DV Global Insights 2025 | Bot Fraud in CTV: The Hidden Drain on Ad Budgets

Connected TV (CTV) may be the fastest-growing channel in digital advertising, but it’s also becoming one of the most attractive targets for fraud.

According to a DV global survey, 57% of marketers who advertise on CTV worry that a significant portion of their ad spend is wasted due to fraud. And they’re right to be concerned. In 2024, bot fraud accounted for 65% of all fraud in CTV environments — a share 14% higher than in other digital channels.

These aren’t basic bots. They’re highly sophisticated, constantly evolving and capable of generating vast volumes of invalid traffic (IVT). Just last quarter, DV identified 12 new CTV bot variants, including mutations of known threats like ViperBot, CycloneBot and BeatSting. Many of these exploit compromised CTV devices — 4 million of them, according to DV data, generating extreme volumes of invalid traffic IVT daily — to simulate real user behavior and deceive measurement systems.

The financial impact is staggering. Based on average industry CPMs, a single bot variant can cost advertisers more than $7.5 million per month in wasted media.

And that’s just one threat.

Without adequate protections, more than 1 in 4 CTV video impressions would fail to meet the minimum criteria for fraud-free, viewable, brand-safe and brand-suitable delivery. That’s a quarter of spend going to waste — because those impressions never reach real humans..

The good news? These threats can be detected and mitigated with the right tools and intelligence in place.

Our new report, DV Global Insights: Trends in the Modern Streaming Landscape, dives deeper into fraud trends, bot behavior and best practices for keeping your CTV campaigns safe — and your budget intact.