Last updated: 21 June 2025
Online advertising suffers from a fake conversions problem — especially fake leads that waste advertisers’ time and money. This article explains why these fake conversions happen, and how to stop them.
What is click fraud?
To understand conversion fraud, we first need to look at click fraud — the reason conversion fraud exists.
Click fraud is an online scam that steals over $100 billion from advertisers every year. Criminals build legitimate-looking websites and open publisher accounts with ad networks like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. These accounts let them show ads on their sites and earn money whenever those ads are clicked.
Instead of relying on real visitors, they deploy bots — software that mimics human behavior — to click the ads. To the ad networks, these clicks look genuine, so they're counted as valid.
These bots generate millions of fake clicks daily, leading to huge profits for scammers and major losses for advertisers.
What is conversion fraud?
One problem for scammers is that their bots never make real purchases on advertisers’ websites. If ad networks spot this, they may shut down the scammers’ publisher accounts for sending poor-quality traffic. To avoid detection, bots attempt no-cost conversions — like filling out lead forms or signing up for mailing lists — to make the traffic appear legitimate.
In other words, a bot visits a scammer’s website, clicks on an ad, gets redirected to the advertiser’s site, and fills out a lead form — creating a fake conversion that tricks the ad network into thinking the bot is a real person. This causes a range of problems for advertisers. First, your sales team wastes time chasing leads that go nowhere. And because bots often use real people’s data to appear legitimate, your team is met with responses like “I don’t remember submitting a form” or “I don’t know who you are.” This not only damages trust, but also risks violating data privacy laws, since you’re storing and contacting individuals who never gave valid consent. Worst of all, ad networks optimize campaigns based on conversions — so if you allow bots to keep submitting fake leads or add-to-carts, you end up training the algorithm to send you even more bot traffic. The result? A downward spiral of fake conversions, wasted budget, and underperforming campaigns.
How to prevent conversion fraud?
As we've seen, conversion fraud is part of the click fraud process — so the best way to stop it is by stopping fake clicks. Preventing click fraud not only eliminates fake conversions, it also protects your ad spend.
One way to reduce click and conversion fraud is to avoid advertising on the Google Display Network, Microsoft Audience Network, and other publisher websites. Since these sites are often behind fraudulent traffic, blocking them can significantly cut down on click fraud.
To show your ads only on the Google Search Network:
- In your Google Ads account, select a campaign and click Settings.
- Click Networks.
- Uncheck Include Google search partners and Include Google Display Network.
- Click Save.
To restrict ads to the Microsoft Search Network:
- In your Microsoft Ads account, select a campaign and click Settings.
- Go to Other settings.
- Decrease Audience Ads Bids by 100%.
The downside to these changes is reduced reach, which may lead to fewer clicks and lower sales. A better approach is to keep advertising on publisher websites while using Polygraph to block click fraud — and by extension, stop fake conversions like bogus lead form submissions.
Search ads are also vulnerable to a tactic known as retargeting click fraud. Polygraph can help detect and eliminate these fake clicks, along with the conversion fraud that follows.
How does Polygraph prevent conversion fraud?
Polygraph uses a four-step process to protect your ads from fake clicks and conversion fraud:
Advanced detection
Polygraph uses click fraud detection technology more effective than anything offered by the ad networks. When a bot or other deceptive method is used to click your ads, Polygraph logs the date, time, IP address, referrer, and technique used.
Bot blocking
Instead of just identifying fraudulent activity, Polygraph takes action by disabling bots so they can't submit lead forms or generate fake conversions. This ensures your conversions come only from real humans. Over time, as ad networks see your traffic consistently results in real conversions, their systems adjust — sending you high-quality human traffic instead of bots.
Refund support
Polygraph helps you get click fraud refunds from the ad networks, so you can recover wasted spend and protect your budget.
In summary
Criminals generate fake clicks and fake conversions — like filling out lead forms — to fool advertising networks into accepting worthless traffic as real. The key to stopping conversion fraud is to stop fake clicks before they happen. Polygraph makes it simple to prevent click fraud, safeguard your ad budget, and save time by avoiding fake conversions.