The IDFA Apocalypse May Not Be As Bad As We Thought

Today In Digital Marketing is a daily podcast showcasing the latest in marketing trends and updates. This week, Tod touches on:

• Tracking Opt-Outs Much Lower Than Expected
• Women CMOs: Better, But Not Great
• Why Facebook Crashed Yesterday
• Product Showcase
• Friday FunnyBelow is the transcription from this weeks topics

Tracking Opt-Outs Much Lower Than Expected

The big shoe we’re all expecting will drop soon is Apple’s rollout of the “Stop Tracking Me” pop-up dialog boxes.

This is part of their IDFA update which privacy analysts say is good, marketing analysts say is bad, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Part of the reason there’s been so much doom about it is that we’ve all been assuming pretty much everyone who gets that pop-up box will say “Yeah, stop tracking me,” and we digital marketers would lose a huge chunk of data from those people.

But new data shows it may not be nearly as bad as we thought.

Apple started rolling this out to a test group of users and apps a couple of weeks ago — so now, we have some data on the opt-out rate.

Apps Flyer surveyed more than 300 apps and ended up with a pool of about 13 million exposures to the new IDFA prompts.

And they found 41% of people actually chose to allow tracking.

41%!

Those are knock-me-off-the-chair numbers. I don’t think anyone expected that opt-in rate would even hit double-digits, let alone 41%.

These are early numbers, of course, and we’ll know more once Apple officially throws the switch on it, but — for now — good news? Maybe?

Most people expected Apple to have rolled it out by now, but the company has been busy trying to figure out what to do with a consortium of Chinese companies that are building an alternative data tracking tool for their apps, which would essentially bypass IDFA.

Women CMOs: Better, But Not Great

Some more good news, it seems companies are getting closer to balancing out their gender equality for CMO positions.

Almost half of CMO hires in North America went to women, according to a study. Yes, “almost” half — the actual number is about 45%. So still unbalanced, but better than it usually is.

But that’s the CMO role. Other C-level jobs didn’t fare as well for women. Men currently make up:

• 92% of chief revenue officers
• 86% of chief commercial officers
• 84% of chief sales officers

The only C-suite jobs where women made up the majority of hires:

• Chief Experience Officers — that was just a hair over 50%
• Chief Marcomm Officers — women are 56% of those roles

Quoting from the study:

CMOs today must juggle multiple duties, balancing traditional brand-building functions with technology demands around areas like data and e-commerce. Fewer than one-fifth of surveyed senior marketers report they aspire to move up the ladder to take on the mantle of CMO… a sign there is a potential "brain drain" crisis emerging in the industry that brands must account for.

Why Facebook Crashed Yesterday

I was in the middle of a client’s ad account yesterday when Facebook crashed. Like, their whole platform crashed. Everything. News Feed, Instagram, Business Manager…

Of course, first thing I thought was “Oh god, it caught up to me. The enforcement bots have banned by account for no reason.”

But I did what I always do when this happens — and what I recommend you do too — go to Twitter and search for the words “Facebook Down.”

One click told me that everyone was seeing it.

But Facebook never admits that. In a rare post-crash tweet, Facebook said:

It’s always “some people” with them. Facebook — do you not have server logs? It was everyone.

Anyway, they’re back, you’re not banned, and the universe continues to exist.

Product Showcase

Your site currently loads about as quickly as the DMV sloths from Zootopia talk. (“What...can I...do…for you?”)

Improving your site performance is essential to keeping visitors around, but you’re done fiddling around with your site pages.

What if there was a tool that built optimized performance into your website’s DNA, giving you creative freedom without worrying about load times?

Meet WP Compress.

WP Compress intelligently adapts images and scripts based on the incoming visitor for faster load times, lower bounce rates, and a better user experience.

* Links in this section may provide us with a commission.

Friday Funny

Hilariously on-point BINGO card designed by @danideahl on Twitter absolutely nails the current Clubhouse experience.

Credit to Tod Maffin and the Today In Digital Marketing podcast, Produced by engageQ.com.