Today in Digital Marketing - The IDFA Apocalypse May Not Be As Bad As We Thought

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Early numbers suggest the IDFA apocalypse may not be as bad as we thought… gender-equality progress is being made in CMO roles… and what Facebook is blaming for the system-wide crash yesterday afternoon.“Tubberware” clip from “Full Blown Artistic - Sal & Chris Present: Hey Babe! - EP 10”Get the entire show content, with links and images, as a DAILY email newsletter! Subscribe at TodayInDigital.com/newsletterPodcast Perks: Exclusive Deals for ListenersAdvertising: Perks (free!) • Ads • Classifieds • Brand TakeoversJoin the Community: Slack or DiscordEnjoying the show? Please rate and review us!Follow Tod: Twitter • LinkedIn • TikTok (daily digital marketing tips)Get this as a daily email newsletterLeave a VoicemailToday in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital. Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today, early numbers suggest the IDFA apocalypse may not be as bad as we thought, gender equality progress is being made in CMO roles, and what Facebook is blaming for the system-wide crash yesterday afternoon. It's Friday, April 9th, 2021. Happy anniversary of the Finnish language. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Short news day for some reason today, so just three stories. First, the big shoe we are all expecting will drop soon

is Apple's rollout of the Stop Tracking Me pop-up dialogue boxes. This is part of their IDFA update, which privacy analysts say is good, marketing analysts say is bad, and the truth, of course, 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 flyers 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%! chose to allow tracking. 41%. Subscribers to both the free and paid tier of our newsletter are getting a chart breaking this down by industry. If you're not on the email list, go tap the link in this episode's notes. These are knock-me-off-the-chair numbers. I don't think anyone expected that 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 a 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. Some more good news. It seems companies are getting closer to balancing out their gender equality for CMO positions.

Almost half of chief marketing officer hires in North America went to women, according to a new study. Yes, almost half. The actual number is about 45%, so still unbalanced, but better than it usually is. But that's just the CMO role. Other C-level jobs did not fare as well for women. Men currently make up 92% of chief revenue officers, 86% of chief commercial officers, and 84% of chief commercial officers, and 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%, and chief marcom officers, marketing and communications. 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. Well, I don't know about you, but 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, oh, God, it caught up to me. The enforcement bots have banned my 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 yesterday, quote, a configuration change caused Facebook services to be unavailable to some people, unquote. It's always some people with them, right? Facebook, do you not have server logs? It was everyone. Anyway, they're back, you're not banned server logs? It was everyone.

Anyway, they're back, you're not banned, and the universe continues to exist. And that's it. I told you it was a short day. More than 300 digital marketers just like you are in our Slack community. Inside you'll find exclusive deep dive episodes, jobs get posted there, people use it to get advice, all sorts of stuff. It's free to join. Just tap the link in this episode's notes or go to todayindigital.com

slash slack. Today in Digital Marketing is produced on beautiful Vancouver Island by EngageQ Digital. Production support and fact-checking by Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Music licensing by Source Audio. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends.

I'll talk to you on Monday. That is legit the same Tupperware I give my five-year-old daughter for school every day. What are you saying? Say it again. Tub-a-wear? Say it again, slow. Tub-a-wear? Slow, very slow.

Say the first syllable. Tub. Wrong. What do you mean wrong? I thought I caught that. Tub-a-wear. You're throwing bees at me. What is it?

It's bees, babe. What are you talking about? Tupperware. Tupper. It's Tupper? It's Tupper, babe. It always has been, always will be. Yeah.

Did you know that? Pimp said it was Tupper? I thought it was Tupperware because it kind of looks like a tub. So you're saying my whole life, I have a clinical doctorate degree in physical therapy. I've been walking up to people and saying, do have a clinical doctorate degree in physical therapy. I've been walking up to people and saying, do you have Tupperware? Tupperware. Or can I take that home with some Tupperware?

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