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A real customer was blocked: what you can do

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A customer no longer sees your ads, or someone you know is genuine is on the Exclusions page. Find why they were excluded, change the setting behind it, and let the exclusion lapse or remove it where Tapper gives you a control.

Why it happens

Every exclusion comes from a rule or a signal, shown as its block reason. A genuine customer can trip one: clicking your ads several times while comparing prices, using a VPN, being in a country your rule blocks, leaving within seconds, or sharing an address with someone you excluded by hand. Tapper excludes by IP address and by visitor, not by intent.

Find the visitor and the reason

  1. Open Exclusions in the sidebar. Above the table, pick the platform with the platform button (it shows the current one, such as Google Ads) and set the date range.
  2. If you know the campaign or reason, click Add filter, choose Campaign or Block reason, pick the value and click Apply. If Campaign does not narrow the list, use Block reason.
  3. Find the visitor's row. If you know their IP address, look in the IP address column (shown unless your workspace hides sensitive information).
  4. On Google Ads, click the row to open the visitor drawer. Note the Block reason, the IP Address, whether Audience based block and IP based block apply, and the visitor id in the header. Where a row opens no drawer, read these from the columns.

The visitor drawer on the Exclusions page with the block reason and visitor id

See Block reasons explained: what each label means.

Change the setting behind the reason

Change the rule set that governs the visitor's campaign (Setup > Rule sets). It decides how Tapper judges clicks from then on.

Block reasonWhat to change
Ad click limit exceededLoosen the Ad click limits on the Click limits tab: allow more clicks, or count them over a shorter window. See Set invalid click thresholds.
Location mismatchOn the Countries tab, under Block by country, remove the country from the block list or add it to the allow list. See Block or allow clicks by country.
Instant bounce or Suspicious ad clickLower Minimum seconds on site, or raise the number in Suspicious ad clicks.
VPNConsider switching on Block VPN traffic for this rule set.
An address you entered yourselfOn Setup > Excluded IPs, click the x on its chip and click Save. Tapper removes it from your Google campaigns too.

Let the existing exclusion lapse

  • Google audiences. A visitor stays in Tapper's Google audience for its retention window. Tapper creates its lists with 90 days for invalid traffic and 180 days for visitors over your click limit. Keep each visitor for, on the Invalid traffic audience tab of the Google Ads page of Setup > Ad accounts, sets the maximum, from 1 to 540 days; a shorter window lets visitors drop out sooner. Tapper creates its Meta audience with 90 days. On TikTok Ads, Tapper records the click and excludes nobody.
  • Google IP exclusions. These have no timer. When a campaign reaches Google's limit of 500, Tapper rotates lower-priority IPs out. A rotated IP can still be in the audience, and is excluded again if it returns with a new invalid click.
  • A campaign's Protection switch. Turning Protection off on the Campaigns tab removes Tapper's audience exclusions and value rules from that Google campaign, but not its IP exclusions, and stops protecting it against everyone else too. Use it only as a last resort.

If it still happens

Contact Tapper support with the visitor id from the drawer, the platform and the campaign, and say what the customer can no longer see. See How to get help from Tapper.

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