Fraudulent behavior in digital advertising, broadly known as ad fraud, involves deception for unfair gain, primarily impacting advertisers. It's a key component of click fraud.
Common types include:
Click Fraud: Automated clicks (bots/botnets), click farms, competitor clicking, publisher self-clicking (impacting PPC).
Impression Fraud: Ad stacking, pixel stuffing, hidden ads, auto-refresh ads (falsely inflating views).
Conversion Fraud: Fake leads, app install fraud, cookie stuffing (impacting desired outcomes).
Other: Domain spoofing, ad injection, geo masking (misrepresenting ad placement/origin).
This behavior wastes ad spend, skews data, lowers ROI, and depletes budgets, despite Google's own filters.