PPC Click Fraud in 2025: a Growing Threat Draining Budgets
Click Fraud Expands With Growing Digital Budgets
The cost of click fraud and invalid traffic (IVT) has escalated as digital budgets migrate into search and programmatic channels.
2024 data from Pixalate’s global invalid-traffic benchmarks showed the following:
Desktop-web advertising lost 11.1 % of its traffic to IVT and mobile-web IVT reached 11.6 %
Mobile-app advertising was worse, with 20 % of clicks deemed invalid, while connected-TV (CTV) apps lost 19.4 %.
North America led the world in 2024 IVT rates, with mobile-web advertising losing 17.5 % of clicks to bots and desktop-web IVT hitting 12.8 %.
A late-2024 benchmark focusing on open-programmatic advertising found desktop and mobile web IVT around 19–21 % in Canada and the U.S., mobile-app IVT around 18–21 % and CTV IVT over 23 %.
Click-fraud statistics from 2024 highlight which sectors were most abused: pest control (62 % invalid clicks), photographers (65 %) and locksmiths (53 %), while advertisers in finance, insurance and legal services lost around 15 % of their spend to fraud. Spider AF’s 2025 Ad Fraud White Paper measured an average 5.1 % ad-fraud rate across platforms in 2024 and estimated $37.7 billion in annual losses.
From Baseline to Surge: 2025 Numbers
Pixalate’s Q1 2025 click-fraud benchmark for North America shows that the problem has not gone away.
Pixalate’s Q1 2025 click-fraud benchmark for North America shows that the problem has not gone away. In Q1 2025, 19 % of desktop-web clicks were invalid, 9 % of mobile-web clicks were invalid and 22 % of mobile-app clicks were invalid. Fraud analysts also found that 69 % of invalid mobile-app clicks were due to duplicate-click IVT, and the “Music & Audio” category suffered 54 % invalid clicks—a vertical that was not highlighted in 2024 benchmarks. This suggests fraudsters are shifting toward entertainment content to exploit high-volume app installs.
Fraud0’s Q2 2025 State of Invalid Traffic report highlights a broader global uptick: 18.6 % of desktop & mobile-web traffic, 28.5 % of mobile-app traffic, and 17.9 % of CTV traffic were invalid. The same report notes that 32 % of users were invalid, 21.23 % of programmatic ad impressions were invalid and apps suffered an astonishing 41.89 % invalid-impression rate. Conversions are also contaminated—9.75 % of conversions were invalid, with 7.82 % traced to bots. Fraud0 warns that paid-social campaigns lose over 20 % of traffic to fraud and predicts that the Asia-Pacific region could see ad-fraud losses double in the coming years.
Industry commentary in 2025 confirms that click fraud is siphoning a growing share of advertising budgets. TrafficGuard’s statistics compilation notes that fraud affects between 20 % and 30 % of digital spend and that 28 % of digital traffic may not be human. Bots account for 24 % of all clicks, small businesses can lose up to 30 % of their advertising budget and up to 20 % of paid-search clicks are fraudulent. These figures reinforce that fraud is accelerating rather than retreating.
Rising Trends: Comparative Metrics
What It Means for Advertisers
The escalation of click fraud from 2024 to 2025 demonstrates that fraudsters innovate faster than industry safeguards. Desktop and mobile-web IVT jumped roughly 65 % in a single year, and mobile-app invalid traffic rose by more than eight percentage points.
High-risk categories shifted from local service providers to entertainment content, while programmatic in-app traffic now sees over 40 % invalid impressions. Such trends not only waste budget but also feed poor-quality data into bidding algorithms. With 20–30 % of digital ad spend now estimated to be fraudulent, advertisers cannot afford complacency.
PPCShield.io helps brands reclaim their budgets by actively blocking bots, data-center traffic, duplicate clicks, and misclick-prone placements. Its real-time analytics map clicks back to impressions and identify SIVT and GIVT across search, social and programmatic channels. As the 2025 data show, invalid clicks are not just a nuisance but a growing strategic threat—proactive protection is the only way to stay ahead. PPCShield.io is ready to help advertisers fight back.
