New data points to persistent fraud sources alongside record ad-level enforcement.
TOKYO, JP / ACCESS Newswire / April 30, 2026 / Spider Labs Inc., developer of the Spider AF marketing security platform, today released new analysis showing that 64.9% of invalid traffic (IVT) originates from repeat actors. The findings highlight a growing structural challenge in digital advertising: persistent fraud sources operating alongside increased enforcement at the ad level.
The analysis is based on aggregated ad traffic data collected between January 1, 2025, and April 16, 2026, across major global ad networks, including Google Search, Google Display, Google Performance Max, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Display, TikTok, Instagram, LINE, and Criteo.
Following Google’s 2025 Ads Safety Report, which cited a record 8.3 billion ads blocked, Spider AF analyzed aggregated traffic data from its platform to identify additional patterns. The results point to actor-level persistence as a distinct and complementary issue not fully addressed by ad-level enforcement.
Key findings:
64.9% of IVT came from repeat actors (147 million of 226 million invalid clicks analyzed)
IVT rates rose from 3.2% in January 2025 to 7.2% in April 2026, a 2.3× increase over 16 months
Monthly IVT from repeat actors grew 2.93× year over year, from ~5.0 million to 14.8 million clicks
Daily IVT volume more than doubled during the analysis period
Fraud patterns are increasingly behavioral, designed to mimic legitimate user activity over time
As platforms expand AI-driven enforcement-primarily focused on identifying and removing policy-violating ads-the data suggests that persistent fraudulent actors remain an unresolved risk. Beyond direct financial loss, sustained invalid traffic can influence how AI systems optimize campaigns. Fraud-generated behavioral signals may affect bidding and targeting without triggering traditional detection thresholds.
Spider AF refers to this effect as “invalid learning,” where AI systems optimize based on contaminated data inputs.
Applied to total US digital ad revenue of $294.6 billion in 2025 (IAB/PwC), Spider AF’s average observed fraud rate of 4.81% suggests that approximately $14.2 billion in ad spend was exposed to fraud.
The findings also align with broader industry trends, including the growth of Made-for-Advertising (MFA) sites. According to the Spider AF 2026 Ad Fraud Report, MFA placements increased 14× year over year, with a significant share of losses concentrated in AI-optimized campaigns.
“The industry has made measurable progress in blocking bad ads, but blocking ads is not the same as stopping the actors behind them,” said Satoko Ohtsuki, CEO of Spider Labs Inc. “As long as those actors remain active, they continue to introduce risk into the ecosystem.”
