Daniel McCarthy 
Assistant Professor of Marketing | Emory University, Goizueta Business School
Atlanta, GA, UNITED STATES
Marketing expert focused upon methodologies and frameworks for predicting customer behavior to better understand firm-level outcomes
Spotlight
Biography
I am an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta School of Business. My research specialty is the application of leading-edge statistical methodology to contemporary empirical marketing problems. My research interests include customer lifetime value, missing and aggregated data problems, and the marketing/finance interface.
My research specialty is “customer-based corporate valuation” which brings together all of these research interests. It is a methodology for valuing companies from the “bottom up” by predicting what those companies’ customers will do in the future. My work in this area has been featured in major media outlets such as the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, FT, Fortune, Barron’s, Inc Magazine, the Economist, and CNBC. I won the Don Lehmann Award, the MSI Alden G. Clayton, ASA, ISMS, and Shankar-Spiegel Dissertation Proposal Competitions and was a finalist for the John A. Howard/AMA, JM Hunt/Maynard, and MSI H. Paul Root Awards for this work. I am grateful to Adobe Corporation for $50,000 in research support for it.
My research has been accepted and published in top-tier academic journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the American Statistical Association: Theory and Methods, Statistica Sinica, and the Annals of Applied Statistics.
In 2015, I co-founded a predictive analytics company, Zodiac, where I was the Chief Statistician. Zodiac was acquired by Nike in March 2018. I subsequently co-founded Theta Equity Partners to commercialize my work on customer-based corporate valuation.
Areas of Expertise (7)
Missing Data
Customer relationship management (CRM) using Digital Marketing and Analytics
Customer-Based Corporate Valuation
Marketing-Finance Interface
Customer Lifetime Value
Bayesian Computation
Valuation
Education (3)
University of Pennsylvania: PhD, Statistics 2017
University of Pennsylvania: BSc, Economics 2006
University of Pennsylvania: BAS, Systems Science Engineering 2006
Links (2)
In the News (28)
Can E-Scooters Contribute to Economic Recovery Post-Covid-19?
Spin online
2021-03-11
“The post-COVID economic recovery remains slow, but this research shows we shouldn’t ignore the positive impact of micromobility on small businesses,” said Dan McCarthy, senior author of the study and assistant professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School."
Scooters Drive Significant Spending in Cities, New Emory Study Finds
Bird online
2021-03-11
“All the data points to the same conclusion: e-scooters drive consumer spending and likely provide a significant financial boon to local economies,” said McCarthy.
DoorDash IPO and customer valuation
Wharton Business Radio radio
2020-12-10
“I wasn’t surprised in the sense that the timing for the IPO couldn’t have been more perfect. They were putting up 100-200% gross year on year for 5 years in a row before COVID, COVID shot up their growth to 200% a year, they had the Prop 22 ruling which went in their favor, they’ve been cash flow positive for the past couple of quarters, hot IPO market – this was a great time for them to IPO and the market reacted accordingly.”
DoorDash poised to grow despite challenges, experts say ahead of public debut
S&P Global: Market Intelligence online
2020-12-08
Even before the pandemic hit, customers who stay with the firm tend to place more and more orders over time," Daniel McCarthy, assistant professor of marketing at Emory University, told Market Intelligence.
Remote learning boots back-to-school spending
NPR Marketplace online
2020-08-11
"Back-to-school shopping is mirroring what parents may have bought for themselves at the start of the pandemic,” said Daniel McCarthy, a marketing professor at Emory University.
Big-data marketing initiatives help organizations capitalize on new growth, experts say
Atlanta Business Chronicle online
2020-05-19
“Transitioning certain business processes to be more integrated and customer-centric is taking a lot longer than it should due to functional silos,” McCarthy said.
Corporate Valuation Will Never Be the Same — Nor Should It
Financial Times online
2020-04-24
McCarthy adds, “You always want to play good offense, but in a bear market, playing good defense [using CBCV] can be what keeps you in the game.”
Blue Apron Will Have Trouble Keeping Its Newfound Customers
Markets Insider online
2020-04-14
Dan McCarthy, assistant professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, recently told Yahoo Finance that this newfound business isn’t the answer. “The amount of repeat business they were getting was not enough to sustain their business,” McCarthy said in a phone interview. “It’s likely delaying the inevitable.”
Wayfair shares surge 37% as coronavirus drives sales of office furniture and home decor
CNBC online
2020-04-06
The fact that Wayfair is seeing an increase in sales makes sense,” said Dan McCarthy, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University. “Wayfair had no physical stores, while its competitors do, which those competitors could not sell through.”
Blue Apron Fends Off Obscurity in Another 15 Minutes of Fame
Bloomberg online
2020-03-27
“The amount of repeat business they were getting was not enough to sustain their business,” McCarthy said in a phone interview. “It’s likely delaying the inevitable.”
Investors Need to Know: What’s Your Customer Worth?
Net Promoter System online
2020-03-12
Dan McCarthy, of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and cofounder of Theta Equity Partners, explains how transparent disclosures about customer value would fundamentally change investor and executive behavior.
Now There’s a Way to Link Customer Behavior to Share Price
Net Promoter System online
2020-02-27
Dan McCarthy of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and cofounder of Theta Equity Partners explains how “customer-based corporate valuation” makes customer behavior a critical element of financial valuation.
Casper prices IPO at $12 a share, which is at the low end of estimates
CNBC online
2020-02-05
“When Casper’s last [funding] round was done, the mattress category was growing quite nicely,” said Dan McCarthy, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business.
How to Value a Company by Analyzing Its Customers
Harvard Business Review online
2020-01-01
This article details how managers and investors can utilize models of customer acquisition, attrition, and spending to gain new insights into the value of a firm.
Why Peloton Stock Dropped More Than 10% After ‘Sexist’ Ad Backlash
Forbes online
2019-12-05
Daniel McCarthy, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, attributes the stock price volatility directly to the ad.
Peloton's hot IPO prospects: How much is just spin?
CBS News tv
2019-09-26
"According to the math, says McCarthy of Emory's Goizueta Business School, if just 0.65% of Peloton's customers abandon its streaming services each month, then the average customer sticks around for nearly 13 years. That may be overly optimistic."
Finding the Value in IPOs: Why Customer Behavior Holds the Key
The Wharton School (K@W) online
2019-08-13
“Not all revenue growth is created equal.”
Outlook for Slack's opening trade on the NYSE through a direct listing
Yahoo! Finance online
2019-06-20
“We’ve been hearing this $26 reference price that equates to a $16 billion equity valuation, and conservatively I put their valuation at closer to $18 billion, or even higher than that.”
Costs Catch Back Up With Wayfair
The Wall Street Journal online
2019-05-02
"... while in the fourth quarter the company’s customer-acquisition costs hovered around $77 per customer, in the first quarter it shot up to $88 per customer, a new high, according to Daniel McCarthy, a marketing professor at Emory."
Wayfair shares plunge 12% as losses widen, hurt by high costs
CNBC online
2019-03-01
"The company is also spending a lot to acquire new customers, according to Daniel McCarthy, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University. He has been warning about this trend for some time. In the first quarter, customer acquisition costs were $88 per customer."
Why and How to Transition to a Subscription Business
CFO online
2018-10-02
Such benefits as predictable recurring revenue, easier borrowing, and strong cash flow are just for starters. However, there are risks as well.
The World's Most Ruthless Food Startup: The Inside Story of How HelloFresh Clawed Its Way to the Top
Inc. print
2018-06-28
HelloFresh blew past 100 competitors to become the No. 1 meal-kit company on the planet. The German startup is winning--but not by playing nice.
Upstart meal-kit companies may need a new recipe for growth
The Economist print
2018-04-14
Competition from supermarket chains is eating into their profits
The Wayfair Riddle
The Wall Street Journal print
2018-02-12
A recent study by marketing professors Daniel McCarthy of Emory University and Peter Fader of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that Wayfair spends about $69 to acquire each new customer, but only earns $59 back from each acquisition. Using a method of valuing publicly traded retailers that focuses on customer retention, Professors McCarthy and Fader conclude that Wayfair is overvalued by 84%.
A new study shows Wayfair is losing money...
Markets Insider online
2017-09-27
In a lengthy paper released late last week, Daniel McCarthy, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University, and Peter Fader, a marketing professor at Wharton, present a new method of valuing publicly-traded retailers that focuses on customer retention. Wayfair is an unfortunate guinea pig example.
Blue Apron Holdings Inc. is struggling to win over investors in its initial public offering, a disappointing development for a U.S. IPO market that has been on the rebound.
The Wall Street Journal online
2017-06-28
Blue Apron Holdings Inc. is struggling to win over investors in its initial public offering, a disappointing development for a U.S. IPO market that has been on the rebound.
Blue Apron Slashes Potential IPO Price; Blame Amazon and Whole Foods?
Barron’s online
2017-06-28
Looming competition and weak fundamentals seem to have put a damper on Blue Apron’s IPO plans.
Subscription Businesses Are Booming. Here’s How to Value Them
Harvard Business Review online
2017-12-19
While there are no cut and dry solutions, the customer-based corporate valuation methodology can help both businesses and investors to better understand the value associated with a subscription-based model.
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