How to read the Invalid traffic report in Direct

Reading the Invalid traffic report means not adding three columns into one loss. Impressions are not there for every campaign, the number can still be written after you open it, and the neighboring window in Metrica counts clicks the filter has already let through.

What an invalid click is, and what the filter leaves on the bill on purpose, is covered in invalid clicks. Here is the order for reading this one report.

Write down the day you opened the report

The report sits in the Yandex Direct report library. The antifraud guide says the number can change if filtering happens later. The morning value and the evening value are not two attacks. The second can be the filter catching up.

Write the date of the reading next to the number. Otherwise, a week later, you will compare an updated column with spend that no longer contains those clicks. Traffic Direct has classed as invalid is removed from the reports and not charged, and the spend for it goes back to the balance. Do not subtract this column from spend a second time. How not to take growth in the column for growth in the bill is set in what ad click fraud is.

Read the column by campaign type

In the same report, impressions exist only for reach campaigns. Clicks exist for every campaign. Conversions exist for campaigns that pay for conversions.

An impression on a reach campaign and a click on a pay-per-click campaign are different rows. Adding them into “this much invalid traffic” does not work. On a row where impressions are absent, an empty cell does not mean zero events of another kind.

Direct can class the same visit as invalid on the click and not on the conversion, and the other way around. Two columns are two answers from the filter. While the campaign pays for the click, the click row decides the bill. The full reading of that pair is in the invalid-clicks article. Here it is enough not to add the pair into one number.

Reach campaigns also have a GIVT share in this report. How not to take it for a search click-fraud percent, and not for a refund on a performance campaign, is already said in click fraud and скликивание. A performance campaign does not have that share in the same sense, and there is nowhere to read it there.

Open the summary of what the filter let through

The Metrica report Direct, summary opens at Reports → Sources → Direct, summary (Отчёты → Источники → Директ, сводка). Its statistics are based on clicks that passed Direct’s fraud protection. That is the complement, not a copy. The Direct library shows what was removed. The summary shows what did not land in the removed set.

If the counter is not linked to the campaign, transitions land in the source “Other campaigns” (Чужие кампании). An empty summary next to live spend does not then mean Direct hid the clicks. Check the link first. Why clicks and visits diverge by accounting rules is covered in why Direct clicks do not match Metrica visits.

If there is a loss, it sits in the clicks that stayed in spend after the filter. How to turn that remainder into an estimate rather than a guess is in how to estimate budget loss.

A script on the site does not write this column and does not count money. The decision on a visit is one of three: let the visitor through, set a computational task, or refuse entry. The Invalid traffic report stays Direct’s report. If there is no answer, the visit is let through.

Order for one period:

1. Open Invalid traffic and write down the date of the reading.

2. Read impressions only on reach campaigns, clicks on every campaign, conversions only where you pay for conversions.

3. Do not add the click and the conversion of one visit.

4. For the same days, open Direct, summary. “Other campaigns” means check the counter link first.

5. Do not subtract the library column from spend a second time.