Definition & Explanation

Ad fraud is any practice that manipulates ad delivery, views, or clicks for illegitimate gain, including bots, domain spoofing, and fake installs. Common tactics include ad stacking (layering multiple ads so only one is visible), pixel stuffing (shrinking ads to invisible sizes), and generating artificial clicks or impressions. These fraudulent activities waste advertiser budgets and distort campaign performance data, with global ad-fraud losses estimated in the tens of billions of dollars annually.