Fraud rates held largely flat in 2025. But as marketing investment grew, so did the absolute volume of fraudulent installs, and where fraud sits shifted significantly across verticals, channels, and techniques. The installs were there. The users, in many cases, were not.

The State of Fraud for Marketers analyzed over 100 billion installs across more than 246,000 apps to examine how fraud moved throughout 2025 and into 2026. It shows where fraud is concentrated, which channels absorbed the overflow when others tightened, and what the gap between reported performance and real user acquisition actually looks like.

What’s inside

• Where fraud is concentrated by vertical, channel, and market
• Why organic accounts for 52% of all fraud installs
• How the fraud gap between affiliates and SRNs reached 36x
• Which fraud techniques dominated on Android and iOS and how the mix shifted
• What Real Users Lift reveals about how much of what you bought actually existed
• With insights from fraud experts at adjoe, Exness, and InMobi