Banner ad fraud trends in 2025: How ClickPatrol helps advertisers protect budgets and ensure brand safety

Recent reports estimate global banner ad fraud losses to exceed $40 billion in 2025, with a significant portion stemming from display and programmatic banner placements.

Of the many, banner ad fraud stands out as one of the most persistent and damaging problems facing advertisers today.

Despite advances in ad verification and fraud detection, billions of ad dollars are still wasted each year on low-quality, irrelevant, and fraudulent placements.

To any advertiser running display campaigns, understanding how banner ad fraud is changing in 2025 is not optional; it’s a must-have.

This article covers the latest trends in fraud, their impact on brand and performance, and how solutions such as ClickPatrol help advertisers safeguard their ad budgets by ensuring their banners serve only on reputable sites and excluding low-quality placements.

What is banner ad fraud?

Banner ad fraud occurs when digital ads, usually programmatic banners, are displayed in ways that generate fake or worthless impressions.

A banner ad is a rectangular graphic displayed on a website, often at the top, bottom, or sides of a page, meant to attract clicks and drive traffic to a brand’s site.

These ads can be static, animated, or interactive and are central to online advertising. In fraud cases, ads appear on irrelevant, low-quality, or even fake sites, often viewed by bots instead of real users.

Fraudsters manipulate the ad ecosystem to make it seem like genuine impressions and clicks occurred. As a result, advertisers pay for exposure that never reaches real audiences, hurting return on ad spend (ROAS), conversion rates, and brand reputation.

Top banner ad fraud trends in 2025 and what advertisers can do

Much has happened in the world of banner ad fraud over the last few years. Here are the main trends advertisers have to understand in 2025:

AI-driven bot traffic is getting smarter

Fraudsters now deploy AI-powered bots that mimic real human behaviour, scrolling, hovering, and clicking on ads. These bots frequently change IP addresses, spoof devices, and fake session durations to appear organic.

For advertisers, this means a significant share of reported impressions or clicks may come from automated traffic rather than real customers, making performance metrics misleading.

Domain spoofing and fake inventory

Domain spoofing remains one of the most damaging forms of banner ad fraud. Bad actors disguise low-quality or fake sites as premium publishers like “Forbes.com” or “CNN.com” in ad exchanges to attract higher bids.

Marketers believe they’re buying prime ad placements, but their banners often appear on irrelevant or low-traffic websites, resulting in little real engagement.

Rise of AI-generated “Made for Advertisements” sites

In 2025, AI-generated MFA sites built solely to host ads have multiplied rapidly. These sites churn out low-value or scraped content designed to attract programmatic ads, not real readers.

While they appear legitimate, MFA sites deliver little to no user engagement and inflate impression counts.

Brands end up paying for “brand-safe” but meaningless placements that harm campaign performance and credibility.

Ad stacking and hidden impressions

Ad stacking, where multiple ads occupy the exact placement but only the top one is viewable, continues to waste billions of impressions.

Hidden or off-screen ads are also standard; advertisers pay for impressions that no one actually sees.

In 2025, these schemes are subtler, often buried within legitimate programmatic or in-app placements. Without strict verification, advertisers may never realize their banners are effectively invisible.

App and CTV environments under attack

Fraud has extended beyond web banners into mobile apps and connected TV (CTV) environments.

Fraudulent apps and OTT channels inject fake display units, inflating impression counts without providing real visibility.

These channels are bundled under “display” on many programmatic platforms, and advertisers may not realise their ads are appearing in irrelevant or invisible spaces.

How to prevent banner ad fraud in 2025

A proactive, data-driven approach is required to protect campaigns against banner ad fraud. This paper presents the key steps an advertiser should take this year.

Utilize pre-bid and post-bid verification

Use pre-bid tools to analyze placements before your ad is served, and post-bid tools to validate performance afterwards.

This helps detect low-quality environments, domain spoofing, and invalid traffic before you spend money on them.

Maintain whitelists and blacklists

Create a whitelist of trusted domains where your brand’s ads are allowed to appear, and a blacklist of fraudulent or irrelevant sites to avoid.

Review and update both lists regularly; fraudsters constantly create new websites to slip past filters.

Focus on placement quality, not only quantity

Chasing the lowest CPMs often leads to poor placements. Instead, prioritize high-quality, contextually relevant environments that reach your actual audience.

Ads shown to fewer but real people deliver more value than thousands of fake impressions.

Monitor traffic and engagement metrics

Look beyond clicks. Monitor bounce rates, time on site, and conversion rates for each placement.

Unusual patterns, such as high click-through rates paired with low engagement, often signal bot activity or low-quality placements.

Segment your campaigns by channel

Segment your banner campaigns by device and environment: web, mobile, in-app, and CTV and apply custom filters for each.

Fraud patterns differ by channel, and a one-size-fits-all detection strategy rarely works.

Demand transparency from ad platforms

Ask your DSPs and ad networks for detailed domain reports, viewability metrics, and invalid-traffic breakdowns.

You have the right to know precisely where your banners appear and how their performance is measured.

Partner with a proven anti-fraud solution

Technology partners like ClickPatrol add an extra layer of defence. ClickPatrol specializes in identifying low-quality placements, filtering out MFA sites, and ensuring your banner ads run only on reputable, brand-safe domains.

How ClickPatrol protects advertisers from banner ad fraud in 2025

As the sophistication of banner ad fraud intensifies, advertisers require something more than simple detection; they need intelligent prevention. ClickPatrol is built precisely for this.

Here’s how ClickPatrol helps fight banner ad fraud in 2025:

• Placement quality control: ClickPatrol automatically excludes low-quality and irrelevant placements, keeping your ads away from bad sites and MFA farms.
• Reputable site assurance: Ads are served on vetted, brand-safe websites to protect not just your budget but also your reputation.
• Real-time monitoring: Through continuous scanning, it detects suspicious traffic patterns and keeps your campaigns safe from wasting impressions.
• Actionable Insights: ClickPatrol provides transparent analytics on where your ads are appearing, how well they’re performing, and where to optimize.
• Improved ROI: ClickPatrol ensures your banners reach genuine audiences by focusing your spend on quality impressions for better engagement, conversions, and return on ad spend.

Key takeaways for advertisers

Banner ad fraud is now an AI-driven threat that will continue to evolve in 2025, draining budgets and eroding trust.

The greatest danger lies in ads appearing on low-quality or irrelevant sites, often without the advertiser even realizing it.

Effective fraud control requires constant monitoring, domain transparency, and exclusion technology. ClickPatrol provides a proactive defense, filtering out low-value placements and ensuring your banners appear only on reputable, high-quality sites where every impression truly counts.

Final thoughts: Winning the fight against banner ad fraud in 2025

Banner ad fraud remains one of the most costly and persistent challenges in digital advertising today.

With AI-powered bots, MFA sites, and increasingly sophisticated fake placements, advertisers must now go beyond detection and focus on prevention.

Prioritizing placement quality, transparency, and reliable anti-fraud technology is the foundation of any winning strategy.

ClickPatrol empowers advertisers to filter out low-quality or irrelevant sites and ensure banners appear only in trusted, brand-safe environments.

The outcome is clear: stronger campaign performance, higher ROI, and genuine audience engagement. Start using ClickPatrol today to filter out fraudulent placements, protect your ad spend, and deliver every banner to real, engaged audiences.

Abisola

Meet Abisola! As the content manager at ClickPatrol, she’s the go-to expert on all things fake traffic. From bot clicks to ad fraud, Abisola knows how to spot, stop, and educate others about the sneaky tactics that inflate numbers but don’t bring real results.

View all posts by Abisola (Abisola)

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