Traffic Cardinal
wrote August 18, 2025
Traffic Cardinal
wrote August 18, 2025
Albeit we’ve referenced a music channel of the early 2000s by choosing such a title, the article will most likely remind you of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, an ancient military treatise, instructing readers to acquire necessary skills and apply them to military strategy and tactics. We don't expect you to turn into Douglas MacArthur at a moment's notice, but the information found in this detailed breakdown will certainly help you see the full picture and discover how to deter and defeat the enemy hiding in the trench.
Tallying Up the Digits
The first half of 2025 must have been a huge relief for affiliates of all kinds. Not seeing too much of a difference, they primped up and strutted around cyberspace like they owned the place, as the situation didn't drastically change. Truth be told, January 2025 was seen as a brief respite, a moment of optimism: fraud seemed to be at its lowest (31.6%) compared to the 41.4% in January 2024, and in general, the first quarter provided an insignificant increase (39.7%) nobody reacted to: the numbers were only slightly higher than the average readouts of the same period in 2024 (38,59%).
But the sentiment started to alter as the new reality was shaping up. Specialists soon noticed the concerning and inexorable growth throughout quarter two when fraud exceeded 40% in four of six months, peaking at 49% in June, the highest monthly rate in five years. It could only mean one thing: more aggressive and sophisticated fraud techniques and tactics threatening to steal your profits and damage your revenue. Unfortunately, it seems to be a new trend: as fraudsters invent previously unknown strategies, advertisers and networks are bound to keep up by working smarter, contriving new, sometimes prescient anti-fraud solutions that can turn the tables and maintain the status quo you have been diligently working for.
Pinpoint the Location
To define where the fraud is coming from, let’s look at the map.
According to the recent findings, three regions currently dominate the global fraud landscape, forming a troubling “fraud triumvirate”: the leader, China, its right-hand man, the EU, and the countries of the Middle East bringing up the rear. The amount of fraud generated by every party in this interesting company creates a peculiar picture that demands further explanation: China leads with 63.5% of traffic flagged as fraudulent, followed by the EU at 56.3%, and the Middle East at 52.9%.
Thus, every component of the improvised “triumvirate” has shown a sharp increase in fraudulent activity compared to the readouts published in 2024. China’s numbers have nearly doubled from 33.8%, a surge likely driven by the expansion of global scam networks. These networks, often operating as large-scale fraud factories, tend to target Tier-1 countries through text messaging, social media, dating platforms, and fake job listings, which people take for authentic sites. This, however, is far from being the only explanation. Quite possibly, the fraud tactics at work have become far more complex and harder to detect, which in turn constitutes a mounting challenge for affiliate marketers and all sorts of digital businesses.
In the EU, the situation remains a little more ambiguous. The region is known for its attempts at creating a safer digital ecosystem — a versatile specialist might dredge up the name of the Digital Services Act — but enforcement is still catching up. As a result, deceptive practices, such as cloaked affiliate ads, influencer fraud, and click manipulation continue to thrive in certain parts of the region, where compliance varies significantly between member states.
The Middle East has also experienced a dramatic rise in fraudulent traffic, increasing from just 25.2% in 2024. This surge coincides with rapid digital expansion across the region and a lack of robust anti-fraud infrastructure. Smaller ad networks, limited transparency, and growing online ad spend have created an environment ripe for exploitation.
However, sudden surges of fraud across the globe aren't the only surprising thing about the report. In fact, it’s the most predictable. On the other hand, in certain countries the situation is the opposite: fraud levels have dropped. This positive trend is noticeable in the US, Canada, and India, where the impact of stronger verification tools and protocols seems to have solidified. Other policies that contributed to this positive development are more robust fraud prevention policies and the AI-powered detection technologies, now more common within the internet.
Yet these advancements don’t fully explain the overall global rise in fraud. In 2025, new regions, previously unseen, have stepped into the game hoping to scrape up a fortune or potentially steal yours. South America and Africa are the two new players, with South America recording a significant 41.7% fraud rate and Africa reaching 27.3%. Although their presence is not too conspicuous at the moment, their emergence highlights the expanding footprint of affiliate fraud worldwide.
Putting geography-related bits aside, FraudScore further elaborates on the subject, providing a breakdown of the types of fraud, depending on how common they are in cyberspace. The graph exhibits that blacklist fraud emerges as the most prevalent category, accounting for a staggering 38.81% of all detected fraud. This type typically involves traffic from already flagged or known malicious sources, suggesting that many schemes are persistent, repeat offenders that continue to circulate in affiliate ecosystems, exploiting gaps in filtering and monitoring tools.
Coming in second, event fraud made up 19.79% of the total. These schemes involve faked post-click actions (false installs, registrations, or purchases) which can severely distort campaign performance metrics and drain marketing budgets under the guise of success.
IP fraud, responsible for 13.51% of cases, indicates high levels of traffic coming from suspicious, masked, or manipulated IP addresses. Other types of fraud also continue to thrive, but in much smaller quantities: proxy fraud, fake attribution, browser and device fraud are no longer among the most popular tactics employed by hackers. As you can see, the volume is increasing along with the variety and technical sophistication, so nowadays fraud detection doesn't imply flagging the obvious — now affiliates are bound to learn how to identify the most subtle hints.
Mobile & Web Ad Traffic Overview
Now, the most exciting part of all: the revelations in this department never cease to exist. With the continuous growth of the use of mobile devices, it is hardly surprising that mobile ad fraud is on the rise, while web fraud levels keep plummeting.
In the first half of 2025, mobile advertising fraud averaged 40.04%, a noticeable increase over the 39.07% recorded during the same period in 2024. However, the year began on a mixed note — January 2025 dropped to 31.9%, well below 2024’s 41.08%, hinting at a potential decline. But the hope was short-lived: the situation drastically changed.
By March, mobile fraud had unexpectedly surged to 43.7%, and by June, it hit a staggering benchmark of 49.6%. Android platforms were hit hardest, averaging 42.6%, compared to 37% on iOS, but in 2025, both platforms saw growth over the readouts of the previous year.
This upward — and highly concerning — trend reflects the developing complexity and scale of mobile fraud tactics, which are currently continuing to evolve, often bypassing traditional filters.
As mentioned above, web ad fraud has seen a remarkable drop. The 2025 average is just 13.41%, compared to 23.41% in 2024, a nearly 10-point improvement. The decline has been consistent month over month, with the largest gap observed in March (8.2% in 2025 vs. 27.3% in 2024). Even in peak months like January and February, 2025’s figures stayed below 17%, while last year’s numbers hovered above 21%.
Further, profound research is necessary to clarify the reasons for such a dramatic improvement, but it may be attributed to enhanced browser-level security, wider deployment of anti-bot systems, and declining profitability of web-based schemes in comparison to mobile fraud, as seen above.
Wrapping Up
The recent findings published by FraudScore paint a highly disturbing picture: in the first half of 2025, ad fraud is not just persisting, it's evolving, disguised like a shapeshifter in the lines of code. While some regions have made progress in reducing fraudulent activity, others are still seeing alarming spikes caused by more sophisticated and complex tactics, created and implemented by quickly adaptive fraudsters.
All in all, global fraud rates continue to climb, sending affiliates, advertisers, and networks a subtle but clear heads-up to stay ahead of the curve by not just identifying the source of the fraud, but by understanding its behavioral patterns. In short, affiliates are forced to adopt more optimized strategies to outrun and defeat fraudsters in their own contest to achieve the desired results and create a safe digital space for business.
