Research
Ad Fraud Statistics 2026: How Much Ad Spend Goes to Bots?
How much of your ad budget reaches real people? Ad fraud, meaning clicks, impressions and installs generated by bots, click farms or fake apps, is now a cost line of its own. This page gathers the latest verified statistics on ad fraud, click fraud and invalid traffic (IVT) by channel, industry and country, with a link to the original research for every number.
Key ad fraud statistics (2026)
- Ad fraud was projected to cost marketers $84 billion in 2023, about 22% of online ad spend, and $172 billion in 2028.[1]
- Advertisers lost an estimated $25.3 billion to click fraud in the first half of 2026 alone.[2]
- Human-mimicking bots grew from 20.4% to 64.4% of bot-flagged invalid traffic between January 2025 and June 2026.[2]
- 64.9% of invalid clicks come from repeat actors, the same fraud sources hitting campaigns again and again.[3]
- Automotive has the highest click fraud rate of any industry, at 15.49%.[2]
- DoubleVerify detected 140% more CTV fraud schemes in Q1 2026 than a year earlier.[9]
- Google blocked or removed over 8.3 billion ads and suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts in 2025.[14]
How much does ad fraud cost advertisers?
Juniper Research projected that ad fraud would cost marketers $84 billion in 2023, about 22% of the $382 billion spent on online advertising, rising to $172 billion in 2028. Spider AF estimates that $25.3 billion was lost in the first half of 2026 alone.[1][2]
| Estimate | Amount | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global ad fraud cost (22% of $382B online ad spend) | $84B | 2023 | Juniper Research [1] |
| Projected global ad fraud cost (23% of $747B) | $172B | 2028 | Juniper Research [1] |
| Fraud share of mobile ad spend | ~30% | 2023 | Juniper Research [1] |
| Share of 2028 losses in North America | 42% | 2028 | Juniper Research [1] |
| Global paid-click fraud losses, first six months | $25.3B | H1 2026 | Spider AF [2] |
| Annualized global losses if the H1 pace continues | $50.6B | 2026 | Spider AF [2] |
| US digital ad spend exposed to fraud (4.81% of $294.6B) | $14.2B | 2025 | Spider AF [3] |
| Global programmatic media value lost to inefficiencies each year | $26.8B | 2025 | ANA [10] |
What percentage of ad clicks are fake?
Spider AF measured a global paid-click fraud rate of 5.58% in the first half of 2026, across 4.006 billion clicks. That is up 1.26 percentage points from 4.32% for full-year 2025.[2]
Is click fraud getting worse?
Yes. In Spider AF’s monthly data, the invalid traffic rate rose from 3.2% in January 2025 to 7.2% in April 2026, a 2.3× increase over 16 months.[3] These monthly figures come from a different analysis window than the 5.58% half-year average, so the two are not directly comparable.
- Advanced, human-mimicking bots rose from 20.4% of bot-flagged invalid traffic in January 2025 to 64.4% in June 2026, above 50% for three months in a row.[2]
- 64.9% of invalid traffic came from repeat actors: 147 million of the 226 million invalid clicks analyzed.[3]
- Monthly invalid clicks from repeat actors grew 2.93× year over year, from about 5.0 million to 14.8 million.[3]
What counts as an invalid click?
Google defines invalid clicks as clicks that “don’t represent a genuine interest in your business”. They include accidental clicks from poor ad placement, clicks from bots and other automated tools, and manual clicks meant to raise your costs or inflate publisher profits. Google says advertisers are not charged for invalid clicks, and clicks found invalid after billing are credited on a later invoice where possible.[15]
Which industries have the most click fraud?
Automotive had the highest paid-click fraud rate in H1 2026, at 15.49%, nearly 2.8 times the cross-industry average. Telecommunications (13.19%), consumer electronics and home appliances (11.94%) and gaming (10.82%) followed.[2]
Paid click fraud rate by industry, H1 2026
Share of paid ad clicks flagged as fraudulent
Source: Spider AF First Half 2026 Ad Fraud Investigation Report.[2]
Which ad channels have the most invalid traffic?
Mobile apps. In Q2 2026, Pixalate measured global invalid traffic of 41% on mobile app ads, 26% on connected TV (CTV) and 20% on desktop and mobile web, in programmatic advertising.[4]
Invalid traffic by channel: Q3 2025 vs Q2 2026
Global programmatic advertising, share of traffic flagged as invalid
Sources: Pixalate Q3 2025 Global and Q2 2026 IVT & Ad Fraud Benchmarks.[4][6] Chart: Netotraffic.
How does invalid traffic compare across the US, UK and Germany?
| Country | Desktop & mobile web | Mobile apps | CTV |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 25% | 39% | 25% |
| United Kingdom | 18% | 36% | 34% |
| Germany | 16% | 37% | — |
| Global | 20% | 41% | 26% |
Sources: Pixalate Q2 2026 North America and EMEA benchmarks.[4][5] Germany CTV not reported.
In the United States, mobile app invalid traffic jumped from 32% in Q1 2026 to 39% in Q2 2026.[4]
How much of a $1,000 budget goes to invalid traffic in each channel?
| Channel (measured rate) | Invalid rate | Wasted | Real cost of $1 of genuine traffic* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid clicks, global H1 2026 [2] | 5.58% | $55.80 | $1.06 |
| Desktop & mobile web, global Q2 2026 [4] | 20% | $200 | $1.25 |
| CTV, global Q2 2026 [4] | 26% | $260 | $1.35 |
| Mobile apps, global Q2 2026 [4] | 41% | $410 | $1.69 |
*Real cost = $1 ÷ (1 − invalid rate). Vendors define and measure invalid traffic differently, so treat these as ranges, not exact losses.
Which devices and countries have the most ad fraud?
Fraudlogix found that 18.12% of ad impressions showed invalid traffic in Q1 2026, across a sample of 26.3 billion impressions, down from 20.64% for full-year 2025. Indonesia (59.17%) and Ukraine (53.35%) had the highest rates.[7][8]
Invalid traffic rate by country, Q1 2026
Share of programmatic ad impressions flagged as invalid
Source: Fraudlogix Ad Fraud Statistics Q1 2026.[8]
- Ukraine’s rate jumped from 36.40% to 53.35%, and Brazil’s from 10.00% to 22.33%, between full-year 2025 and Q1 2026. South Korea fell from 34.91% to 23.47%.[8]
- Traffic from Amazon Web Services showed a 79.24% invalid traffic rate. Cloud servers are a common source of bot traffic.[8]
- For full-year 2025, Asia-Pacific had the highest regional rate (27.85%), against 23.69% in the US and 7.80% in Europe.[7]
Country figures from Fraudlogix and Pixalate differ a lot, for example Germany at 1.99% vs 16% on web. Each vendor measures its own sample with its own methods, so compare countries within one source only.
Is desktop or mobile ad traffic more likely to be fake?
| Device | Full-year 2025 | Q1 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop | 27.03% | 18.60% | −8.4 pts |
| Mobile | 19.30% | 18.16% | −1.1 pts |
| Tablet | 16.34% | — | — |
| All devices | 20.64% | 18.12% | −2.5 pts |
Sources: Fraudlogix Ad Fraud Statistics 2026 and Q1 2026.[7][8] Tablet not reported for Q1 2026.
How big is connected TV (CTV) ad fraud?
CTV fraud is growing fast. DoubleVerify detected 140% more CTV fraud schemes in Q1 2026 than in Q1 2025, and 10x more fraudulent CTV apps in 2025 than in 2024.[9]
- In unprotected campaigns, fraud can cost advertisers about $1.8 million per billion CTV impressions.[9]
- Fraud rates were under 1% in protected CTV campaigns, against nearly 9% in unprotected ones.[9]
- Even direct deals were hit: 34% of impressions in one consumer healthcare campaign and 25% in a major CPG campaign went to bots.[9]
- Only 21% of advertisers use invalid traffic or fraud detection as a CTV performance KPI.[9]
- In the UK, programmatic CTV invalid traffic reached 34% in Q2 2026.[5]
| Region | Main violation type | Share of violations |
|---|---|---|
| North America | Bot fraud | 82% |
| APAC | Data center traffic | 98% |
| LATAM | Data center traffic | 91% |
| EMEA | Data center traffic | 66% |
Source: DoubleVerify Global Insights: Streaming TV.[9]
How much programmatic ad spend is wasted?
The ANA estimated that $26.8 billion in global media value is still lost each year to programmatic inefficiencies. The good news is that spending on made-for-advertising (MFA) sites has fallen sharply, to 0.39% of spend in Q3 2025.[10][11]
MFA sites exist mainly to resell ad space through clickbait and arbitrage, so ads there rarely reach engaged readers.
- Median MFA spend fell to 0.8% of programmatic spend in Q2 2025, down from 15% two years earlier.[10]
- The share of ad spend reaching publishers (working media) rose to 47.1%, recovering $13.6 billion in value.[11]
- Advertisers with strict quality controls turned 56.7% of programmatic spend into quality impressions in Q4 2025, against 37.5% for lower performers.[12]
- Mobile web display carried 45.1% of impressions but 71.9% of all MFA impressions and 71.5% of global ad clutter.[13]
- On MFA sites, 71% of ad fraud losses came through AI-optimized channels such as Google Performance Max in H1 2026, up from about 62% in 2025.[2]
What are ad platforms doing about ad fraud?
Google blocked or removed over 8.3 billion ads and suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts in 2025, including 602 million ads and 4 million accounts linked to scams.[14]
- Google says its systems caught over 99% of policy-violating ads before they were served.[14]
- Incorrect advertiser suspensions fell by 80% in 2025.[14]
- Google filters invalid clicks out of campaign metrics and billing automatically.[15]
Platform filtering catches a lot, but not everything. Spider AF’s data shows fraud rising even inside major platforms’ AI-driven campaign types, so independent checks still matter.[2]
Related: ad fraud is one part of a wider bot problem. Bots generated more than 53% of all web traffic in 2025.[16] See our Bot Traffic Statistics 2026.
How can you protect your ad budget from fraud?
Measure traffic quality, not just volume. Track every source separately, judge it by engagement and conversions, and cut placements that show bot patterns.
- Tag every campaign with UTM parameters so each source shows separately in Google Analytics.
- Judge sources by engaged sessions and conversions, not clicks or impressions.
- Watch for bot patterns: sudden spikes from one country or data center, 0-second sessions, or clicks with no scroll.
- Be careful with mobile app and CTV inventory, the channels with the highest measured invalid traffic.
- Use exclusion lists for placements, apps and countries that send invalid traffic.
- Review Google Ads invalid click reports and request credits where traffic looks wrong.
Want traffic you can check yourself?
Netotraffic delivers visitors through native ad placements, trackable in GA4 with your own UTM tags. See traffic plans or learn how to see Netotraffic visits in GA4.
Methodology and sources
We compiled statistics from the most recent primary research by ad-verification companies, industry bodies and ad platforms, and checked every figure against its original source page on October 6, 2026. Vendors measure different traffic: Spider AF measures paid clicks, Pixalate and Fraudlogix measure programmatic impressions, and DoubleVerify measures its clients’ campaigns. Figures from different vendors are not directly comparable, so treat them as ranges. Calculations marked “Netotraffic analysis” are our own and show the formula used.
We update this page every year. Last update: October 6, 2026.
Use these statistics
You’re welcome to use any statistic or chart on this page in your own articles. Please credit Netotraffic with a link to this page:
Source: <a href=”https://netotraffic.com/research/ad-fraud-statistics/”>Netotraffic – Ad Fraud Statistics 2026</a>
Sources
- Juniper Research (2023), reported by Marketing Brew. Advertisers will spend $84 billion on ad fraud this year. marketingbrew.com
- Spider AF (2026). First Half 2026 Ad Fraud Investigation Report. newswire.com
- Spider AF (2026). New Analysis Finds 64.9% of Ad Fraud Comes From Repeat Actors. newswire.com
- Pixalate (2026). Q2 2026 IVT & Ad Fraud Benchmarks, North America. pixalate.com
- Pixalate (2026). Q2 2026 IVT & Ad Fraud Benchmarks, EMEA. pixalate.com
- Pixalate (2025). Q3 2025 Global IVT & Ad Fraud Benchmarks. pixalate.com
- Fraudlogix (2026). Ad Fraud Statistics 2026 (2025 data). fraudlogix.com
- Fraudlogix (2026). Ad Fraud Statistics Q1 2026. fraudlogix.com
- DoubleVerify (2026). Global Study: Fueled by AI, CTV Fraud Schemes Surge 140% Globally. doubleverify.com
- ANA (2025). Q2 2025 Programmatic Transparency Benchmark. ana.net
- ANA (2025). Q3 2025 Programmatic Transparency Benchmark. ana.net
- ANA (2026). Q4 2025 Programmatic Transparency Benchmark. ana.net
- Integral Ad Science (2026). 21st Media Quality Report. integralads.com
- Google (2026). 2025 Ads Safety Report. blog.google
- Google. Invalid clicks: Definition, Google Ads Help. support.google.com
- Thales (2026). 2026 Bad Bot Report (2025 data). cpl.thalesgroup.com