The Threats report shows you a breakdown of all the invalid click activity detected on your Google Ads campaigns, organised by threat type. It helps you understand not just how much invalid traffic you're receiving, but exactly what kind — and where it's coming from.
What this report shows
Every invalid click TrafficGuard detects is assigned a specific threat reason — a precise description of why the click was marked invalid. The Threats report groups these reasons into categories so you can understand the nature and scale of the invalid traffic hitting your campaigns.
Threat categories include things like bot traffic, duplicate clicks, non-genuine engagement, and non-incremental users. For a full explanation of each category and what they mean for your campaigns, see Threat categories.
Navigating the Threats report
To access the Threats report, navigate to your Search account and go to Reports → Threats.
Date range
By default, the report shows the last 7 days. Use the date picker to change the date range and timezone.
Filters
Filters let you narrow down the data shown in the chart and table to focus on what matters most. You can apply filters across multiple categories including attributes, ad engagement, behaviour, exclusion, network connection, and more.
Applied filters persist across all reports — when you navigate between reports, your filters carry over so you can continue your analysis without resetting.
To know more on the metrics available in the filter read here.
Chart
The chart plots invalid click volumes over time based on your selected date range and filters. Use the metric selector dropdown to switch between different measures — for example, you can plot by number of invalid clicks, invalid click rate, or other available metrics.
If no data is present for the selected range and filters, the chart will show a flat line.
To know more on the metrics available in the filter read here.
Data table
The data table below the chart shows the volume of invalid clicks broken down by threat type. Each row represents a specific threat type, giving you a precise breakdown of what is driving your invalid traffic.
ℹ️ Each threat reason has a tooltip (?) next to it with a short explanation. For deeper detail on all threat categories and what they mean, see Threat categories.
Managing columns
You can customise which columns are shown in the data table:
🔵 Modify columns — click the Modify columns in the top right of the table to add or remove columns. The columns you select here also determine what is included when you export the report to CSV.
🔵 Segment data — click the segment icon (next to the columns icon) to break down the existing columns by an additional dimension, such as device type or network.
🔵 Expand to full screen — use the expand icon to view the table and chart in fullscreen mode for easier analysis.
🔵Group by — click the Group by option to break down the table data by individual Threat or MRC category.
🔵Filter from the table — click any value in the table to add it as a filter. The filter will persist as you navigate to other reports, so you can explore that threat type across campaigns, keywords, IPs, and more.
Export
To export the Threats report data, click Download. The exported file will include the columns currently selected under Modify columns. For more information on exporting, see Exporting data from reports.