See how Invalid Traffic (IVT) and ad fraud are impacting programmatic advertising across the globe. Pixalate’s Q2 2025 IVT Benchmarks Report for Canada analyzes IVT rates across websites, mobile apps, and Connected TV (CTV) apps, offering insights into the quality and integrity of programmatic ad impressions across the country.
This report presents IVT and ad fraud benchmarks based on global data from Q2 2025. Pixalate’s data science team analyzed 120+ billion open programmatic ad impressions worldwide to compile these insights. The findings are derived exclusively from Pixalate’s datasets, which consist predominantly of buy-side open auction programmatic traffic.
For this report, slides and graphics presenting platform-specific metrics are limited to traffic from those platforms only.
Pixalate identifies the country of traffic using IP address data and geolocation signals.
The ads.txt initiative, created by the IAB Tech Lab, was designed to increase transparency in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. It allows publishers and other inventory owners to publicly declare which companies are authorized to sell their digital ad space, helping reduce domain spoofing and misrepresentation.
The app-ads.txt standard applies the same concept to mobile and Connected TV (CTV) apps, giving app developers a way to publish a list of authorized sellers for their inventory. Together, ads.txt and app-ads.txt help buyers verify authenticity and minimize the risk of fraud in programmatic transactions.
Per the Media Rating Council (MRC), “‘Invalid Traffic’ is defined generally as traffic that does not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad traffic that should be included in measurement counts. Among the reasons why ad traffic may be deemed invalid is it is a result of non-human traffic (spiders, bots, etc.), or activity designed to produce fraudulent traffic.” Where the traffic characteristics are suggestive of deliberate intent to mislead, such IVT is often referred to as “ad fraud.”
Also per the MRC, “'Fraud' is not intended to represent fraud as defined in various laws, statutes and ordinances or as conventionally used in U.S. Court or other legal proceedings, but rather a custom definition strictly for advertising measurement purposes.”
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Pixalate is a global platform for privacy compliance, ad fraud prevention, and data intelligence in the digital ad supply chain. Founded in 2012, Pixalate’s platform is trusted by regulators, data researchers, advertisers, publishers, ad tech platforms, and financial analysts across the Connected TV (CTV), mobile app, and website ecosystems. Pixalate is MRC-accredited for the detection and filtration of Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT).
Disclaimer: The content of this page reflects Pixalate’s opinions with respect to the factors that Pixalate believes can be useful to the digital media industry. Any proprietary data shared is grounded in Pixalate’s proprietary technology and analytics, which Pixalate is continuously evaluating and updating. Any references to outside sources should not be construed as endorsements. Pixalate’s opinions are just that - opinion, not facts or guarantees.
Per the MRC, “'Fraud' is not intended to represent fraud as defined in various laws, statutes and ordinances or as conventionally used in U.S. Court or other legal proceedings, but rather a custom definition strictly for advertising measurement purposes. Also per the MRC, “‘Invalid Traffic’ is defined generally as traffic that does not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad traffic that should be included in measurement counts. Among the reasons why ad traffic may be deemed invalid is it is a result of non-human traffic (spiders, bots, etc.), or activity designed to produce fraudulent traffic.”
