2026 ad fraud report

$170B in display ad spend
went nowhere last year.

MFA sites, click farms, and ad stacking drain your Google Ads budget every day. The free ebook explains what's happening and how to stop it.

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2026 AD FRAUD REPORTDISPLAYADVERTISINGGONE BADAd Fraud Losses · Where Your Spend Goesand How to Get It BackBetterDisplayAds.com
1T+
MFA bid requests per month, per HUMAN Security
/ humansecurity.com, 2025
23%
of display ads served to non-human traffic
/ IAS, 2025
$13.6B
lost to ad fraud globally this year
/ Statista, 2025
exhibit A

Where your ad spend is going right now

A sample placement quality audit from a real $50K/month Google Display campaign. These sites appeared in the active targeting — none were manually added.

displaygg.com / placement-audit5 flagged
DomainCategoryQuality ScoreAd DensityAction
newsflashly.comMFA / ClickbaitCRITICAL47%✕ Exclude
toptentrending.netMFA / ClickbaitCRITICAL38%✕ Exclude
gossipworld24.comLow QualityHIGH29%✕ Exclude
techreviews-blog.coMarginalMEDIUM14%⚠ Review
LocalLifestyle.netMarginalMEDIUM11%⚠ Review
Showing 5 of 847 placements audited · 3 CRITICAL · 2 HIGHRun your audit →
knowledge base

Everything you need to know about display ad quality

Mar 31, 2026

Smart Bidding Got Smarter. Your Placement List Didn't.

AI bidding optimizes on top of whatever inventory it's given. If that inventory includes junk placements, it optimizes junk more efficiently.

Read →
Oct 25, 2024

Your Display Ad Isn't Being Ignored. It Isn't Being Seen.

Viewability metrics tell you the ad loaded. They don't tell you the ad was on a page where anyone was paying attention.

Read →
Aug 17, 2024

Why Google Display Network Has a Placement Quality Problem Google Won't Fix

Google makes money when your ad runs. Publishers make money when your ad runs. You're the only one in the transaction who loses when the placement is junk.

Read →
Jul 25, 2024

We Audited a Real $50K/Month Display Campaign. Here's What We Found.

The placement report most advertisers never look at. What it reveals — and what it costs when you don't.

Read →
Jul 2, 2024

Eight Signals That Predict Whether a Display Placement Is Wasting Your Budget

Not all bad placements look obviously bad. These are the signals that consistently separate high-waste placements from high-value ones.

Read →
Nov 21, 2023

The Placement Report Most Google Ads Managers Never Open

It's the most informative report in your account. It shows exactly where your money went. Most advertisers look at it once a quarter, if that.

Read →
Oct 31, 2023

The AI MFA Arms Race: Why the Placement Quality Problem Is Getting Harder

Generative AI didn't create made-for-advertising sites. It made them 100x cheaper to run and 10x harder to detect.

Read →
Oct 9, 2023

The Hidden Reason Post-Cookie Targeting Underperforms

Everyone's talking about signal loss. The bigger problem is that the supply side of the equation got dirtier at the same time the demand side got weaker.

Read →
Oct 2, 2023

Contextual Targeting Works — But Only If the Context Is Real

The promise of contextual targeting is that the surrounding content signals user intent. That promise breaks down completely when the surrounding content is fake.

Read →
Sep 26, 2023

How to Spot an MFA Site Without Running a Tool

Made-for-advertising sites have tells. Once you know what to look for, you can identify them in under 60 seconds.

Read →
the fix

Display Gate Guard audits your placements automatically

Export your placement report from Google Ads and run it through the self-service tool — or send it to us for a full audit with a written report. Either way, you get a scored exclusion list ready to import.

Try Display Gate Guard free →
01
Export your placement report
Download your placement performance report from Google Ads. Takes about 30 seconds — no integrations, no OAuth.
02
Run it through the self-service tool
Upload your CSV to Display Gate Guard. We score every placement across eight quality dimensions instantly.
03
Or send it to us for a full analysis
Want a deeper look? Send us your report and we'll deliver a full audit with a scored exclusion list and written recommendations.
$ displaygg audit --account=123-456-789
✓ Audited 847 placements
✕ 23 CRITICAL · 41 HIGH flagged
→ exclusions.csv ready to import

Stop paying for ad fraud

Get the free ebook and start excluding low-quality placements today.

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