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.

Sponsor: Typeface

Typeface helps the world’s biggest brands move from brief to fully personalized campaigns in hours, not months. With its agentic AI marketing platform, one campaign becomes thousands of on-brand experiences across ads, email, and video—with enterprise-grade security and seamless MarTech integrations. Learn more at typeface.ai/cmo.

Subscribe for more C-suite-level conversations every Tuesday, and catch our Friday newsletter with the top insights.

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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.

CMO Confidential — “What Your CFO Wants to Tell You (But Won’t)” with CNA CFO Scott Lindquist

What does a great CFO really think about marketing? Mike Linton sits down with Scott Lindquist—CFO of CNA Financial and former long-time CFO of Farmers—to decode the finance side of brand building, performance spend, and the politics of the boardroom. They cover how CMOs should onboard a new CFO, why “marketing math” wins over skeptics, mistakes to avoid in board presentations, and how insurers used bold brand bets to become category killers.

What you’ll learn

• The four archetypes of CFOs—and how to work with each

• Why CFOs who are “joined at the hip” with the CEO think differently about growth

• How to explain cost of capital and present value like a marketer (and win budget)

• The insurance playbook: brand investment, DTC distribution, and lifetime value

• Why every large marketing org needs a Marketing CFO (and how to set it up)

• Boardroom pitfalls: jargon, 100-slide decks for 20 minutes, and “draining the slide”

• Practical tips for building trust: bring the data, surface bad news early, and speak in outcomes

Guest

Scott Lindquist — Chief Financial Officer, CNA Financial. Former CFO, Farmers Insurance. Started at PwC and has led finance through growth, turnarounds, and public-company scrutiny.

Host

Mike Linton — Former CMO of Best Buy, eBay, and Farmers; former CRO of Ancestry. Host of CMO Confidential, the #1 CMO show on YouTube.

Who should watch

CMOs, CEOs, CFOs, board members, founders, and marketing leaders who need tighter finance alignment and clearer ROI storytelling.

Brought to you by Typeface

Legacy marketing tools weren’t built for AI. Typeface is the first multimodal, agentic AI marketing platform that turns one idea into thousands of on-brand assets—across ads, email, and video—while integrating with your MarTech stack and meeting enterprise-grade security needs. See how brands like ASICS and Microsoft accelerate content at scale: typeface.ai/cmo.

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CMO Confidential, Mike Linton, Scott Lindquist, CNA Financial, Farmers Insurance, CFO, CMO, marketing CFO, finance and marketing alignment, cost of capital, present value, marketing math, LTV, lifetime value, CAC, board presentations, brand valuation, insurance marketing, DTC insurance, Geico, Progressive, performance marketing, media spend, marketing ROI, budgeting, enterprise marketing, MarTech, agentic AI, Typeface AI, ASICS, Microsoft, PwC, executive leadership, C-suite, category strategy, growth strategy, B2B marketing, B2C marketing, onboarding a CFO, sponsorships, vendor management, marketing governance, data-driven marketing, brand building, boardroom communication, enterprise security, AI marketing platform

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

A CMO Confidential Interview with Kim Whitler, professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, board member, and former GM and CMO. Kim shares insights from more than a decade of research with over 500 CMO's including how 50+% of roles are misaligned, the huge gap between CEO's and CMO's, the fact that misalignment results in weaker financials, and her belief that better position matching would "prevent" the "cure" of firing the CMO. Key discussion topics include: why the CMO position has the most variance in the C-suite; the importance of matching responsibility, experience and status; and why she thinks search firms can do a better job. Tune in to hear marketing analogies to the New England Patriots line-up and James Bond movie casting.

Colonel Mustard, in the Study…with the Job Spec? Why Poor Role Design Shortens CMO Lifespans | CMO Confidential

Welcome back to CMO Confidential, the podcast that takes you inside the drama, decisions, and politics that go with being the head of marketing. Hosted by 5x CMO Mike Linton (Best Buy, eBay, Farmers Insurance, Ancestry.com).

This week, Mike welcomes back Dr. Kim Whitler, Professor of Marketing at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, former CMO, board director, and one of the foremost researchers on the CMO role. Kim has spent 14+ years analyzing 500+ interviews and hundreds of job specs to uncover why nearly 54% of CMO roles are misaligned—and what that means for tenure, effectiveness, and marketing’s reputation in the C-Suite.

From her groundbreaking research (published in HBR, Sloan Management Review, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science) to real-world board and executive experience, Kim breaks down:

* Why job specs often set CMOs up to fail

* The massive perception gap between CEOs (who think roles are well-designed) and CMOs (who don’t)

* How status, responsibility, and experience combine to drive—or derail—firm outcomes

* The practical questions every CMO candidate should ask before taking a job

* Why “throw away the job spec and write your own” might be the smartest advice you’ll hear

🎙️ Whether you’re a CMO, CEO, board member, or aspiring marketing leader, this is a masterclass in role design, negotiation, and how to set marketing up for real impact.

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📌 Episode Chapters

00:00 – Welcome to CMO Confidential

01:30 – Introducing Dr. Kim Whitler

04:00 – Why CMO job specs often fail

08:15 – Defining “misalignment” in CMO roles

13:00 – The role of status, responsibility & experience

18:30 – The CEO vs. CMO perception gap

24:00 – Practical questions every CMO candidate should ask

30:00 – Negotiating role design & avoiding pitfalls

33:30 – Kim’s closing advice & final story

- About Our Sponsor: Typeface AI

This episode is brought to you by Typeface AI www.typeface.ai/cmo — named Company of the Year by Adweek, a TIME Best Invention, and one of Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech.

Typeface helps the world’s biggest brands move from business brief to fully personalized campaigns in hours, not months. Their agentic AI marketing platform scales a single campaign into thousands of on-brand experiences across ads, email, and video—all while integrating seamlessly with your MarTech stack and maintaining enterprise-grade security.

See how brands like Asics and Microsoft are transforming marketing with Typeface at typeface.ai/cmo.

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