It has been one month since we entered into a strategic partnership with PPC Protect in Japan. During this time, we have been working with a variety of agencies and advertisers to educate them on the current state of click-fraud and the need to solve the problem through case studies, and to communicate the usefulness of PPC Protect’s solutions. In the process, we have occasionally received questions such as, “Will I be asked to refund clicks that are suspected to be fraudulent while running Google ads?” In this article, I would like to explain how to ask for a refund and what you should consider in such cases.
(Reference: “How To Get A Google Ads Refund for Your Ads”, PPC Protect)

If you want to request a refund for the cost of a click on a Google ad, you will need to fill out the following “Click Quality Form”.
https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/click_quality?hl=ja

The information you need to fill it out is

Customer ID
The start and end dates of the suspected fraudulent clicks
Affected campaigns
Affected ad groups/keywords
Activated display or inspection ads
Ads approved in the last month
Whether bids have been strengthened or budget increased
Whether the account has been verified for fraudulent clicks
Summary of the problem
List of IP addresses that generated the suspected fraudulent clicks (if any)
Placements (if any)

In addition to these, “copies of web server logs and other tracking data showing the data in question” must be provided as attachments, making the man-hour and hurdle involved in requesting a refund high. Even when this is done, the probability of getting a refund is about 20-25%.

Another major problem is that you cannot send another refund request for 60 days after submitting the form. During this time, you are still at risk of receiving fraudulent clicks from the corresponding IP address. To avoid this risk, it makes sense to use a 3rd party tool such as PPC Protect. Like a computer virus for computer and smartphone users, the problem of click-fraud is almost certain to exist for Google advertisers to varying degrees. Just as there are many different anti-virus softwares, there are many different anti-click-fraud solutions out there, and we strongly recommend that you choose the one that works best for you! I highly recommend it!

Masaki “Mark” Iino
Founder & CEO
SOPHOLA, Inc

P.S. It’s been almost three years since I moved to Nagano and founded SOPHOLA. There are so many things that have happened, but I am filled with very deep emotion.