Ad stacking is a form of ad fraud, a broader category that includes various deceptive practices aimed at generating illegitimate revenue from digital advertising. Ad fraud undermines the trust and effectiveness of online advertising and can take multiple forms.

Click fraud, geo masking, and traffic laundering are some common types of ad fraud. Click fraud involves generating fake clicks on ads to inflate revenue, while geo masking conceals the true geographic location of traffic. Traffic laundering disguises the source of traffic to make it appear legitimate.

Cookie stuffing, malvertising, and pixel stuffing are other deceptive tactics in digital advertising. Cookie stuffing involves placing multiple cookies on a user's browser to claim credit for conversions. Malvertising uses online ads to spread malware, and pixel stuffing hides ads within a single pixel to inflate impression counts.

Domain spoofing and impression fraud also relate closely to ad stacking. Domain spoofing involves misrepresenting a low-quality site as a premium one to sell ad space at higher rates. Impression fraud manipulates the number of ad impressions counted. Attribution fraud, including post-attribution fraud, falsifies data to take credit for conversions they did not generate.

Invalid Traffic (IVT) is a broader term encompassing all fraudulent activities that generate illegitimate ad interactions. Ad stacking contributes to IVT by inflating impression counts. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) fraud and click injection are other forms of IVT, where fake clicks are created to generate revenue without genuine user interest.