'll need to decide if the real clicks are worth enough to pay for the fakes.

Step 3. Optimize your Google Ads to give better-quality traffic.

Conversion-based bidding strategies like Maximize Conversions or Target CPA can turn your ads into gold or into a stinking pile of garbage. Your result depends on what primary conversion actions you optimize for:

• When you set a click on a WhatsApp button as a primary conversion action, Google thinks the click is important. It doesn't differentiate between a legitimate click and a fake click. It doesn't know that you care about what happens after the click. Targeting that produces fake clicks is cheaper, so Google will steer more of your ad spend there.

• When you set WhatsApp messages received, qualified leads, or sales as your primary conversion action, Google thinks these are important to you. It'll steer more of your ad spend to targeting that produces legitimate leads and sales.

If this makes sense, we'll move on to actual implementation. If it doesn't, contact me and I'll try to make the article clearer.

Step 1. Find out which ad targeting causes both real and fake clicks on your WhatsApp buttons.

This is a two-part problem:

1. Getting the right data from Google.
2. Linking that data to clicks on the WhatsApp button.

Getting the right data from Google

You tell Google what data you want using a tracking template. I usually want to know which campaign, keyword and match type, network, location, etc., was responsible for both real and fake clicks. This account-level tracking template gives that data. Feel free to copy it.

{lpurl}?utm_term={keyword}&utm_source=google&location={loc_physical_ms}&utm_campaign={campaignid}&matchtype={matchtype}&network={network}&device={device}&placement={placement}&extensionId={extensionid}&targetId={targetid}

(More on tracking templates later in case you're not familiar with them.)

Link targeting data to WhatsApp button clicks

I do this using Convertista. It logs every click on a WhatsApp button, so we know exactly which ad targeting drove the click. Here's a screenshot as an example.

This click came from a Google search for the exact match keyword whatsapp conversion tracking. The searcher (me, in this case) was in Las Palmas. The other parameters show the campaign, keyword ID, and so on.

I'll also record which clicks turned into leads, qualified leads, and sales. That's what's in the screenshot below.

Step 2. Calculate the trade-offs of removing targeting that causes fake clicks.

Once I've tracked enough clicks, it's time to analyze the data to find patterns—where I'm paying for clicks that aren't turning into leads. I do this by exporting a CSV and manipulating it in a spreadsheet.

Step 3. Optimize your Google Ads to give better-quality traffic.

Convertista does this automatically, but you could also do it with a manual CSV upload or wire something up with Zapier.

Either way, tracking post-click actions like messages received, qualified leads, or sales helps Google show your ads where those results are more likely.

Hope this is helpful. Yell with any questions.

More on tracking templates

Here's the tracking template again.

{lpurl}?utm_term={keyword}&utm_source=google&location={loc_physical_ms}&utm_campaign={campaignid}&matchtype={matchtype}&network={network}&device={device}&placement={placement}&extensionId={extensionid}&targetId={targetid}

Anything in curly brackets is a placeholder. It gets swapped out for real data. For example:

• {lpurl} -> The final URL from the ad that was clicked.
• {keyword} -> For the Search Network, the keyword from your account that matches the search query. For the Display Network, the keyword from your account that matches the content.
• {loc_physical_ms} -> The ID of the geographical location of the click. It's a number, but you can match it from the list here.
• {campaignid} -> The campaign ID.

Google calls these placeholders value track parameters. Here's a list of available parameters.

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