The news: Thirteen percent of US and global programmatic ad spending went to made-for-advertising (MFA) sites in Q2, according to ad fraud analytics firm Pixalate, up from 10% in Q1.

The report shows that, despite significant efforts from major ad exchanges and the launch of several MFA detection tools, programmatic waste and the prevalence of junk advertising sites remain persistent issues that the industry has yet to fully address.

State of the MFA problem: Spending on MFA sites has fluctuated over the past two years, and reports on its scale vary. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) reported that spending on MFA pages dropped from 15% between September 2022 and January 2023 to 4% between January 2024 and May 2024.