The Ultimate List of Click Fraud & Ad Fraud Statistics 2023

The ad fraud botnet “Chameleon” costs advertisers over $6 million a month
(Spider.io, 2016)

Global losses from ad fraud in 2020 were $35billion
(MarTech, 2021)

36% of display ad clicks are fraudulent or invalid
(Lunio, 2021)
78%
of marketers cite click fraud as their top concern. (Adweek, 2016)
75%
of desktop clicks on 300 x 600 ad units are fraudulent. (Pixalate, 2017)
50%
of all online ads are never seen by a human. (Google, 2014)
8%
of all impressions have the opportunity to be seen by a real person. (Marketing Daily, 2014)
List of Fraud Statistics 2022
Ad Fraud Statistics
(Spider.io, 2016)
The ad fraud botnet “Chameleon” costs advertisers over $6 million a month.
(MarTech, 2021)
Global losses from ad fraud in 2020 were $35billion.
(The Verge, 2017)
1 in 5 ad-serving websites are visited exclusively by fraud bots.
(Adage.com, 2018)
For every $5 spent on digital ads, fraud takes $1
(WhiteOps, 2017)
Levels of fraud are not constant throughout the year. Fraud is invited whenever and wherever digital advertising demand outstrips supply.
(Marketing Week, 2017)
US brands lost $6.5 billion to ad fraud in 2017.
(Integral Ad Science, 2016)
Display ads examined by Integral Ad Science found 8.3% of all impressions were fraudulent.
(ANA, 2016)
Ads with a CPM greater than $10 experience 39% higher bot fraud than lower-valued inventory.
(Bloomberg, 2015)
The industry with the most bot traffic is Finance with over 22% of traffic being registered as fake.
(Adage.com, 2015)
For every $3 spent on digital ads, fraud takes $1.
Click Fraud Statistics
(Lunio, 2021)
36% of display ad clicks are fraudulent or invalid.
(Pixalate, 2017)
Desktop click fraud has risen from 20% to 24% in 2017.
(CNBC, 2017)
Nearly 20% of total digital ad spend was wasted in 2016.
(Pixalate, 2017)
Smartphone click fraud increased 102% from January – April 2017.
(Pixalate, 2017)
1 in 5 pay per clicks were fraudulent in January 2017.
(FraudLogix, 2016)
50 percent of ad impressions served on Internet Explorer were to non-human traffic.
(Pixalate, 2017)
Video click fraud was 26% higher in April 2017 (25.3%) than it was in January 2017 (20.1%).
(WhiteOps, 2016)
The click fraud operation Methbot generates $3 to $5 million in fraudulent revenue every day.
(Bloomberg, 2015)
The industry with the most bot traffic is Finance with over 22% of traffic being registered as fake.
(The Australian)
Click fraud is currently growing at 50% per year.
(WhiteOps, 2017)
Levels of fraud are not constant throughout the year. Fraud is invited whenever and wherever digital advertising demand outstrips supply.
Lunio Click Fraud Infographic
Free Resource Download
Click Fraud Reports
An in-depth look at some of the latest click fraud research.
Key Traits of Click Fraud Revisited
2019 (PPC Protect)
Key Traits of Click Fraud
PPC Protect (2018)
What is Click Fraud? Everything you need to know.
PPC Protect (2018)
Livestreaming Ad Fraud
PPC Protect (2018)
How Click-Fraud Malware Transforms Into an Advanced Threat
Cybereason (2017)
How Adform Discovered HyphBot
Adform (2017)
The Lane's Gifts v. Google Report
Pixalate (2017)
Programmatic Click Fraud Benchmarks: January – April 2017
Ana (2017)
WhiteOps 2016 Bot Baseline Report
Ana & White Ops (2017)
WhiteOps 2015 Bot Baseline Report
WhiteOps (2016)
WhiteOps Methbot 2016 Report
WhiteOps (2016)
Eradicating Bot Fraud: The Path To Zero-Tolerance
Videology & WhiteOps (2015)
What Is An Untrustworthy Supply Chain Costing The US Digital Advertising Industry?
IAB US (2015)
WhiteOps 2014 Bot Baseline Report
WhiteOps (2014)
A Game of Clicks: Economic Incentives to Fight Click Fraud in Ad Networks
Lemonia Dritsoula & John Musacchio (2014)
Click Fraud Resistant Methods for Learning Click-Through Rates
Haitao Xu (2014)
Characterising Large-Scale Click Fraud in ZeroAccess
Paul Pearce (2014)
The Effect of Fraud Investigation Cost on Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Min Chen (2012)
Fighting Online Click-Fraud Using Bluff Ads
Hamed Haddadi (2010)
The Goals and Challenges of Click Fraud Penetration Testing Systems
Carmelo Kintana (2009)
The Anatomy of Clickbot.A
Neil Daswani & Michael Stoppelman (2007)
American Society for Information Science and Technology Click Fraud Report
Brendan Kitts & Benjamin LeBlanc (2005)
Click Fraud Resistant Methods for Learning Click-Through Rates
Nicole Immorlica & Kamal Jain (2005)
The Evolution of the Fileless Click-Fraud Malware Poweliks
Liam O'Murchu & Fred P. Gutierrez (2005)
Click Fraud In The News
Click Fraud Articles
Fake Traffic Schemes Rotting The Internet
Bloomberg (2015)
Facebook Ad Click Fraud Eats 64% of Our Money
CMO4Hire (2016)
Investigating Google Ads Click Fraud
Caura & Co (2016)
Click Fraud Lawsuits
Uber vs Fetch Media Ltd
(2017)
Google vs Auction Experts
(2005)
Criteo v SteelHouse
(2016)
Gurminder Sign vs Google
(2017)
Lane's Gift & Collectibles vs Google
(2006)
Microsoft vs Eric Lam, Gordon Lam, Melanie Suen
(2009)
123 Lock and Key vs Google
(2010)
Satmodo LLC vs Whenever Communications
(2017)
The Key Traits Of Click Fraud
Free Resource Download
Other Statistics Pages
Want More?