Q: One source sent us 12,000 clicks and 0 conversions in an hour — how did capping save the campaign?

Q: One source sent us 12,000 clicks and 0 conversions in an hour — how did capping save the campaign?

A: That pattern (huge click volume, zero conversions) is classic click flooding — a source firing fake clicks to claim attribution or just burn your budget. Here's how one team contained it.

Their tracker alerted on a sub-ID sending 12,000 clicks in 60 minutes with a 0.0% conversion rate, while their normal sources ran 3-5%. The clicks shared:
— Identical user-agent string across 90% of hits
— No referrer, all direct
— Click-to-landing time averaging 40 milliseconds (no real page load)

They set an automatic rule: any sub-ID exceeding 500 clicks/hour with under 0.5% conversion gets auto-paused and flagged for review.

Result: the bad source was caught in minutes instead of after a full-day spend. They estimated the rule saved roughly $1,400 in budget that month and kept their overall conversion rate from cratering in the advertiser's eyes.

Short version: set an auto-pause rule on high-volume, zero-conversion sources — click floods are obvious if you watch click-to-conversion ratio in real time.

Still stuck? Drop your case in the comments.