Performance advertising was built for speed, scale, and measurable outcomes. It helped push global digital ad spending to over $650 billion annually, with performance formats accounting for a growing share of that total. Yet the same system that rewards efficiency has long tolerated, and sometimes enabled, fraud, malicious creatives, and low-quality traffic.
PropellerAds operates squarely within this tension. Founded in 2011, the global AdTech platform now serves advertisers across more than 195 countries, handling billions of daily ad impressions through push notifications, in-page push, and other performance formats. Its size offers reach, but it also exposes the company to the most persistent problem in digital advertising: how to grow without letting abuse follow unchecked.
Today, advertisers are more skeptical, regulators are more alert, and users are less willing to tolerate deceptive or intrusive ads. For performance networks like PropellerAds, the challenge is no longer theoretical. It is operational.
Where Performance Advertising Breaks Down
Industry estimates suggest that tens of billions of dollars are lost each year globally to invalid traffic and ad fraud. These losses take many forms, from automated clicks and fake installs to malware hidden in creatives or redirects buried deep in delivery chains.
Performance advertising is particularly exposed because it operates at an immense scale and often across regions with uneven enforcement. The mechanics that allow ads to launch instantly across borders also allow bad actors to move just as fast. Without continuous oversight, traffic quality can degrade quietly, long before advertisers notice a problem.
PropellerAds has had to confront this reality directly. Its leadership has framed fraud not as an occasional breach, but as an ongoing condition of the ecosystem it inhabits.
Rapid growth without sufficient filtration tends to create long-term risks for advertisers and platforms alike.
Automation as a Practical Necessity
At a global scale, manual moderation cannot keep pace. Campaigns are launched, modified, and replicated in seconds. Fraud tactics shift constantly, often designed to evade detection just long enough to extract value.
PropellerAds “relies extensively on machine learning systems alongside human oversight to score traffic quality, monitor behavioral signals, and detect potential malware risks and policy violations using real-time and near real-time signals. Campaigns are subject to pre-launch checks and ongoing monitoring throughout their lifecycle. Sourcers associated with consistently low-quality or suspicious traffic may face restrictions or corrective measures.
This does not eliminate abuse. No platform claims that level of control. Instead, the systems aim to reduce exposure and identify problems early, before damage spreads.
While AI does not make enforcement perfect, it allows platforms to operate effective controls at scale
Growth and Risk in Emerging Markets
The pressure to manage risk intensifies in emerging markets. High-growth regions, including parts of MENA, Southeast Asia, and Africa, are experiencing some of the fastest growth in digital ad spending, driven by mobile access and expanding app economies. These markets are central to performance advertising’s future, but they also magnify long-standing vulnerabilities.
Bad actors adapt quickly to local conditions, especially where oversight is fragmented. Platforms expanding into these regions must decide whether controls remain consistent or flexible. PropellerAds has stated that its moderation standards and fraud defenses are applied consistently across regions, even when it limits short-term scale. If safety rules change across regions often creates opportunities for abuse – trust doesn’t stay local.
A Test for the Industry
Performance advertising is under sustained pressure to prove it can function responsibly at scale. Technology alone will not solve fraud, but neglect guarantees exposure. Platforms that treat safety as secondary face increasing risk as advertisers demand clearer accountability.
PropellerAds’ investment in AI-driven moderation suggests one possible path forward: growth moderated by control rather than unchecked reach. Whether that model becomes standard practice remains uncertain, but it reflects where the industry conversation is moving.
Performance advertising does not need to be flawless to be credible. It does, however, need to show that efficiency does not excuse indifference. How platforms respond to that challenge may define the next chapter of digital advertising.
