Q: When should I hard-block traffic versus just scrub it?

Q: When should I hard-block traffic versus just scrub it?

A: Scrubbing (silently filtering suspect conversions from what you report or pay on) and hard-blocking (refusing the traffic outright) solve the same fear differently.

Hard-block when:
— The source is unambiguously bad — declared bots, datacenter floods, an affiliate already flagged for fraud.
— You're the advertiser and false positives cost less than paying fraud.

Scrub (soft-filter) when:
— The source is mostly clean with a bad slice — you don't want to lose the good 80% to kill the bad 20%.
— You're testing a new partner and want data before you judge.

The trap people fall into: scrubbing as a permanent crutch. If you scrub 40% of a source every month, you're not filtering, you're subsidizing a fraud operation by keeping it alive at reduced rate. At that point, block and replace.

A practical rule: scrub rate above ~15% sustained means the relationship is broken, not noisy.

Short version: block clearly-bad sources, scrub mostly-good ones — but a source you scrub heavily every month should be cut, not managed.

Still stuck? Drop your case in the comments.