Overview
Optimization rules for clicks allow you to control how incoming click traffic is handled when it does not meet specific conditions. Using these rules, you can decide whether such traffic should be redirected to the Advertiser or discarded. Discarded traffic is recorded as discarded clicks and can be reviewed in the Reports.
Where to Configure Click Optimization Rules
Navigation path: Automation → Optimizations → Create → Rule Type: Click
Rules
Fraud Prevention & Traffic Quality Rules:
These rules help detect and block fraudulent, invalid, or low-quality traffic.
Anonymous Proxy IP: discards clicks or impressions coming from anonymised IPs, such as: VPNs, proxies, anonymisation services
Invalid Request: discards clicks that are missing required information, such as: publisher id, and/or offer id.
Spoofed IP: discards clicks with invalid or manipulated IP addresses, typically associated with S2S click traffic.
Adscore Script: this rule is a part of Adscore-Swaarm integration, which allows to block clicks, which are detected as fraudulent by Adscore. More about the integration here.
Anura Direct/Script: this rule is a part of Anura-Swaarm integration, which allows to block clicks, which are detected as fraudulent by Anura. More about the integration here.
Cleartrust Check: this rule is a part of Cleartrust-Swaarm integration, which allows to block clicks, which are detected as fraudulent by 24metrics. More about the integration here.
Twenty Four Metrics Check: this rule is a part of 24metrics-Swaarm integration, which allows to block clicks, which are detected as fraudulent by 24metrics. More about the integration here.
Verisoul Script Rule: this rule is a part of Swaarm-Verisoul integration, which allows to block clicks, which are detected as fraudulent by Verisoul and could be used in 2 modes: monitor (if 'block' checkbox is no selected) and block (if selected). More about the integration here.
Targeting & Eligibility Rules
Advance Targeting Mismatch: discards clicks that do not match the advanced targeting configured in the offer in Targeting section.
Example: If an offer targets the city New York and the click comes from San Francisco, the click is discarded and not forwarded to the advertiser.Advertiser Blocked Publisher: discards all clicks coming from a publisher that is blocked by the advertiser. This applies across all offers of the advertiser.
Blacklisted Sub ID: discards clicks coming from a sub ID that is blocked on the offer.
Invalid User Identifier: discards clicks where the IDFA / GAID does not match the identifiers uploaded in the offer’s Retargeting settings.
Offer Targeting Mismatch: discards clicks that do not match the country and platform targeting set on General page of the Offer setting.
Example: if an offer targets the United States and the click comes from Poland, the click is discarded.Publisher not Approved: discards clicks from publishers that are not approved or have access status 'blocked' for the offer.
Traffic Control: discards traffic that does not comply with the configured Traffic Control rules. Learn more about Traffic Control here.
Traffic Targeting: discards clicks that do not match the configuration set in Traffic -> Targeting.
Budget & Caps Rules
Budget reached: discards clicks for an offer once its hourly, daily, monthly, or total conversion hard budget has been reached.
Click Budget Reached: discards clicks once the offer’s click cap (hourly, daily, monthly, or total) has been reached.
Impression Budget Reached: discards clicks for an offer once its impression cap (hourly, daily, monthly, or total) has been reached.
Traffic Volume & Frequency Control Rules
IP Recency: discards repeated clicks from the same IP address for the same offer within the defined time window (TTL).
Example: if TTL is set to 600 seconds, any second and consequent click from the same IP within that time is discarded.Recency: discards repeated clicks from the same user (based on user agent and IP address) for the same offer within the defined TTL.
Example: If TTL is 60 seconds and a second click occurs after 30 seconds, it will be discarded.IP Rate Limit - discards clicks once the number of clicks from the same IP address exceeds the defined threshold within the TTL.
Example: If the limit is 2 clicks per day, any additional clicks from the same IP are discarded until the TTL resets.
IP UA Rate Limit - discards clicks once the number of clicks from the same user (based on user agent and IP address) exceeds the defined threshold within the TTL.
Example: if a user initiates a click 3 times and the threshold for clicks is 2 in the period of 1 day (TTL), then any clicks will be discarded until the next day (when the TTL resets)
Search & Latency Rules
Client Side Search Latency: discards clicks if the measured latency to the search engine’s servers exceeds the defined threshold.
Search Latency: discards clicks if the measured latency to Swaarm’s servers exceeds the defined threshold.
Platform & Status Rules
Inactive Advertiser: discards clicks coming from an advertiser with status 'Pending', 'Paused', or 'Blocked' in your Swaarm platform.
Inactive Offer: discards clicks for offers that are in status 'Pending', 'Paused', or 'Archived'.
Inactive Publisher: discards clicks coming from publishers with status 'Pending' or 'Blocked' in your Swaarm platform.
Tracker Not Reached: discards clicks where no tracker (e.g. Appsflyer, Adjust, etc.) is reached for the offer.
Store Not Reached: discards clicks where the user does not reach the correct final store URL, based on the preview URL configuration.
Lead & Validation Rules
These rules are commonly used for lead generation flows.
Advertiser Prevalidation: checks with the advertiser whether a lead is relevant before forwarding it. Only validated leads are forwarded.
Reporting & Monitoring
If clicks are being discarded due to optimization rules, their impact can be reviewed directly in reports.
Where to check
You can analyse discarded clicks in the following reports:
Custom Report
Explorer
Superset (for click-level exports)
What to look for
In reports, pay attention to the following metrics and dimensions:
Discarded Clicks - shows how many clicks were blocked by optimization rules.
Discard Reason:
Failed Click Rules - indicates the click optimization rule which blocked the clicks
Failed Click Subrules - shows more specific reason that caused the clicks to be discarded.
This allows you to understand:
how many clicks were discarded,
which rule caused the discard,
and whether a rule may be too strict.
Example: Investigating Discarded Clicks for an Offer
Let’s say you are reviewing a Custom Report (or Explorer) and notice that Offer 29320 has 9 discarded clicks:
Step 1: Identify the discard reason
In the Custom Report or Explorer:
Filter by Offer id = 29320
Add Click Failed Rules and Click Failed Subrules dimensions to the report
How to interpret this:
9 clicks did not match the advanced targeting configured for the offer.
More specifically, the mismatch was related to the user device type.
Step 2: Check the offer’s advanced targeting settings
Go to Offer 29320 → Targeting tab and review the Advanced Targeting configuration and check whether a specific device type (for example, mobile or desktop) is restricted.
Compare this with the incoming traffic source (select Device Type as a dimension in the Report)
Incoming clicks were sent from a device type 'Desktop', which is not allowed by the offer’s targeting, thus those clicks were correctly discarded.
Step 3: Decide on next action
Based on your findings, you can:
keep the rule as is (if the targeting is correct),
adjust the advanced targeting for the offer.
Advanced analysis
For deeper investigation or auditing, click-level data can be exported from Superset (Reports → Studio), allowing you to:
analyse individual clicks,
review discard reasons in detail,
and identify patterns across publishers, offers, or traffic sources.
