Weekly workflow

A consistent weekly routine catches fraud patterns early, keeps protection calibrated to current traffic, and prevents wasted spend from compounding. This workflow takes about 20–30 minutes per week, split across five days so no single sitting takes long.

If 20 minutes a week sounds like a lot, skip directly to the Monthly review routine and only do this on weeks where something looks off.

Monday — dashboard pass

What happened last week? Set the dashboard date range to the previous 7 days.

• Check the four headline metrics: Ad Clicks, Bad clicks, Suspicious clicks, Conversions.
• Look at the Threat Summary chart for unusual spikes on specific days.
• Note any campaigns with a high threat-level percentage in the Top Threat Sources table.
• Check Network Analytics — if bot, VPN, or data center traffic is a large share, your Manual checks may need tightening.

Act on: any spike → open Click Traffic for that day. Campaign-specific threats → raise sensitivity for that campaign. >10% VPN/datacenter → enable the corresponding Manual check.

Tuesday — click-level audit

Pattern-spotting at the individual-click level catches things summary metrics miss.

• In Click Traffic, filter Status = Bad for the past 7 days.
• Look for clusters: same IP appearing multiple times, same device ID repeating, very low time-on-page (under 2 seconds), unexpected countries.
• Repeat with Status = Suspicious to catch borderline cases.
• Check the Is VPN / Is Bot / Is Datacenter columns — clusters here suggest your automation thresholds are too loose.

Act on: repeat IPs → add to Blacklist with a note. Repeat ranges (same /24 or /16) → add as a CIDR range instead. Repeat device IDs → add the device ID.

Wednesday — exclusions health

Verify that what ClickFortify is blocking is actually reaching Google Ads.

• In Exclusions, review entries from the past 7 days.
• Check the Message column for any Failed entries — those aren't actually protecting your ads.
• Check Expires column for blocks about to lift — decide if any should be promoted to the Blacklist for permanence.
• Review Pending entries older than a day — usually means Google Ads sync is misbehaving.

Act on: persistent Failed sync → connection problem, see Troubleshoot Google Ads. High-quality blocks about to expire → move to Blacklist.

Thursday — campaign tracking check

Make sure every active campaign is actually being protected.

• In Ads Manager, click Refresh to reload the cached campaign list.
• Scan the Tracking Status column. Every ENABLED campaign in Google Ads should show Ready here.
• Any ENABLED campaign with Error is unprotected — that's a high-priority fix.
• Note any new campaigns launched since last week that aren't yet in the list. If recent campaigns are missing, run a real sync from Space Settings → PPC Accounts → Configure → Synchronize (Refresh only re-reads the cache).

Act on: Error rows → check the tracking template in Google Ads (Campaign Settings → Tracking), then verify the OAuth connection in Space Settings.

Friday — settings tune

End the week by asking whether your settings still fit your traffic.

• In Protection settings: are you still on the right Action Mode? Most accounts can move from Observe → Warn after 1–3 days, then Warn → Strict after 1–2 weeks if the calls look right.
• If on Automatic mode: is the sensitivity still right? Bad fraud getting through → up one level. Legitimate clicks getting blocked → down one level.
• Check Automations trigger counts. Rules with zero triggers all week may have thresholds too high; rules firing constantly may be too loose.

What to track week-over-week

Worth jotting in a sheet so trends are obvious:

When to act immediately

Don't wait for the weekly cycle if you see any of these:

• Bad-click rate above 25% — raise sensitivity or switch to Strict now.
• Tracking Error on a high-spend campaign — you're paying for fraud with no protection.
• Sudden spike in bad clicks from a country you don't target — add a geographic restriction.
• Same IP appearing 10+ times in one day — Blacklist it.
• Bad clicks count drops to zero overnight on a previously-active account — protection may have been misconfigured or disabled.

What happens next

• Monthly review — deeper trend analysis at month end
• Launch checklist — for new accounts or client handoffs