Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth

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 deliver the keynote, and founders will rotate through five hands-on workshops covering forecasting, team building, creative operating systems, paid media, and AI tooling, led by the CTC leaders who run these disciplines every day.
Tickets are on sale now. Link in show notes.
What you'll get at the workshop:
Accurate revenue forecasting that drives confident paid investment

How to build the right team and keep them (led by Dane, VP of Employee Development)

A creative operating system that scales volume without chaos (led by Ally, Dir. of Growth Strategy)

Paid social fundamentals and how to build a performing ad account (led by Tony Chopp, VP of Paid Media)

How to build scalable AI tools that actually move the needle (led by Anmar, Dir. of Profit Engineering)

Direct access to Taylor Holiday + CTC strategy staff throughout the day

Networking with other 7-figure founders in the same building moment.

Show Notes:
Axon is offering $5K ad credit when you spend $5K. Go to https://axon.ai/en/ctc to set up your first campaign.

Explore the Prophit Engine: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/prophit-engine

The Ecommerce Playbook mailbag is open — email us at podcast@commonthreadco.com to ask us any questions you might have

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 incrementality-adjusted ROAS targets, and structure campaigns for maximum profitable growth.
In this episode:
Why Google is demand harvesting, not demand creation — and why that distinction changes everything

The four-quadrant search term framework: mapping competition vs. volume to find untapped intent

Expanding your search frontier into problem and use-case queries (the silicone ring example)

Landing page strategy: matching page intent to query intent, not defaulting to generic PDPs

The trifecta: smart bidding + broad match + responsive search ads

Incrementality-adjusted bidding: Google brand benchmark = 0.27 iROAS, non-brand = 0.6 iROAS

Six-campaign structure: Brand Search, Non-Brand Search, and PMax/Shopping split by acquisition vs. retention

Brand search defense strategy: when to bid aggressively and when to pull back

Feed optimization: complete attributes, optimized titles, daily updates, less than 10% disapproval rate

How Statlas normalizes iROAS across all channels for true apples-to-apples budget allocation

Key Stat: Google brand search has an average incrementality benchmark of 0.27 — meaning most of that attributed revenue would have happened anyway. Are you bidding against platform numbers or real incremental numbers?
Show Notes:
Your free LTV audit is waiting at smile.io: https://bit.ly/4bKlMCv

Explore the Prophit Engine: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/prophit-engine

The Ecommerce Playbook mailbag is open — email us at podcast@commonthreadco.com to ask us any questions you might have

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 four-step process for liquidating slow-moving inventory in Q3 so your brand has the capital and focus it needs to win in Q4.
What we cover:
Why brands fall into either an execution gap or a strategy gap with inventory

The real cost of holding inventory, including storage fees and opportunity cost on cash

How cash constraints force brands to pull back spend and miss cohort value

The four-step liquidation process: SKU identification, financial modeling, operating plan, and asset execution

Why sequencing discounts correctly depends on your brand's historical discount behavior

How CTC's portfolio-wide data gives brands an edge on ad angles and creative strategy

Why adding a third party for liquidation adds capacity instead of displacing your evergreen business

Key insight: Brands that are cash-constrained in Q3 have to reduce new customer acquisition spend precisely when efficient CAC opportunities are available. Liquidating inventory early funds the cohorts that drive your Q4 contribution margin.
Ready to run Cashmas in July for your brand? https://commonthreadco.com/pages/cashmas-in-july
Show Notes:
Go to http://outersignal.com/thread to get 50% off your first two months
Explore the Prophit Engine: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/prophit-engine
The Ecommerce Playbook mailbag is open — email us at podcast@commonthreadco.com to ask us any questions you might have

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 expensive.
Topics covered:
Why Q3 is the lull that destroys Q4 setup

The cash event data: $156K Q3 cash generation led to 42% YoY Q4 growth

How to wrap inventory in a narrative instead of slashing prices

What CTC builds in a 30-day Cashmas event (creative, email, media, narrative)

The awareness effect: Q3 ad spend primes Q4 buyers

Why the brands that moved inventory early felt momentum, and the ones who waited felt flat

Key stat: Brands that ran Q3 cash events saw Q4 growth of 42% to 67% YoY. Brands that did nothing averaged -8% to +11%.
Cashmas in July: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/cashmas-in-july
Show Notes:
Your free LTV audit is waiting at smile.io: https://bit.ly/4bKlMCv

Explore the Prophit Engine: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/prophit-engine

The Ecommerce Playbook mailbag is open — email us at podcast@commonthreadco.com to ask us any questions you might have

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 breaks down why Facebook's auction works against you as you scale spend, how the AOV-to-CAC ratio determines your ceiling, and why Q3 is the single most important window for 7-figure brands to get this right before Q4.
In this episode:
Why growth plateaus are a business problem, not a marketing problem

How Facebook's auction gets harder as you spend more

The AOV vs. CAC framework that reveals who you're actually competing against

Why Q3 is the window to solve offer-market fit before Q4 spend ramps

How CTC's Marketing Moments service guarantees incremental revenue

The sequence that matters: product-market fit → offer-market fit → creative strategy

Key insight: Creative strategy is a volume mechanism, not an efficiency mechanism. If you're trying to solve a business problem with a marketing solution, that's where 7-figure brands go to die.
Show Notes:
Axon is offering $5K ad credit when you spend $5K. Go to https://axon.ai/en/ctc to set up your first campaign.

Explore the Prophit Engine: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/prophit-engine

The Ecommerce Playbook mailbag is open — email us at podcast@commonthreadco.com to ask us any questions you might have