From Wasted Clicks to Profitable Growth: How Winni Reduced Invalid Traffic by 70% in 30 Days

The Growing Cost of Invalid Traffic in eCommerce Advertising

For eCommerce brands competing on high-intent keywords, paid search is designed to capture customers at the moment of purchase. But as competition increases, so does exposure to invalid and non-incremental traffic, making click fraud protection software for eCommerce essential for maintaining performance and profitability.

Bots, automated scripts, and repeat visitors clicking paid ads without adding incremental value quietly drain budgets. These clicks rarely convert, but they inflate CPCs, distort optimisation signals, and train bidding algorithms on low-quality behaviour.

In fast-moving categories like online gifting, where demand spikes around key occasions and margins are tightly managed, even small inefficiencies in paid traffic can significantly limit profitable growth.

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The Challenge‍

Winni, India’s leading online gifting platform, relies heavily on Google PPC to drive demand across birthdays, anniversaries, and seasonal gifting periods.

Despite strong brand awareness and consistent traffic volumes, performance data revealed a hidden issue. A significant share of paid clicks was not coming from new, high-intent shoppers.

Instead, traffic was dominated by:

• Returning users clicking paid ads to revisit the site instead of arriving organically
• Indecisive shoppers repeatedly comparing options across competing platforms
  Bot traffic and automated behaviour generating high click volumes with no purchase intent
  
  

In one case, TrafficGuard identified a single device clicking Winni’s paid ads 139 times in just one hour. With PPC clicks costing up to $10, this behaviour posed a direct risk to budget efficiency.

These patterns inflated acquisition costs, polluted optimisation data, and limited Winni’s ability to scale paid campaigns profitably.‍

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The Solution

By implementing TrafficGuard for Search, Winni gained immediate visibility into traffic quality and automated control over wasted spend.

TrafficGuard enabled Winni to:

• Detect and block invalid clicks in real time, stopping bots and automated scripts before they reached landing pages
• Analyse traffic across the full funnel, separating genuine purchase intent from non-incremental and low-value behaviour
• Apply custom validation and frequency rules, ensuring repeat users could no longer trigger paid clicks when returning to the site
• Redirect non-incremental traffic to organic channels, preserving budget for genuine acquisition
  
  

With continuous monitoring and prevention in place, Winni’s paid search campaigns began optimising toward real demand rather than inflated activity.

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The Results

Within the first 30 days, Winni achieved clear and measurable improvements across its PPC campaigns:

• 62.5% reduction in bot traffic
• Nearly 70% reduction in non-incremental engagement
• ₹107k in ad budget unlocked and reinvested into genuine users
• Approximately 200 incremental conversion opportunities created in just two weeks
• ROI doubled on the investment in TrafficGuard within the first month
  
  

By removing noise from paid traffic, Winni restored clean optimisation signals, stabilised CPCs, and significantly improved campaign efficiency without increasing spend.

Impact Beyond Traffic Protection

Beyond the anticipated results, Winni also benefited from improved campaign efficiency and higher-quality traffic. The granular analysis provided by TrafficGuard allowed them to tailor mitigation strategies to seasonal user behaviour, enhancing the overall user experience.
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“With a resolute commitment to proactively tackling fraudulent activities and manage invalid traffic, Winni, India's premier gifting portal, partnered strategically with TrafficGuard to optimise their digital advertising strategies. Winni's dedication to safeguarding its operations stood out despite the challenges of a competitive landscape and high PPC costs. Recognising the importance of addressing this issue directly, they partnered with TrafficGuard to ensure the efficient utilisation of their resources. This dedication to thwarting threats and enhancing the user experience underscores Winni's proactive approach to digital success.”

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