Do Google give refunds for invalid traffic?
Google refunds typically involve small amounts, covering only a minimal portion of your invalid activity. We suggest comparing the adjustments for invalid clicks on your Google Ads invoices with your Lunio savings figure to accurately assess the impact of fraud on your expenses.
If you're experiencing substantial invalid activity on your Google Ads account, it's advisable to submit a refund request to Google.
Please Note: Refunds are issued entirely at Google's discretion, and Lunio has no control over this.
When submitting a refund, it is important to note the following:
It is entirely at Google's discretion whether or not to refund any activity
You may have existing invalid activity adjustments on your bill. These are what Google's standard click fraud filters have picked up - if you have these, it is extremely unlikely Google will admit fault and offer more refunds, even if presented with overwhelming evidence of click fraud. The spend from these is already filtered out from your Lunio data.
You can compare your invalid activity adjustments to your Lunio account data to see how much more fraud Lunio is detecting than Google's standard filters.
As Google are often unwilling to refund, the proactive protection offered by Lunio is extremely important. This ensures click fraud is eliminated at source once detected, and you are not continually billed for it
To submit a refund request:
Firstly, go to this link to access Google's refund page.
Then, complete the form as follows:
Contact name - The name of the person who is dealing with this refund request
Contact email - The email of the person above
Account Login Email ID - The email used to log in to your Google Ads account
Google Ads Customer ID – Your Google Ads customer ID. Don't put your MCC ID in here!
Date when the suspicious activity began – The date of the first entry in your report. You can ignore the hour/minute/second timestamp.
Date when suspicious activity ended – As above, but the last entry.
Campaigns affected - All in account
Add additional - All in account
Ad Groups affected - All in account
Keywords affected - All in account
Did you recently opt into the Google Display or Search Networks? - Answer whichever is true. Check your change logs if you're not sure.
Were any of your ads approved in the past month? - Answer yes or no depending on what is true. If you're not sure, check your Google Ads notification area.
Did you recently increase your budget or bids? - Answer whichever is true. Check your change logs if you're not sure.
Have you checked for invalid clicks in your account? - Yes
Summary of the issue - “We have noticed non-legitimate and fraudulent activity on our account, please find the logs of this activity attached and check our account.”
IP addresses – Leave this empty as they are included in the report
Suspicious sites – Leave this empty, suspicious sites are included in your report
Please attach a copy of your web logs or other tracking data that shows the data in question – Upload the invalid clicks exported from your Lunio click log.
How would you like a Google expert to respond? – Email (this gives you a paper trail to follow)
Email CC- Add whichever email address you would like to receive Google's response.
Please remember, refunds are issued entirely at Google's discretion, and whilst we will do our utmost to help we cannot guarantee a successful refund will be provided.