PODCAST · business
Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth
by Common Thread Collective
2020 transformed the world of ecommerce forever.For the modern DTC brand, the rewards have never been greater. But the waters have also never been choppier, and the way forward has never been more uncertain.So how do you navigate this dangerous new reality?No matter how you do it, you’d better not do it alone.That’s where the Ecommerce Playbook Podcast comes in — join Common Thread Collective’s Taylor Holiday & Richard Gaffin as they bring you guiding insights from across CTC’s portfolio of growing DTC businesses.Whether you need a clear view on the macro issues affecting the world of ecommerce, or want to reorient your business around groundbreaking new big-picture strategies, Taylor & Richard are here to help answer the tough questions about what it takes to scale — and sustain — an ecommerce business.
Episodes
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Low LTV Doesn’t Have to Limit Your Ecommerce Growth
Profitable ecommerce growth gets harder when repeat purchases are limited. In his Commerce Roundtable San Diego keynote, Taylor Holiday examines how Skullcandy, The Normal Brand, and Spiral Bible are growing with low customer lifetime value (LTV) and a need to make customer acquisition profitable...
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Is Your Black Friday Ad Spend Actually Driving More Sales
Black Friday ad spend can generate a different incremental return than it does during a typical sales period. Luke Austin, President of Common Thread Collective, joins Richard Gaffin to explain how incrementality testing can help you decide where your holiday budget belongs. They discuss what CTC...
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Black Friday Strategy for the Power 30 Days of Q4
Luke Austin, President of Common Thread Collective, joins Richard Gaffin to explain how to keep shoppers engaged after your Black Friday sale goes live. They break down the Power 30, the holiday window that accounts for 55% of Q4 website revenue in the data discussed, and the offer decisions that...
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The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact
Joy Sharma, who leads CTC's seven-figure service offering, joins Richard with one goal: give every 7-figure ecommerce brand a clear BFCM prep playbook before the season hits. They walk through five areas in order from least to most impact. Housekeeping: Make sure your ad account billing limit is...
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Skullcandy Is Building Black Friday Demand With TikTok Shop
By the time Black Friday arrives, Skullcandy wants customers ready to buy. Evin Catlett, Skullcandy’s Global VP of Ecommerce and Growth Marketing, joins Taylor Holiday live at Commerce Roundtable in San Diego to explain how the brand uses TikTok Shop and creator content to build demand ahead of…
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Turning Black Friday Shoppers Into Customers Who Stay
Justin Palmer, Founder & CEO of Home Life Brands, joins Taylor Holiday live at Commerce Roundtable in San Diego to discuss Black Friday customer retention and turning holiday shoppers into customers who stay.After 12 years in pet ecommerce, the company behind iHeartDogs and The Hero Company...
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Your Black Friday Sale Doesn’t Need to Last All November
Kyle Yeoman, President of Groove Life, joins Taylor Holiday live at Commerce Roundtable in San Diego to explain why the brand is pulling back on discounts. With profits tripling, Kyle breaks down the changes behind Groove Life’s turnaround, from cutting operating expenses to rebuilding product...
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The Video Volume Secret Behind Every Winning TikTok Shop Program
Tyler and Alex from TBAR just joined CTC — and in this episode, Shack sits down with them right after their first-ever stage presentation at Commerce Roundtable to break down everything they know about building winning TikTok Shop programs. This is the tactical breakdown behind one of the...
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The Machine: How We Back-Check Every Q4 Plan Before BFCM
8 year CTC veteran Garrett Hord sits down with Randall to break down what separates the brands that crush Q4 from the ones that scramble. For many ecommerce brands, 50% of annual revenue and contribution margin lands in a single 30-day window, November 13 through December 13. Most brands treat it...
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We Acquired the Fastest-Growing TikTok Shop Agency.
CTC just acquired TBAR Partners — the fastest-growing TikTok Shop agency in the country. In this episode, Luke sits down with co-founders Tyler Brechbiel and Alex Rudolph to walk through the origin story, the playbook behind their results, and what this partnership means for ecommerce brands.…
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Why September Is the Most Important Month of Your Q4
Black Friday is not won in November. According to CTC data, brands that grow their active customer file by 10% or more this year have a 77% chance of beating last year's BFCM — with a median result of 40% growth. The brands that hold back in September are the ones that underperform in Q4. Topics...
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The Supplement Industry Is Broken, Sports Cheating Is Rational, and Influence Is Misunderstood
Taylor and Andrew dig into three topics that have more in common than you think: why the supplement industry struggles to build real moats, whether the Dodgers and Clippers crossed ethical and legal lines, and the most important marketing distinction almost nobody is making between influencers…
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The Re-Hire Nobody Saw Coming
One of CTC's earliest hires just returned after years away. He left to build his own media agency, acquired a major email and retention agency, then co-founded a beverage company where mastering subscription economics was the only path to survival. Now he is back, and the skills he forged along…
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The Service That Turned a Brand's Worst Summer Into Its Best.
CTC's Marketing Moments service is built to create new revenue spikes for 7-figure brands through structured offer testing, targeted landing pages, and high-volume creative. In this episode, host Richard Gaffin sits down with Roberto Fink, Profit Engineer at CTC, to break down exactly how the...
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What a Profit Engineer Does Every Day at CTC
Most agencies promise results. Few can show you the system behind them. In this episode, Randall Thompson sits down with Jar, a Profit Engineer at CTC who previously built and scaled a multi-7-figure apparel brand, to break down exactly what the Profit Engineer role looks like day to day. From...
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Why Your Email Strategy Is Not a Content Calendar
In this episode Luke breaks down the complete CTC email methodology as part of the Canon series. This is the framework CTC uses to build email programs that generate a median of 22% of total store revenue, with the scaffolding to push well beyond that for brands operating at the highest level.…
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Diversify Now: The 6-Week Q4 Window Closing Fast
Richard and Luke (newly promoted President at CTC) break down why channel diversification is no longer optional for 8-figure ecommerce brands heading into Q4 and what creative diversification actually means when you need 1,000-plus ads per month from 100-plus creators. This episode covers the…
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We Analyzed $1.5 Billion in Meta Spend. Here's What We Found.
We connected Claude to our Statlas database and analyzed $1.5 billion in Meta spend across 320 accounts and $100 million in Google spend across 134 stores. The question: do platform bid controls actually deliver what they promise? Tony Chopp, CTC's VP of Media Investment, walks through what we...
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Ecommerce Growth With a Money-Back Guarantee
Our newest ecommerce growth offer comes with a money-back guarantee and a data advantage built in: visibility into what competitors in the same industry are actually bidding and converting at. In this episode, Taylor Holiday and Joy Sharma, who runs this offer for CTC's seven-figure clients…
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Ecommerce Growth: The 3-Pillar Framework We Use
Our President, Luke Austin, just got back from a 3-day fishing trip in Sitka, Alaska: 90 lbs of salmon, halibut, and black cod, with orcas circling the boat the whole time. But the real story is what it taught him about growing ecommerce brands. In this episode, he breaks down the three things…
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Do This to Scale Your CPG Brand — Guaranteed
Joy Sharma, CTC's Director of Accelerator, walks through a brand-new CPG growth offer backed by a 20% uplift guarantee — or your money back. The strategy combines hourly API-based budget scaling (via a Meta managed service most brands don't know exists) with industry CAC benchmarking from…
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Why 8-Figure Brands Waste Days Finger-Pointing When Results Miss (And the Fix)
When results miss at an 8-figure or 9-figure ecommerce brand, a familiar pattern kicks in. Someone asks "why did we miss?" There is no clear owner. Every team points somewhere else. Days pass before anyone agrees on what happened, let alone what to fix. Brian Sakansky, Profit Engine Manager at…
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Taylor and Andrew Debate Cost Controls (We Ran the Numbers)
Taylor and Andrew Faris sit down to debate something every performance marketer has an opinion about but almost nobody has actually tested: do Meta cost controls deliver to the bid you set?CTC reviewed $1.5 billion in Meta spend and ran a formal study on $200 million across 253 accounts from…
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The Agency Model Is Broken. We Fixed It.
Taylor Holiday and Richard Gaffin break down the Prophit Engine, CTC's system that combines a head of growth, Meta media buyer, and creative strategist into a single profit-engineered role powered by AI, Statlas, and a decade of operational methodology. They cover what you actually get, why it...
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The Math Behind Creative Hits (With Real Spend Data)
Adrianne, VP of Performance Creative at CTC, breaks down the CTC Creative Strategy Canon, the codified methodology behind how 7-figure to 9-figure ecommerce brands structure their creative programs to consistently produce winning ads. This is not a theory session. It is a data-backed framework...
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D2C Brands Grew 15% in H1 (But At What Cost)
In this episode Richard and Steve break down H1 2026 performance data from across the CTC client portfolio, covering brand revenue growth, ad spend efficiency, incrementality testing results by platform, and the latest signals from the D2C Consumer Confidence Index. Topics covered in this…
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We're Opening Our Doors to 7-Figure Founders This September
Richard breaks down what's holding most 7-figure brands back from crossing into 8-figure territory, and announces CTC's first in-person workshop designed to close that gap. On September 2nd, 2026, CTC is hosting the Seven-Figure Growth Workshop at our Costa Mesa office. Taylor Holiday will…
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Google Ads: CTC's Complete Playbook
Tony Chopp, VP of Paid Media at Common Thread Collective, breaks down CTC's Google Ads Canon, the complete framework we use to turn Google into a true demand-harvesting machine for 7-9 figure ecommerce brands. Learn how to expand your search frontier beyond product queries, set...
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Your Unsold Inventory Is Costing You More Than You Think
Most ecommerce brands head into Q4 carrying too much inventory and not enough cash, and those two problems are directly connected. In this episode, Richard Gaffin sits down with Anmar Anmar Abdul Jawad, Director of Profit Engineering at CTC, to walk through the Cashmas in July framework, a...
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Cashmas in July: Turn Q3 Inventory Into Q4 Cash
Stale inventory and thin cash flow are the two things that show up in nearly every Q3 conversation we have with ecommerce brands. In this episode, Richard Gaffin and Randall Thompson break down Cashmas in July, a CTC framework for turning slow-moving inventory into real cash before Q4 bets get...
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How 7-Figure Brands Can Win in Q3
Joy Sharma runs CTC's PE7 program for mid to high 7-figure brands. His claim: if you're stuck at a growth plateau, he can diagnose what's wrong without looking at your ad account. The answer is almost never creative. It's almost never ad structure. It's offer-market fit. In this episode, Joy…
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How Meta Actually Works in 2026
Meta has fundamentally changed how it targets and delivers ads, and most brands are still operating on the old rules. In this episode, CTC's VP of Paid Media Tony Chopp breaks down the CTC Methodology for Meta advertising: why creative is now the targeting, how Meta's Andromeda and GEM systems…
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The Measurement Gap: iROAS, Geo Holdouts, and Progressive Truth
Your platform ROAS is not the truth. It's a story your attribution tool tells you. Luke Austin, breaks down exactly how CTC approaches marketing measurement — and why the gap between platform-reported numbers and actual incremental revenue is where most brands make their worst capital allocation...
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The Modeling System That Powers 30%+ Revenue Growth
Most brands forecast from gut feel and ROAS. CTC runs on four interlocked proprietary models that produce a daily P&L forecast with 3.1% accuracy across more than $3 billion in GMV. In Part 2 of the Canon series, Luke Austin breaks down each model, how they connect, and what a Profit Engineer...
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Why Rutsu Switched Email Platforms Mid-Growth (And What It Actually Took)
Every dollar spent on SaaS is a dollar that does not go into ads. In this episode, Luke Austin sits down with Gil Dyen, Head of Marketing at Rutsu Barefoot, to walk through a real email and SMS platform migration to Omnisend — what drove the decision, what the process actually looked like, and…
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How We Forecast $4B in GMV to 3% Accuracy
Every forecast is wrong. The question is whether yours is useful. Luke Austin, walks through the CTC Methodology series opener: a complete operating model for making profit predictable across ecommerce brands. This is not a spreadsheet. It is a four-step system built on 12 years of experience and...
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How One Methodology Runs 170+ Brands
What if your agency published every opinion, every framework, and every strategy they use to grow your brand? That's exactly what CTC just did. The Canon is a decade of ecommerce methodology distilled into seven categories: technology, forecasting, marketing measurement, Meta advertising, Google...
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12 Years of Agency Knowledge in One Document
Taylor Holiday reveals the system CTC built to deploy 12 years of ecommerce knowledge across every brand they manage. From AI-powered scouting reports for his son's Little League team to the Canon, CTC's institutional playbook, and the MCP database now free for every client. Topics covered: How…
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Offer-Market Fit: Why 7-Figure Brands Hit a Wall
Joy Sharma runs CTC's PE7 program for mid to high 7-figure brands pushing toward 8 figures. His claim: if you're stuck at a growth plateau and you've tried more creative, new ad structures, and different platforms, we can tell you what's wrong without even looking at your account. The answer is...
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The Branded Ads System Behind 170+ Ecommerce Brands
How do you build branded ads fast enough to find winners at scale? Nisha Fermawi, Senior Branded Ads Manager at CTC, breaks down the exact system that delivers ad plans in 24 hours, moves to production in a week, and uses performance data to drive every creative decision. In This Episode: The…
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What a Profit Engineer Actually Does All Day
What does a CTC Profit Engineer actually do all day? Brian Sakansky, Profit Engineer Manager at CTC, breaks down the exact daily, weekly, and monthly cadence behind managing 7, 8, and 9-figure eCommerce brands. From Monday's plan reset to Friday's close-the-loop review, this is the operating…
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Why Most Founders Set the Wrong Growth Goals
Randall Thompson built an ecommerce brand from scratch, scaled it to eight figures, and sold it. Along the way, he learned that the goals he set had almost nothing to do with what his business could actually deliver. In this episode, Randall joins Richard to break down what it means to understand...
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Join Our Growth Mastermind (Here's What's Inside)
Growth Mastermind What if you could get weekly strategy sessions with a senior CTC profit engineer, full Statlas access, and a private cohort of brands at your stage, all for $500/month?That's the Next Level Growth Mastermind.Richard breaks down exactly what's inside, who it's built for, and five...
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We Tested AppLovin Discovery for 4 Months. Here's What Happened.
CTC's AppLovin specialist Connaugh is back four months after our first episode on the platform to break down what's actually working. Discovery campaigns are averaging 284% incrementality, 45-60 second video creative is where the spend goes, and the tactical playbook is starting to take shape. If...
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Consumer Confidence vs Rising Oil Prices
In this episode, Steve Rekuc breaks down the latest DTC Index findings showing 14.5% revenue growth year-over-year, even as brands face margin pressure. We dive into Mother's Day performance data and what it signals for Memorial Day and Father's Day spending patterns. Topics Covered: 14.5%…
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What We Learned at the 2026 Meta Summit
We just got back from the 2026 Meta Performance Marketing Summit, and the biggest takeaway wasn't a single feature or tool. It was the realization that the brands growing the fastest right now are operating in two completely different worlds at the same time. Luke Austin breaks down everything we...
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Stop Gambling on Creative - Use This 6-Pillar Assessment Framework
In this episode, Richard sits down with Ian Jordan, VP of Private Equity Partnerships at CTC, to unveil our brand new Creative Assessment Quiz. This 6-pillar framework helps 7-9 figure brands move from placing bets to making strategic investments in creative production. Key Topics Covered: The 6...
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TikTok Shop, Incrementality, and the New Growth Playbook
Every satisfied customer creates demand you never see. It spills across Meta, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and your DTC site, and most brands have no system for tracking it, let alone capturing it. In this episode, Luke Austin introduces the ecommerce Demand Cascade: a framework for understanding how...
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Why Your Ads Aren't Working
You're spending $20 per ad and it's not working. You think you need more creative volume. But the real problem? You don't have your customer journey figured out. In this episode, Joy Sharma breaks down why 7-figure brands get stuck, and it's almost never a creative problem. He shares the exact...
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Why Meta's AI Has No Point of View
In today's episode Taylor walks through a live Statlas demo showing why AI tools hallucinate when they lack business context. He shows how the same data produces wildly different (and wrong) recommendations without a methodology layer, then demonstrates how CTC's hierarchy of metrics framework...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
2020 transformed the world of ecommerce forever.For the modern DTC brand, the rewards have never been greater. But the waters have also never been choppier, and the way forward has never been more uncertain.So how do you navigate this dangerous new reality?No matter how you do it, you’d better not do it alone.That’s where the Ecommerce Playbook Podcast comes in — join Common Thread Collective’s Taylor Holiday & Richard Gaffin as they bring you guiding insights from across CTC’s portfolio of growing DTC businesses.Whether you need a clear view on the macro issues affecting the world of ecommerce, or want to reorient your business around groundbreaking new big-picture strategies, Taylor & Richard are here to help answer the tough questions about what it takes to scale — and sustain — an ecommerce business.
HOSTED BY
Common Thread Collective
CATEGORIES
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How many episodes does Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth have?
Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth currently has 469 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth about?
2020 transformed the world of ecommerce forever.For the modern DTC brand, the rewards have never been greater. But the waters have also never been choppier, and the way forward has never been more uncertain.So how do you navigate this dangerous new reality?No matter how you do it, you’d better not...
How often does Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth release new episodes?
Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth publishes regularly with 469 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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Who hosts Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth?
Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth is created and hosted by Common Thread Collective.
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