Mid-Year 2025: Why Ad Fraud Feels Like a Game You Can’t Win

If you work in digital advertising, you’ve probably noticed fraud isn’t just “out there” somewhere, it’s knocking right on your door. FraudScore’s mid-year 2025 report just confirmed what many of us have been feeling: the game’s getting harder.

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A Promising Start… That Didn’t Last January had us thinking, “Hey, maybe we’re turning a corner.” Fraud rates dipped to 31.6%, the lowest in a while. But by June? We hit 49% the worst month in five years. That’s a jump you don’t just brush off.

Where the Trouble Is Some markets are feeling the heat more than others. South America tops the list with over 41% fraudulent traffic, followed by the EU at 36%. APAC’s sitting just under 30%. Even places with lower numbers, like the US/Canada or India, aren’t immune fraud tends to migrate to softer targets.

Same Old Tricks, Sharper Execution Blacklist traffic, event fraud, IP spoofing… the usual suspects are still leading the charts. But here’s the kicker: fraudsters aren’t sticking to one play. They mix tactics, layer them, and keep us guessing.

Mobile Takes the Biggest Hit Mobile ad space continues to be the main battlefield, averaging over 40% fraud this half-year. Web’s a bit better (just over 13%) but still nothing to celebrate.

The Takeaway Ad fraud isn’t something you can “solve” once and be done with. It’s an ongoing chase, and the other side is always a step ahead. If you’re buying traffic, check your defenses. If you’re selling it, make sure your partners trust you because 2025 isn’t slowing down.

  • I recommend to use FraudScore anti fraud solution. It really helps to avoid unnecessary risks and to cut off the fraud at the very beginning. Well done, guys!
    Olga Saburova, Account Manager at MobioNetwork
  • There are lots of manuals about earning money over the internet. Most of them are about making fraudulent mobile installs. As soon as new “manual” comes out we see peaks of low quality traffic. But as soon as we began using FraudScore service we cut managers who were working on checking traffic quality two times. Using their convenient report with set of filters, you can generate different type of reports showing you the traffic quality in different contexts. This helped us to find lots of cheaters and poor quality affiliates.
    Nickolay, CEO at Mobiaff.ru
  • FraudScore’s fraud monitoring system is particularly useful in this regard as it allows daily check on affiliates conversions and indicates the level of fraud detected for each conversion. The fact that the system not only monitors normal desktop traffic, but, also tracks and accurately reports on mobile traffic in relation to Emulators, VPN’s, Bot farms and IP pattern recognition allows us to make informed decisions when reviewing assigned affiliate caps and encouraging more traffic.
    Darren Williamson, Managing Director at CAN
  • FraudScore has easy to handle and fast APIs which permitted us to integrate fraud analysis findings into our own dashboards. Their own interface is very intuitive and offers infinite possibilities in terms of filtering and digging into data. FraudScore team is very receptive to users feedback and continuously introduces improvements to their product.
    Luis Barrague, COO at Headway Digital, Spain
  • For more than two years of working with mobile traffic we have been tried a lot of anti-fraud services offered by the market. Therefore we can confidently say that the truly worthwhile solution is the FraudScore. Strong technologies, convenient interface and the most effective support – it’s all about FraudScore. Since we started collaboration with this service the volume of fraud traffic in Zorka.Network has been almost reduced to zero.
    Oleg Gorelik, Affiliate Director at Zorka.Network
  • Fraudscore has been our first line of defense against measuring questionable traffic. As the mobile digital advertising landscape continually expands, it becomes complex as it relates to user attribution measurement. The need for precise data has never been more important to the success of our business and our clients marketing efforts. FraudScore’s engineers made integration seamless and user friendly. The user interface allows us to interpret the data correctly and in real-time to make the right decisions as it relates to protecting our clients brand integrity. I highly recommend their services.
    Moufid Al-Joundi, Curate Mobile
  • FraudScore has easy to handle APIs which permitted us to integrate fraud analysis findings into our own dashboards. Their own interface is very intuitive and offers infinite possibilities in terms of filtering and digging into data. FraudScore team is very receptive to users feedback and continuously introduces improvements to their product.
    Luis Barrague, HeadWay Digital
  • At Brisk Ads we take drastic measures to combat fraud, and with the help of FraudScore we are able to detect and eliminate any suspicious traffic. With the in-depth reports provided, we are able to identify any questionable sources; making sure that our clients only pay for legit and profitable users.
    Omar Mostafa, Brisk Ads