Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth

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 works, what you stop hiring for, and the kind of brand that gets the most out of it.
In this episode:
Why forecasting within 3% across $3B in GMV is now one person's job

How the Prophit Engineer role collapses three positions into one

What "Push to Build" means for Meta media buying efficiency

The Creative Demand Plan and how it eliminates creative guesswork

The total technology stack value (and why the price undercuts it by half a million)

What the ideal PE8 client actually looks like

Why the best brands let go of day-to-day and hold CTC accountable to outcomes

Key stat: CTC brands that worked with us for all of 2025 grew top-line revenue 35% and contribution margin 41.5%.
The Common Thread Collective 7-Figure Growth Workshop: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/sept-26-event
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

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 built from 504 stores, $3.35 billion in Meta ad spend, and years of iterating what actually works.
In this episode:
Why ad creative is a hits business and what the data proves

Hit rate benchmarks from Statlas: from creation to whale, 1 in 100

The Creative Demand Formula and how to calculate exactly how many ads you need

Carry rate explained: what survives, what decays, and what you control

The 5 Creative Score Metrics that determine your creative efficiency

Three levers to move performance: mine, make, and catalog

The Unified Workflow: a 5-step monthly creative planning process

Key stat: Only 0.9% of ads become whales. Top advertisers ship 12-19+ new evergreen creatives per week — and their hit rates are more than double those of smaller accounts.
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

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 episode:
Median brand revenue growth of 15.2% in H1 2026

Why spend grew 28% while revenue efficiency declined

AppLovin incrementality results across 18 tests (average: 171%)

Meta incrementality: average 113.4%, with a wide spread across brands

Why AOV is a key driver of Meta incrementality outcomes

Consumer confidence data: what all-time highs in June mean for H2

TikTok Shops, ChatGPT advertising, and Google ROAS trends

How 7-figure brands can access the sophistication of 9-figure advertisers

Key stat: Out of 18 AppLovin incrementality tests, only one came back below 100%. Five returned 225%+ incrementality. The average was 171%.
The Common Thread Collective 7-Figure Growth Workshop: http://commonthreadco.com/earlybird26
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

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