Campaigns now have a Protect tab. The tracker evaluates a click before a stream set is chosen and, if the click matches the campaign settings, keeps it out of the funnel: this cuts off data centers, crawlers, scanners, spy services and obvious bots. Protection is configured per campaign and is already on by default.
- Network types: choose which networks to block traffic from: clouds, hosting and data centers, VPN and proxies, Tor, AI crawlers, spy services, search engines and more. Mobile operators and internet providers are the main source of live traffic, so they are not blocked by default.
- Bot markers: Low blocks obvious bots and barely affects real users; it also catches automated link checks, including ad platforms’ preview collectors. Medium is stricter and may affect some real users. We do not publish the list of markers, so the protection is harder to bypass.
- Mode and response: “Monitor” blocks nothing; only the “On” mode blocks. A blocked click can get “Unreachable (523)”, “Empty response (204)” or “Campaign white page” (404 if the campaign has no white page).
- Repeat requests: not only the first click is checked but also repeat requests for it — via the tracking link, to PWA pages and the PWA landing — so a successful first click does not cancel later checks. Protect does not block PWA service files or push subscription requests. A blocked repeat request does not count as a new click: it is not included in “Filtered” or in billing.
- Preview: the “What the settings would cut” block shows how many incoming clicks, registrations, FTDs and bots the current settings would cut over 7, 14 or 30 days, broken down by network type and marker level. The preview appears after the campaign is saved.
- Defaults: new campaigns are created in the “On” mode: clouds, hosting and data centers, Tor, AI crawlers, scanners and security services, spy services, search engines, CDN, banking networks and “Other”, Low markers, the “Unreachable (523)” response. The same settings were applied to existing campaigns where Protect had not been configured. If automated link checks should see a white page, choose the “Campaign white page” response. If live traffic got blocked, remove that network type from the settings or switch the campaign to “Monitor”.
- Reports: the “Blocked by Protect”, “Blocked by Protect: hops” and “Potential Protect” metrics (passed clicks that the default settings would cut), groupings and filters “Network Type”, “Hop Network Type”, “Protect Level”, “Protect Action” and “Protect Scope”. The campaign mode is shown by the shield next to its name in the campaigns table, which also has a Protect filter.
Where to find it: Tracker → Campaigns → campaign → Protect tab. More details in the Adset Protect guide (in Russian).