Dealers are spending thousands every month to drive traffic to their websites, but how much of that traffic is actually real? The uncomfortable truth is that a significant portion of dealership website traffic comes from non-human sources. Bots, accidental taps, and fraudulent ad placements quietly eat away at marketing budgets while inflating results that look good on a dashboard but fail to deliver real sales impact unless your agency knows how to identify, migrate, and optimize around these issues.

One of the biggest culprits is Google’s Performance Max (PMAX) campaigns.

The Problem with PMAX

PMAX is pitched as an all-in-one solution that leverages Google’s automation to spread your budget across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Discovery. On paper it promises efficiency, scale, and reach.

But here is the catch. Much of the delivery happens on obscure apps, unverified placements, and low-quality websites that are notorious for bot activity and accidental engagement. Dealers often see strong impression numbers, but many of those impressions are worthless because they were never seen by a genuine shopper.

The problem only gets worse when view-through conversions are turned on. This setting allows Google to claim credit for conversions even if someone only saw an ad passively or unknowingly, then later searched for the dealer’s brand or typed the URL directly. This inflates attribution and steals credit from other channels like SEO, email, or organic brand awareness. The result is a campaign that looks successful but is not moving the needle in real life.

Understanding Invalid Traffic (IVT)

At the heart of this issue is invalid traffic (IVT), which includes any clicks, impressions, or interactions that are not generated by a real person with actual purchase intent. Invalid traffic distorts your metrics, drains ad budgets, and misleads optimizations.

According to FraudBlocker, the average invalid click rate for Google Ads across all industries and campaign types is 11.5%, though this can vary depending on factors like industry, geo-targeting, ad content, keywords, and negative keywords. For dealerships running Google Ads campaigns, this means that roughly one in ten clicks could be wasted on non-human traffic, sometimes far more on days of bot attacks. For instance, on September 7, 2024, 40% of all Google Ads clicks were determined to be invalid, prompting Google to refund affected advertisers. Proactively monitoring and filtering traffic is essential for auto dealers to ensure their ad spend reaches real car shoppers rather than bots.

Google groups IVT into two categories:

• General Invalid Traffic (GIVT): Easily recognized bot activity, automated crawlers, or accidental clicks. Google usually filters this out automatically.
• Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT): More advanced and harder to detect. This includes bots that mimic human behavior, click farms, ad stacking, or fake impressions designed to sneak past detection systems.

Why Dealers Cannot Afford to Ignore Non-Human Traffic

Brushing off non-human traffic has real consequences:

• Wasted Ad Spend: Money that could bring in real buyers instead gets eaten up by non-human sources.
• Skewed Performance Data: Inflated metrics make it look like campaigns are performing when they are not.
• Reduced ROAS and Higher CPA: If invalid clicks are being counted, your cost per acquisition rises and your return on ad spend drops.
• Lower Account Performance: Campaigns get optimized toward bad signals, feeding the cycle of waste.

Red Flags That Suggest Fraudulent Activity

Dealers should be on the lookout for these warning signs:

• 100 Percent Bounce Rates: Visitors land on your site and immediately leave, which is classic bot or accidental click behavior.
• High CTR with No Conversions: A spike in clicks without meaningful leads often signals non-human traffic.
• Traffic Spikes from Unfamiliar Sources: Sudden surges from strange geographies or unknown IPs should raise concern.
• Excessive Clicks from a Single IP: A small group of users or bots generating most of your clicks.
• Short Session Durations: Large volumes of visitors staying only seconds on your site indicate they were never real shoppers.

How Dealers Can Fight Back Against Invalid Traffic

1. Leverage Google’s Protections but Do Not Rely Solely on Them
   Google has taken steps to improve its fraud detection systems. As reported by Search Engine Land:

“Google’s new AI-powered protections aim to cut wasted ad spend by filtering out fake clicks and ensuring campaigns reach real, engaged users. Google is deploying large language models (LLMs) from its Ad Traffic Quality team, Google Research, and DeepMind to better detect and block invalid traffic – ad activity from non-human or uninterested sources – across its platforms.”

The report highlights that invalid traffic not only wastes advertiser budgets but also undermines trust across the entire digital ad ecosystem. Thanks to these upgrades, Google claims a 40 percent reduction in invalid traffic tied to deceptive or disruptive ad-serving practices, accomplished by real-time analysis of app and web content, ad placements, and user interactions.

For auto dealers, this means fewer wasted impressions on irrelevant apps or bot-driven sites and more of your ad budget reaching actual car shoppers. While these AI defenses are promising, they are not foolproof. Dealers should view Google’s protections as part of their toolkit, not their only line of defense.

2. Manual Monitoring Matters
   Human oversight is still essential. Regularly review your placements, IP addresses, and conversion paths. Exclude low-quality websites, apps, or geographies that consistently show suspicious behavior. By layering manual checks on top of automated filters, dealers can catch what algorithms overlook.
3. Use GA4 for Cross-Channel Comparison
   Google Analytics 4 provides a deeper look into user behavior. If paid traffic underperforms compared to organic or direct traffic, that is a red flag. Look closely at session length, engagement, and conversion paths to spot discrepancies.
4. Conduct Regular Audits
   IVT is not a one-time problem. It is ongoing. Set up quarterly or monthly audits of your ad accounts, especially high-budget campaigns. Consistently refine exclusions, review placement reports, and monitor for unusual trends.
5. Follow Expert Recommendations on Ad Fraud Prevention
   Industry ad fraud expert Dr. Augustine Fou recommends two key strategies for advertisers to reduce wasted spend and exposure to fraudulent placements:

• Minimize Ad Exchange Partners: Instead of spreading your budget across dozens of ad exchanges, stick with a select few (e.g., 1–3) to ensure more legitimate inventory. This reduces arbitrage and “leakage,” where ads can end up on low-quality or fraudulent sites.
• Turn Off Audience Networks: Many social and search platforms extend reach to outside sites and apps, where ad fraud is more prevalent. Fou advises turning these off to improve traffic quality:
  • Google Search: Turn off “Search Partners”
  • Facebook: Turn off “Facebook Audience Network” (FAN)
  • YouTube: Turn off “Google Video Partners” (GVP)
  • TikTok: Turn off “Pangle”
  • LinkedIn: Turn off “LinkedIn Audience Network”

By narrowing distribution and cutting unnecessary networks, advertisers can significantly reduce their risk of wasted impressions and bot-driven clicks.

Final Thoughts

Non-human traffic is an invisible budget killer in dealership marketing. PMAX and other automated ad platforms may look efficient on paper, but without scrutiny, they can quietly funnel dollars toward bots and fraudulent clicks.

The dealers who take a proactive approach by scrutinizing placements, disabling view-through conversions, and running regular audits are the ones who will see stronger ROI and more real customers walking through the door.

At the end of the day, dealers do not just need traffic. They need human traffic, which means real shoppers with real intent. Everything else is just noise.

Take Control of Your Traffic

Automotive Internet Media specializes in helping dealerships cut through the noise of non-human traffic and focus their marketing spend on real buyers. If you are concerned about wasted budget, inflated metrics, or questionable campaign performance, our team can help audit your digital strategy and put protections in place.

Contact Automotive Internet Media today to make sure your ad dollars are working toward one goal: bringing real car shoppers to your showroom.