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Stop Facebook Ad Fraud: Proven Strategies and Tools

  • August 6, 2025
how to stop ad fraud on facebook

Facebook ad fraud is out of control.

In its own transparency reports, Facebook admitted to removing 827 million fake accounts in just one quarter of 2023. That’s 4–5% of its entire active user base.

Stop Facebook Ad Fraud - Chart

If you’re running Facebook ads right now, there’s a good chance you’re paying for fake clicks, bots, or low-intent traffic that has zero chance of converting. And it’s not just a small leak; this kind of fraud can quietly wipe out thousands in ad spend without any obvious signs.

In this guide, we’ll break down the different types of Facebook ad fraud, how they work, and, most importantly, how to stop wasting budget on traffic that’s never going to deliver results.

What is ad fraud on Facebook?

Facebook ad fraud is the process of manipulating Facebook campaigns to waste your budget and fake engagement, usually for financial gain. It’s a subset of digital ad fraud, and it’s very common.

This is different from more general ad scams on facebook that impersonate real businesses and promote phishing schemes. See the difference in our “Scam ads are also a problem on Facebook” section

How does Facebook ad fraud work?

Fraudsters abuse Facebook’s ad systems in two major ways, and both cost you (the advertiser) real money:

  1. They may use bots, click farms, or malware to trigger fake ad clicks or impressions on campaigns. Here, advertisers pay for interactions that never come from real users.
  2. Or, scammers can manipulate how and where your ads are shown, often placing them on junk websites with zero chance of conversion.

Each method results in wasted spend and misleading performance metrics. Below are the most common fraud types advertisers encounter.

Types of Facebook ad fraud

  • Click injection fraud: This is when malicious apps fake clicks, making it look like a user engaged with an ad when they didn’t. The most famous example is the case of LionMobi and JediMobi whose apps installed malware on users’ phones.
    These generated fake clicks on Facebook ads and the app developers got a portion of the money generated from the ads. They were eventually caught, banned, and advertisers were refunded.

  • Low-quality site interactions: This usually happens when you have the Facebook Audience Network turned on. Here, publishers spoof their domain name to make it look like a premium publisher (like CNN or Forbes) and get on Facebook’s Audience Network.
    Your ads may also show on Made for Advertising websites that see nothing but junk traffic. “Users” interact with your ads, rack up your spend, but will never convert.

  • Affiliate ad fraud: Affiliates use cheap click bots to engage with your Facebook ads, fill forms, and generate leads. They get paid because it technically produces the targeted conversion action and leads in affiliate fraud are low quality and will never convert.

  • Competitor clicks: Competitors can use bots, click farms, and even multiple accounts of their own to click on your ads and waste budget. Competitor clicks is a common type of click fraud.
  • Audience arbitrage: This is a shady practice where agencies and resellers offer to manage your Facebook ads. But instead of showing to your preferred audience, they target cheaper regions or broad interest groups that boost your CTRs and lower CPAs. But these aren’t your target and will never convert.

Scam ads are also a problem on Facebook

When non-advertisers talk about fraudulent ads on Facebook, they usually mean ads promising fake giveaway prizes, dirt-cheap products, or even clickbait that leads to phishing websites.

All of these scammy ads follow a similar format. Fraudsters launch ad campaigns on Facebook, usually with stolen credit info, and promote an offer that’s too good to pass up. They may even use Facebook spam bots to mimic real user activity and leave positive comments under the ads.

Users pay, click, or submit their information, fall down the rabbit hole, and end up getting scammed.

These types of Facebook ad scams are so common that Internal documents from Meta showed 70% of new advertisers on the platform promote some type of scam.

Facebook ad scams are not what this post is about, but still worth mentioning. Lifelock has a great blog on how to avoid the common types of Facebook scams, if you want to learn more.  

How to avoid ad fraud in your Facebook campaigns

While it can be difficult to eliminate Facebook ad fraud entirely, you can make it much harder for scammers to waste your budget. The key is tightening up your targeting, staying vigilant with traffic sources, and using the right tools to protect your ads. 

Here are some smart steps to help you spot fraud early and reduce wasted ad spend:

  • Avoid broad audience targeting

    As we covered under audience arbitrage, broad targeting brings cheap traffic with lower CPAs, but most of them will never convert. Instead, narrow your audience based on real customer data: location, interests, behaviors. 

    If you find that your specific audience isn’t large enough,     use Facebook to target lookalike audiences based on your precise demographics, and you can explore a new segment without going too broad. 

    The more precise your targeting, the easier it is to spot outliers and the blatant signs of Facebook ad fraud.

  • Exclude Audience Network

    Speaking of audience: Facebook’s Audience Network is where a lot of fraud slips through, so most advertisers can exclude it entirely. If the performance looks too good (or too weird), it deserves a closer look. Questions to ask when reviewing your data:

    • Does the campaign have an unusually high CTR?
    • Do leads bounce from your landing page almost immediately?
    • Are you getting weird clicks from strange locations?

      These could all be signs of suspicious activity with the Audience Network.
  • Use location blocking

    If you’re consistently getting low-quality traffic from specific regions, it’s worth setting up location exclusions to block that spend. While Facebook doesn’t let you exclude individual IP addresses natively, you can limit or block entire countries, regions, or cities at the ad set level.

    Here’s how to do it:

    • Navigate to Ad Set > Locations 
    • Add a location
    • UNCHECK “Reach more people likely to respond to your ads” (see image below)
Stop Facebook Ad Fraud - change location settings
  • Protect your landing page forms and verify emails

    Lost budgets due to fraudulent clicks are only one part of the Facebook ad fraud problem. The second is what happens after: you waste even more resources chasing down fake leads that will never convert.

    If your ads lead to a landing page, you can implement CAPTCHA to blocks basic form bots from submitting trash leads. While some sophisticated bots can solve CAPTCAs easily, it’s still a helpful step to weed out a large chunk of them.

    You can also add email verification as an extra step. This could be having users verify their email addresses before submitting, or, if you’re worried about discouraging potential leads, use an email checker to vet leads after submission, and before you start to follow up. 

  • Use a click fraud protection software

    Manual monitoring only gets you so far. To effectively mitigate invalid activity and save ad budget, you need to monitor performance metrics in real-time, analyzing traffic patterns and user behavior for anomalies, and more.

    A good ad fraud protection tool can automatically detect and block fake clicks before they burn your budget and poison your data. Platforms like Fraud Blocker help keep your Facebook ad spend focused on real users, not bots or click farms. It’s an extra step that could yield a lot of long term benefits.

Use Click Fraud Protection Software to Stop Facebook ad fraud

Is advertising on Facebook still worth it?

Absolutely, if you do it right.

Facebook is still the largest social media platform in the world, with billions of users and some of the most advanced targeting tools available. When managed properly, advertisers can achieve a strong return. A 3:1 ROAS is considered a solid benchmark, and many businesses exceed that by focusing on audience quality, creative testing, and smart exclusions.

Defend against Facebook ad fraud with Fraud Blocker

Fraud Blocker monitors your traffic in real-time and analyzes behavior patterns, device signals and IP data to flag bots, click farms, and fake users before they hit your ad budget.

It’s one of the easiest ways to take control of your Facebook ad spend. Instead of relying on Meta to detect bad traffic after the fact, Fraud Blocker gives you visibility and protection from day one.

Want to see how much fraud is slipping through? Start with a free trial and see what’s really happening behind the scenes.

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