When your customers see a convincing fake ad in their social media feed, it’s not bad luck: it’s algorithmic precision aimed at stealing your brand equity. While paid ads are still a straightforward way for brands to buy visibility across trusted online platforms, they’ve also become a high-speed delivery engine for counterfeiters.
Infringers have learned to use the same systems to target (and even outrank) genuine brands at the exact moment where customers expect authenticity.
It’s a growing problem.
This article breaks down the 10 most common ways fake ads target your customers, and what you can do to shut them down.
1. They hijack the same algorithms brands rely on to find customers
The ad targeting tools built to help you reach real buyers now help counterfeiters reach them first.
As Marta Guerreiro, a social media protection specialist at SnapDragon, puts it: “Bad actors are using the same targeting and engagement algorithms brands rely on to put counterfeit goods directly in front of real customers.”
Fraudsters build lookalike audiences based on your followers, target people searching for your brand, and retarget users who’ve engaged with your official channels.
On social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook – where shopping happens in-feed – the algorithm effectively endorses the scam by placing it beside legitimate content.
What this means for you: If infringers can use the same targeting systems you do, they can reach your customers with the same precision.
“Bad actors are using the same targeting and engagement algorithms brands rely on to put counterfeit goods directly in front of real customers.”
2. They exploit high-risk ad environments like social media and search engines
Based on SnapDragon’s monitoring across industries, algorithm-driven fraud thrives most on these three platforms:
- Meta has global reach, low barriers to entry, and it’s easy to spin up a profile and reach millions.
- Google Search Ads is where scammers can bid on brand names to outrank official listings in the Google SERPs and intercept high-intent buyers.
- TikTok is known for its rapid creative turnover and trend-driven formats, which act as camouflage. Scam ads blend into the culture long before anyone realises they’re fake.
What this means for you: Scammers operate in the same high-visibility spaces your marketing team invests in. If you’re advertising there, they are too.
3. They impersonate your brand with fake pages, domains and storefronts
Brand impersonation is no longer a misspelled web address or sloppy knock-off, it’s a full reconstruction of your identity.
They develop full ecosystems that look and behave like your brand, designed to divert customers without raising suspicion.
It often starts with your own assets:
- Counterfeit goods presented with professional photography.
- Your brand name or logo used in ad headlines.
- Light photo manipulation to bypass detection.
But the ad is only the doorway. Behind it sits a near-perfect replica of your website with the same page navigation, copied descriptions, cloned reviews and even duplicated returns pages.
What this means for you: When impersonation is this convincing, customers don’t realise they’ve been diverted until the damage is done.
4. They use cloaking to fool ad reviewers and consumers simultaneously
Cloaking exploits a simple weakness: ad platforms don’t see what consumers see. Scammers show reviewers a compliant landing page, but send real shoppers to a completely different destination.
Cloaking thrives in the gaps between automated checks and human oversight. Brands can’t follow every redirect chain, and platforms can’t review a destination they’re never shown.
What this means for you: If you rely on platform reviews alone, cloaked scam ads will slip through.
5. They typosquat your brand name and let Google do the rest
Typosquatting is simple, but incredibly effective. Fraudsters register lookalike domains designed to fool fast-scrolling shoppers, such as:
- brsnd-name.com
- brandname-sale.shop
- brandname-official.store
One swapped character or subdomain is all it takes for a customer in buying mode to miss the difference and end up on fake websites.
But the real power move comes when scammers combine these domains with Google’s dynamic keyword insertion (DKI). DKI automatically inserts your brand name into the ad headline, making the ad look legitimate to shoppers, and highly relevant to Google’s algorithm.
This is where paid search becomes dangerous. Counterfeiters can piggyback on your own brand equity and use Google’s optimisation systems to amplify the deception.
What this means for you: If scammers can imitate your domain, and let Google promote it, they can intercept your customers before they ever reach you.
6. They steal and lightly edit your creative assets to dodge detection
Bad actors don’t bother making ads, they simply tweak yours. Our Brand Protection team sees it regularly. Scammers lift your product photos, lifestyle imagery, videos and banners, then apply subtle, AI-generated edits. This might be a colour shift, a softened shadow, or a tighter crop.
The changes can’t fool our detection systems, but they can dupe shoppers. To customers, the ad still looks like you. To the platform, it looks like a brand new asset.
This near-duplicate tactic is a major reason scam ads keep slipping through review.
What this means for you: If your creative can be stolen and AI-tweaked in seconds, scammers can mislead your customers using the brand identity you invested in.
7. They deploy deepfake celebrity endorsements at scale
Deepfake advertising is exploding in popularity because it gives scammers exactly what they need: instant credibility.
Fraudsters can now create fake reviews using:
- AI-generated celebrity faces that look convincingly realistic
- Voice cloning to mimic familiar tones and speech patterns
- Influencer impersonation that mirrors real creators’ aesthetics and posting styles.
As our Brand Protection team puts it, fake ads “become more convincing to the general consumer if they believe a well-known figure is in support.”
A believable endorsement drives the click. By the time the shopper realises it isn’t real, the damage is already done.
What this means for you: Scammers can now fabricate endorsements that look and sound real faster than most brands can respond.
“Fake ads become more convincing to the general consumer if they believe a well-known figure is in support.”
8. They redirect through multiple hidden URLs to obscure the real seller
Scam ads rarely send shoppers straight to the counterfeit site. Instead, they’re built on redirect chains designed to hide the true destination for as long as possible.
A shortened link leads to jump pages, tracking layers and disposable URLs, all masking where the shopper ultimately lands.
This gives scammers three major advantages:
- Platforms never see the real destination.
- Consumers don’t question the journey because it feels normal.
- Enforcement teams lose the trail.
It’s a simple way for fraudulent ad networks to scale fast and stay hidden.
What this means for you:
If you can’t see where an ad truly leads, you can’t protect your customers.
9. They churn through new ad accounts as fast as brands report them
When a fake ad is removed, the people behind it simply switch accounts and start again.
Our Brand Protection team sees it constantly: “Fraudsters often create or hijack a new profile and use this to create new ads right after the original ads have been removed.”
As long as the fake domain behind the ads is still live, the operation keeps running. The ads are the symptoms; the websites are the engine.
EUIPO’s Online Advertising on IPR-Infringing Websites (2024) report confirms this speed. Website turnover jumped 33% last year, with scammers spinning up new mirror sites and redirect domains as soon as enforcement hits.
What this means for you: If you’re only removing ads, you’re fighting an endless loop. Until the underlying domain is gone, the scam will keep coming back.
10. They rely on slow detection from brands
Infringers don’t need weeks or months to hurt your brand. They only need a few unchecked hours.
Without real-time monitoring, fraudulent ads can run quietly in the background, siphoning traffic, misleading customers, and monetising your brand equity before anyone on your team even knows they exist.
And by the time the issue surfaces, the fallout is already in motion:
- Customers have been scammed and may blame your brand.
- Social teams are fielding angry messages they weren’t prepared for.
- Revenue has been diverted to counterfeiters.
- Trust in your brand takes a hit as scammed customers flock to review sites.
What this means for you: Speed is everything. If you can’t detect scam ads as fast as they appear, they’ll shape your customers’ experience before you get a chance to.
How brands can fight fake ads: and win
You can’t control how scammers manipulate paid media. But you can control how quickly you see it, how decisively you act, and how hard you are to exploit.
1. Monitor everywhere, not just the most popular markets and platforms
Fraudsters don’t stick to your priority regions. They go wherever visibility is easiest and detection is weakest. Think smaller markets, non-English territories, niche platforms, and emerging channels.
The ads you never see are the ones doing the most damage. If you’re only watching your biggest revenue regions, you risk falling behind.
2. Track the domain behind the ad
If you only remove ads, you’re treating symptoms instead of stopping the disease.
Our analysts see it every day: the same seller can launch dozens of new ads within minutes. But once the domain powering those ads is shut down, the entire network collapses.
3. Strengthen your IP portfolio globally
Your IP portfolio is your legal engine. The stronger it is, the faster you can shut scammers down.
Scammers bet on legal gaps like unregistered marks, old filings and unprotected regions.
Modern enforcement relies on strong trademarks. Without them, platforms struggle to act quickly or decisively.
4. Align marketing, legal and brand protection
As Marta puts it: “Paid media, legal, and IP enforcement teams need to work together to close the loop between where the brand advertises and where the fraud appears.”
Cross-functional coordination isn’t optional anymore. It’s the only way to outpace a threat that moves this fast.
5. Work with tech partners that see the full picture
Platforms only reveal a slice of the problem. Their detection systems aren’t built to map domain networks, trace ad clusters, or flag creative manipulation across ecosystems.
SnapDragon is.
We see across platforms, markets, languages, domains, redirects, and seller networks, and act before the threat multiplies.
To beat fast-moving fraud, you need technology built to outpace it.
It’s time to treat paid-ad protection like a strategy
When algorithms can be weaponised, protection has to be proactive, intelligent and relentless.
That’s where SnapDragon fits in.
We detect the full ecosystem behind scam ads: the profiles, the stolen creatives, the redirect chains and the domains powering them. And we don’t just flag threats, we help you remove them.
Shutting down one ad won’t protect your customers. Shutting down the infrastructure is what stops the cycle.
Don’t let scam ads get the upper hand. Book a consultation to learn more about fighting fake ads with the speed, intelligence and scale your brand deserves.
Laura Sodaymay
SnapDragon | Brand Protection Specialist
Want to see how SnapDragon’s AI can protect your brand?
If you would like to explore how SnapDragon can accelerate your online brand protection, get in touch to schedule a demo. We would love to show you what’s possible.
