Why Can't Advertisers Use Their Data Anymore?

It's All False

The goal of Kill Analytics is to completely ruin all the data in any Web Analytics Platform. This is accomplished by sending false data through various technical routes. All of the falsified data is aggregated with real data, breaking the entire system. If only 10% of a website’s visitors are using Kill Analytics, all of the website’s data becomes unusable. Analytics will show an increase of new users and sessions. Session duration, boune rate, landing pages, pageview per session, and other metrics will drop off a cliff. Three primary tactics are explored below.

Breaking a visit into multiple users: In an analytics platform when you visit a website on a couple different occasions, you are still identified as the same user. This allows advertisers to see metrics such as about what percent of users are new, how users engage with the site across multiple visits, and link multiple purchases to a single person. Kill Analytics modifies the data sent to the tracking platform so you can’t be identified as the same user. Now all the above metrics are broken – A single user appears as three or four new users. In time the percent of new users simply grows, and is no longer reliable. Metrics about new user behavior aren’t reliable anymore because returning users are counted as new users.

Breaking a visit into multiple sessions: Session level metrics are often the most helpful and widely used by advertisers. They show how users are navigating through the site and what behavior they are taking. By breaking a single session into multiple advertisers can no longer see how a user is navigating, and the majority of useful metrics in analytics now break. Session counts, landing pages, demographics, events, etc. are no longer reliable. This is the driving force behind Kill Analytics.

Attributing metrics to the wrong channel: Advertisers need to see which channels drive the most users and revenue. If they see Facebook drive a lot of users, they invest more money there. Kill Analytics attributes visits, revenue, and other metrics to the incorrect channels.

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What Tactics Send False Data?

False UTMs, Headers, IDs, and More

Advertisers have created an ecosystem that allows them to gather data from an enormous variety of sources. This system is easily exploited to send False Data. The following tactics (and some secret tactics) enable Kill Analytics to send False Data.

False External UTM Parameters: UTM parameters assign a source and medium when a user is acquired. When you click on a link on Facebook, an advertiser often times will have manually added UTMs to identify that link was on Facebook. (Some sources like Facebook are automatically assigned, we address this in the headers sections.) Kill Analytics will dynamically change the UTM parameter on clicked links so the true source is hidden, and a different one is shown. Random sources can be added, or Kill Analytics can identified UTMs the website has previously used (like in paid advertising) and falsely assign those.

Internal UTM Parameters: UTM Parameters are never used on internal links because they break sessions and lose source data. By dynamically adding UTMs to internal links we accomplish those goals and more. An internal referral from a false source is an analytics disaster. This would never occur in a normal set up. For example, Kill Analytics will add “?utm_source=google” to a link on the homepage that leads to the blog. This sends data to the advertisers that cannot physically happen – and ruins both sessions and channel data.

Header Data & User-IDs: Analytics platforms use data sent in the header to identify things like where the user came from, who the user is, what device they are using, and more. This is easily falsified. Google Analytics uses User-IDs to track users across sessions. These can be recorded, falsified, and shared so one user appears as multiple other users.

Other Tactics: For Kill Analytics to remain functional, not all tactics can be publicly shared.

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How Is False Data Aggregated with Real Data?

All Data in Analytics is the Same

All web analytics platforms aggregate user data. It is against their terms of service (and often times illegal) to collect data about individuals that could identify them personally. These platforms claim to anonymize, and then aggregate all user data into one big pile. This is ripe for tampering.

Almost all metrics are aggregates of some sort – sums, averages, counts, etc. This means if a small set of users send false data it ruins all the other real data. Our internal tests have shown that if only 10% of users use Kill Analytics it can render almost the entire web analytics platform useless.

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What Platforms Are Affected?

All of Them.

All of the web analytics platforms we have tested are vulnerable to Kill Analytics. This includes Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics Suite, Piwik, CMS-specific platforms (Like wordpress’s Jetpack Analytics, Wix/SquareSpace/etc analytics), and multiple DMPs. In theory this will affect every data collection platform, unless significant change is made in the industry.

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Can it be Stopped?

No.

No.

Any website affected by Kill Analytics is simply out of luck. Only a custom rolled solution could work, but even then most of our tactics will still be successful. The only solution to Kill Analytics – one in which we will gladly turn Kill Analytics offline – is a complete rework of the entire adtech and online marketing ecosystem.

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Learn More About This Project

Thanks to..

Thanks to Bootstrap and StartBootstrap.com for web design, Unsplash.com for images, and Github Pages. For more information, contact: hello.kill@post.com

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