Dan McCarthy | Professor - University of MD | The Unfairness & Disparate Impact of Privacy Policy

CMO Confidential

A CMO Confidential Interview with Dr. Dan McCarthy, Professor of Marketing at Maryland and leading practitioner of Customer Lifetime Value. Dan shares insights from his privacy research based on Apple's "App Tracking Transparency" (ATT) initiative commonly known as "Ask App Not to Track" which include a significant impact on business results, a degradation of CAC, and a disproportionate hit to small companies. Key topics include: how the elimination of a Facebook customer ID negatively impacted revenue, why averaging marketing results can be a profit killer, and why analytical time frames matter. Tune in to hear updates on Dan's other research including Peloton, loyalty programs and "How everyone is cheating their way through college."

CMO Confidential: The Disparate Impact of Privacy Policy — with Dr. Dan McCarthy (UMD) on ATT, CLV & CAC

What happens to your revenue when attribution breaks? In this episode, 5x CMO Mike Linton sits down with Dr. Dan McCarthy (Professor of Marketing, University of Maryland; leading practitioner of Customer Lifetime Value) to unpack Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and its ripple effects on marketing performance. Dan shares new research showing how the loss of a Facebook customer ID degraded click-through, CAC, and revenue—with disproportionate pain for smaller, Facebook-heavy brands.

We dig into why averages kill profit (stop using blended CAC/CLV!), how channel-specific, time-varying metrics drive smarter allocation, and the practical playbook for marketers in a post-IDFA world. Dan also updates us on his other research—Peloton, loyalty & subscription programs (DoorDash/Postmates), and the “everyone is cheating their way through college” debate and what it means for teaching and real-world readiness.

What you’ll learn

• How ATT broke cross-site attribution and raised CAC while lowering revenue yield

• Why small DTC brands took the biggest hit, and how (or if) they can recover

• The danger of blended CAC/CLV vs. channel-specific, time-varying metrics

• Subscription insights: novelty vs. maturity effects, and behavior after cancellation

• Action items to protect growth when signal quality declines

About our guest

Dr. Dan McCarthy is a professor at the University of Maryland (formerly Emory) and one of the foremost experts on CLV and customer-based corporate valuation. His work spans privacy’s impact on e-commerce, subscription economics, loyalty programs, and public-company customer metrics.

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00:00 – Intro & sponsor: Typeface AI

01:35 – Meet Dr. Dan McCarthy & ATT explained

05:00 – How ATT broke attribution and raised CAC

09:15 – Why small brands took the biggest revenue hit

13:30 – The danger of blended CAC & CLV averages

17:20 – Practical advice: channel-specific, time-varying metrics

21:00 – Updates on Peloton & subscription research

25:00 – The “everyone is cheating in college” debate

28:00 – Final advice: beware of irrational subscriptions

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.