You may occasionally notice an invalid activity deduction in your dashboard. This can raise questions: What does it mean? Is any action required? Should you be concerned?

In this article, we explain in simple terms what invalid activity, also known as invalid traffic or IVT, means, why deductions happen, and what you can do if you believe a deduction is incorrect.

What is invalid activity?

Invalid activity refers to ad impressions, clicks, or other interactions that are not considered legitimate by advertising platforms such as Google Ad Manager, Google AdSense, or other programmatic ad partners.

This can include

• Accidental clicks or repeated misclicks
• Bot traffic or automated visits
• Artificially generated impressions or clicks
• Suspicious traffic patterns
• Clicks or impressions caused by poor ad placement or confusing user experience
• Traffic from low-quality or fraudulent sources

Important: Invalid activity does not always mean intentional fraud.

It's crucial to see on how big % of traffic invalid activity has happened. In many cases, it can be caused by technical issues, poor UX patterns, accidental clicks, or traffic sources that generate low-quality visits.

Why does it happen?

Advertising platforms use automated systems, fraud detection tools, and manual reviews to protect advertisers from paying for traffic that does not represent real user interest.

During the month, your dashboard may show estimated revenue based on reported ad activity. However, after the reporting period is reviewed and finalized, ad partners may identify part of the activity as invalid. When this happens, the related revenue is deducted.

This is why your final revenue may be lower than the estimated revenue previously shown in your dashboard.

Common reasons include:

Is invalid activity normal?

Yes, a small amount of invalid activity is normal in programmatic advertising.

Even well-established publishers and major news websites usually do not have 0% invalid activity. Professional ad filters, fraud detection systems, and anti-scam tools are used across the advertising ecosystem to protect advertisers and maintain the quality of ad traffic.

As a general guideline, if invalid activity deductions remain below 1% of your total programmatic revenue, this is usually considered within a normal range.

However, everything has a reasonable limit. If deductions become higher or happen repeatedly, we strongly recommend reviewing your traffic quality, user experience, and ad placement patterns.

How to reduce invalid activity

To reduce the risk of invalid activity, we recommend the following:

• Avoid placing ads too close to navigation buttons or clickable content
• Make sure ads are clearly separated from page controls
• Monitor unusual traffic spikes and suspicious referrers
• Avoid buying cheap or low-quality traffic
• Watch closely for layout shifts
• Check pages with unusually high click-through rates
• Improve mobile layouts to prevent accidental taps
• Make sure users can clearly distinguish ads from website content

These steps help improve traffic quality and reduce the risk of future deductions.

I do not agree with the deduction. What can I do?

You can always contact your account manager if you believe a deduction is incorrect.

If the deduction seems unusual or unfair, we can review the case and, when appropriate, escalate the matter to the support teams of our programmatic ad partners.

However, please note that if a revenue deduction appears in your dashboard, it means that this revenue was not received from our ad partners. The deduction reflects a mismatch between the estimated revenue shown during the month and the finalized revenue confirmed after invalid activity checks.

In other words, the deducted amount is not manually removed without reason. It is based on the final reporting and validation process performed by the advertising platforms.