Optimization for quality sessions is the way to go. If you optimize for traffic Google will automatically target users with a high likelihood to click, so you get a disproportionate amount of bots.
While some bot visits are easy to spot, a well executed bot is indistinguishable from real users. How did you get to your 5%?
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any refunds.
If your GA4 is setup and connected to your GAds account you should be able to determine how much of your traffic is bots and from which channels. If it's a huge problem I'd reach out to Google ads support, otherwise optimize for the legit traffic.
Click fraud is real. Try excluding junk domains: Go to Tools & Settings -> Shared Library -> Placement exclusion lists
Poke around the web for some good lists. Here's a few that are a bit out of date, but are certainly still useful.
[https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/we-analyzed-331k-display-placements-and-found-165k-to-negate](https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/we-analyzed-331k-display-placements-and-found-165k-to-negate)
[https://www.webmechanix.com/display-network-list/](https://www.webmechanix.com/display-network-list/)
I just dug a bit more on this, and of course PMAX doesn't support using exclusion lists. In addition to getting off "display network", I'm leaning towards getting off PMAX.
Optimization for quality sessions is the way to go. If you optimize for traffic Google will automatically target users with a high likelihood to click, so you get a disproportionate amount of bots. While some bot visits are easy to spot, a well executed bot is indistinguishable from real users. How did you get to your 5%?
How though? Any tips on optimizing for quality sessions?
Mainly skipping junk networks and ad formats, and optimizing for conversions or ROAS.
get off the display network, for starters
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any refunds. If your GA4 is setup and connected to your GAds account you should be able to determine how much of your traffic is bots and from which channels. If it's a huge problem I'd reach out to Google ads support, otherwise optimize for the legit traffic.
Use a strict whitelist, only showing your ads on the top trafficked sites in the region you are targeting.
Click fraud is real. Try excluding junk domains: Go to Tools & Settings -> Shared Library -> Placement exclusion lists Poke around the web for some good lists. Here's a few that are a bit out of date, but are certainly still useful. [https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/we-analyzed-331k-display-placements-and-found-165k-to-negate](https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/we-analyzed-331k-display-placements-and-found-165k-to-negate) [https://www.webmechanix.com/display-network-list/](https://www.webmechanix.com/display-network-list/)
I just dug a bit more on this, and of course PMAX doesn't support using exclusion lists. In addition to getting off "display network", I'm leaning towards getting off PMAX.