By Anastasiia Lushyna
According to Pixalate, global invalid traffic (IVT), including ad fraud, reached 18% for CTV in the first quarter of 2025. Even though this rate is fluctuating, CTV ad fraud still remains a significant challenge for programmatic players. Wasted ad spend, potential brand safety risks, and inaccurate data analysis – these are only some of the issues posed by CTV fraud.
But what is CTV fraud? What are its types, and how does it work? How to detect it? In this guide, we have CTV ad fraud explained – here you will find answers to these and other questions. Read on to discover how to protect the performance of your campaigns.
Key Takeaways:
The CTV ecosystem is highly fragmented, which contributes to its vulnerability to ad fraud.
Wasted budget, brand safety risks, and inaccurate performance results are among the key threats posed by CTV ad fraud.
Prevention methods include supply path optimization, partner verification, and the use of third-party tools.
Ad exchange solutions from Attekmi support multiple ad fraud protection and detection capabilities.
What is CTV ad fraud?
Let’s start with the basic things that you need to know.
The definition of ad fraud on CTV
CTV fraud refers to fraudulent activities that manipulate the ad delivery and measurement processes across CTV environments (smart TVs, streaming devices, etc.). The fraudsters’ key objective is obvious – to steal your advertising budget.
How CTV ad fraud is different from standard digital fraud
Technically, CTV fraud is not that different from other types of digital fraud. However, it is important to remember that there are two key types of CTV ad fraud that make it “special”.
In the case of engagement fraud, everything, including a device and an end user, is real – except for engagement itself. This activity tends to inflate performance metrics, which makes it challenging to optimize the campaign.
As for the spoofed users method, fraudsters mimic real user behavior. Basically, everything is fabricated. This type of fraud is hard to detect since signals look like genuine activity.
Why CTV environments are vulnerable
There are two main reasons to consider. First of all, CTV supply paths are pretty complex, and the whole ecosystem is fragmented. As a result, there are loads of opportunities for fraudsters to spoof apps and devices, generate fake impressions, etc. Secondly, CTV inventory often has a higher CPM (cost per mille), which makes it an attractive target. The growth of CTV advertising also contributes to the fraud issue.
How CTV ad fraud works
To solve the problem (or at least to minimize its impact), you need to understand how CTV fraud actually works.
The main components used by fraudsters
The CTV ecosystem is complex, and fraudsters target its core components, such as streaming apps, smart TVs, device identifiers, SSAI (server-side ad insertion) processes, etc. The inconsistency of standards creates numerous blind spots that fraudsters use to fabricate premium inventory, spoof devices, and inject invalid traffic.
How fraudsters imitate real traffic
To make their activities look authentic, fraudsters spoof device and app identifiers, generate fake IP addresses, mimic real user behaviors, and so on. Here is an example for you to illustrate the issue. A fraudster creates a low-quality streaming app that has no real users. Then, spoofed device IDs are generated – these fake devices then request ads through this app. The next step is to simulate realistic viewing patterns. Ads are played, paused, and completed. As an advertiser, you may think that it is an opportunity to reach premium audiences, so you may start actively bidding on that inventory. However, no one really watches your ads. You waste budget on impressions that never reach a real screen, while fraudsters steal your money.
Most common types of CTV ad fraud in 2026
You already know about engagement fraud and spoofed users – these are general types of CTV fraud. Now, let’s dive deeper into various techniques.
SSAI session stealing
This involves joining real sessions and inserting fake ad calls. Alternatively, sessions may be faked entirely.
Botnets
These are entire networks of compromised devices that generate invalid traffic and fake ad views.
SIVT
SIVT stands for sophisticated invalid traffic. That is an advanced technique that mimics user behavior to avoid detection.
App bundling
Fraudulent apps get bundled with genuine CTV apps and operate in the background. They display and register ad views to generate fake impressions, and users are unaware of what is going on. To them, everything looks okay, while advertisers waste their budgets.
Fake CTV devices
This technique refers to creating software that mimics real CTV devices. They can “watch” ads around the clock, which poses a significant threat to advertising budgets.
Pixel stuffing
A pixel is placed on a legitimate app. Then, when a user interacts with the application, an invisible ad is triggered. The tracking systems consider this a real impression, but a user never sees that ad.
Seller-based deception
A seller or a CTV platform misrepresents audience data or the inventory itself. You never get what you expect, as the provided information is false.
How to detect CTV ad fraud?
CTV advertising implies certain challenges with measurement and attribution. However, fraud detection is still possible, and here is what you need to know.
Signs of CTV ad fraud
When analyzing the performance of your campaigns, pay attention to the following issues:
Sudden traffic spikes, especially from suspicious apps or devices.
Unusually high completion rates. Even though CTV ads often have pretty high completion rates, an abnormally high rate may be a signal of CTV fraud, especially if other signs are present as well.
Extremely low completion rates.
Impressions delivered at impressive volumes for a single app or device.
Continuous impressions from a small range of IP addresses.
High volumes of traffic from specific regions (especially if you did not target them).
High activity at unusual hours.
Inconsistencies in user data.
Understanding your audience is a must
Knowing everything about your audience is essential not only for precise targeting. By analyzing their behavior continuously, you become better prepared for fraud detection. Let’s say you launch a campaign to promote toys for children and reach young parents within the Barcelona area. Everything works fine until you see a report showing high volumes of traffic from Finland at 4 a.m. For your audience, this is unusual, which may be a sign of fraud.
Transparency as a way to detect anomalies
It would also be helpful to request log-level transparency from your partners. With greater visibility, it would be easier for you to detect anomalies and potential fraudulent activities.
Basically, such an approach is beneficial for all the parties involved: an advertiser, a publisher, and the industry in general. Ad fraud is an issue affecting everyone within the CTV ecosystem (except for fraudsters, obviously), so combating it requires a collaborative effort.
How to prevent CTV ad fraud: best practices for 2026
As for the main CTV ad fraud prevention methods, they are as follows.
Work with verified partners
Choose platforms and publishers that have transparent standards and support MRC-accredited fraud detection. MRC stands for Media Rating Council, and MRC-aligned verification implies independent auditing and ensuring that ad metrics are valid. Remember, every partner should be verified. Otherwise, your campaigns may be affected.
Besides, do not work with unknown apps and resellers. Doing this will help you avoid potential fraud.
Adopt SPO practices
One more essential solution is adopting SPO practices. Reduce the number of intermediaries to make your supply chains more transparent. Apart from this, prioritize direct deals, curated deals, and private marketplaces.
Use third-party fraud protection tools
Integrate tools that will help you both detect and prevent fraudulent activities. Additionally, prioritize partners who do the same.
Keep an eye on the CTV ecosystem evolution
The CTV ecosystem evolves quickly, and so do the fraud techniques. Stay informed on this evolution, as well as on the industry standards. Being aware of what is happening allows you to be proactive.
How white-label AdTech platforms combat CTV fraud
At Attekmi, we strive to make the CTV environment safer, and getting your own ad exchange platform can help you enhance your advertising operations. The following capabilities of our ad exchange solutions are here to help you minimize the risk of fraud.
A variety of scanners
You can integrate a variety of scanners, including but not limited to Pixalate, Protected Media, Forensiq, and Human Security.
Filtering capabilities
With advanced filtering capabilities, you can optimize the performance of your ad exchange solution and reduce the risk of CTV ad fraud.
IVT-scanning tools
You can integrate third-party IVT scanning tools for both pre-bid and post-bid scanning.
Traffic analyzer tool
This functionality scans the traffic and blocks it according to specific parameters.
Analytics dashboards and scheduled reports
It is easy for you to monitor the performance of your ad exchange platform and optimize it accordingly.
Alerts
If something happens, you are notified immediately. This enables you to act on time and prevent negative consequences.
White Label Ad Exchange
Are you looking for something special? Our White Label Ad Exchange solution is fully customizable, from UI personalization to custom on-request feature development. Your platform gets tailored to your needs.
Therefore, if you need additional capabilities to combat CTV ad fraud, we are ready to build them for you.
Conclusion
What consequences may CTV fraud lead to? Brand safety risks, inaccurate performance analysis, and wasted advertising budgets. Fortunately, with the recommendations provided above, you can detect and prevent fraudulent activities effectively.
Keep in mind that the battle for a safe advertising ecosystem never ends. Even if you have loads of third-party tools integrated, it is still important to analyze the performance continuously and look for signs of fraud.
Does Attekmi look like the perfect choice? Contact us to discover how we can help you.
FAQ
The main types of fraudulent activities include app bundling, sophisticated invalid traffic, SSAI session stealing, botnets, fake CTV devices, pixel stuffing, seller-based deception, and others.
Sudden spikes in traffic, unusually high or low completion rates, high activities at unusual hours, inconsistencies in user data, and high volumes of traffic from unexpected regions may indicate fraud. Impressions delivered at impressive volumes for a single app or device, and continuous impressions from a small range of IP addresses, may be signs of CTV ad fraud as well.
Not necessarily. However, the CTV environment is highly fragmented, which creates multiple opportunities for fraudsters. Apart from this, CTV inventory is often more expensive, which makes it more attractive in terms of fraudulent activities.
