Click-frequency rules
Google Ads click-frequency rules act when eligible paid ad-landing sessions exceed the threshold within the configured hours or days. These rules are not identical to Meta audience protection.
On this page
Some fraud is invisible one click at a time. A competitor clicking your ad four times a day looks like an ordinary interested visitor on any single visit — the pattern is only visible in aggregate. Click-frequency rules act on that pattern directly.
How to configure it
In Settings → Protection, enable click blocking and set three values.
- Threshold
- The number of eligible Google Ads arrivals allowed in the selected window. With a threshold of five, the sixth qualifying arrival exceeds the rule.
- Window
- The period those sessions must fall within — expressed in hours or days.
- Block duration
- How long the resulting block lasts.
Match the window to your buying cycle
A considered purchase legitimately involves several visits over a week, so a tight rule will catch real shoppers. An impulse purchase does not. Set the threshold above what a genuinely interested customer would plausibly do in that window.
What counts as a click
The rule counts paid ad-landing sessions, not page views. Someone browsing twelve pages after one ad click counts once. Someone arriving from your ad twelve separate times counts twelve times.
Related but different: Paranoia Mode
Paranoia Mode is a separate Google Ads rule that acts when the configured session count is reached. Click-frequency rules act when their configured count is exceeded. See Paranoia Mode.
Frequently asked questions
Is this on by default?
No. Click-frequency blocking is opt-in, because the right threshold depends entirely on your buying cycle.
Can I get an email when someone trips the rule?
The excessive-click email report uses the separate Paranoia threshold and can run even when Paranoia blocking is off. For notifications tied to click-frequency rules, use Alerts.