Clicks, but no leads: what to check first

The budget went out. The clicks came in. The phone stayed quiet. Before you change the campaign again, separate three different problems: the wrong people arrive, the right people arrive but don't get in touch, or enquiries arrive and aren't counted. Each has a different fix, and only one of them has anything to do with fraud.

1. Send yourself a lead from your phone

Open the landing page directly, without clicking your ad, so the test costs nothing. Fill in the form and check that the enquiry reaches the right inbox. Try the phone and WhatsApp buttons too. Mark the test so nobody counts it as a real lead.

2. Compare real enquiries with what was measured

Pick one date range and compare the enquiries you actually received with the conversions your ad account reports. A gap is a reason to check your tracking. It doesn't yet mean the traffic is fake. Our guide to conversions that don't match explains where gaps come from.

3. Check what brought the visitors

Go through the search terms and the traffic sources. Do they match the service you sell, the area you serve and the customer you want? Note an example before you change any setting. If much of the traffic came from outside Google Search, see whether to turn off search partners.

4. Look at what happens on the site

Check whether visitors stall before the form, keep returning to one page or hit an error. If session recordings are available, start with a few visits from the source that raises questions. Look for a pattern you can check, not a story that fits your suspicion. If you use session recording, disclose it in your privacy notice where the law requires it.

5. Separate suspicious activity from money charged

Google filters invalid clicks, shows them in the Invalid clicks column, and doesn't charge for them. A visit that an outside tool marks as suspicious isn't necessarily a click you paid for. And a shared IP address isn't proof of one person: Google notes that universities, offices, coffee shops and mobile carriers let hundreds or thousands of devices share one public address. Our guide to the same IP clicking your ads goes further.

Finish with one sentence: “We found ___, so we'll check ___.” If you can't complete it yet, there's no basis yet to declare fraud, or to promise that a bigger budget will fix it.

Need to check the traffic on your site?

AdProtektor brings together repeat visits, the reasons activity was flagged and available recordings. You can start with one site on the free trial, with no credit card, once the tracking script is installed.

Check the traffic on your site

The explanation of click filtering and shared addresses is based on Google's documentation on invalid traffic, read on October 19, 2026. The order of the checks is a suggested workflow, not a promised outcome.