Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth

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 AO...

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 make decisions no human operator can match, and the counterintuitive principle that defines how o...

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 decisions. This is Part 3 of the CTC Canon Series — our codified methodology across the core discip...

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 actually does with them Topics covered: Why a single ROAS number can't run a business The Spending...

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 how a 60,000-contact list got fully migrated in under 30 days with less than a working day of direct invo...

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 $4 billion in GMV, combining proprietary data science with daily operational discipline to hit 3% fore...

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 advertising, email strategy, and creative strategy. It's not a pitch deck. It's the actual...

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 AI + unique knowledge + the right data creates competitive advantage The Canon: CTC's 12-yea...

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 offer-market fit. In this episode, Joy breaks down why Facebook's auction forces you...

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 full branded ads pipeline: kickoff to live ads in 10 business days Why performance data runs creative stra...

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 system behind the Profit Engine. In this episode: The weekly rhythm: reset, diagnose, align, ship,...

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 your business's DNA, the non-negotiable metrics (COGS, repeat rate, margins) that determine what&#...

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 real insights that came out of our pilot cohort sessions, including why offer-market fit...

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 you're running an 8-figure ecommerce brand and haven't tested AppLovin yet, this episo...

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% revenue increase with only 2% AMER decline   Mother's Day performance and Memorial Day prediction...

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 saw, heard, and learned at this year's summit. From Meta's push to make conversion lift st...

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 pillars of creative production assessment Why volume and velocity create more shots on goal How Meta&#3...

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 demand flows across media channels and sales channels, and why optimizing just one leaves money everywhere...

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 formula CTC uses to diagnose and fix growth for emerging brands, and why testing inside m...

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 transforms AI from unreliable to actionable. This episode also covers why Meta's Advantage+ t...

Taylor sits down with Austin Harrison, founder and CEO of Northbeam, to announce an official partnership between CTC and Northbeam. After years of public debate about attribution, they've found common ground: bringing enterprise-grade measurement to 7-figure DTC brands. In this episode, Taylor and Austin discuss their history, what's evolved in measurement, and how CTC will deliver Northbe...

What happens when a home flipper and an aspiring doctor decide to start selling lights during a pandemic? You get Lighthouse Co a curated lighting and home goods brand with 20,000+ SKUs, serving designers and homeowners across Canada and the US. In this episode, Brian Sakansky sits down with Lighthouse Co co-founders Sarah and Jason at CTC HQ in Southern California. They break down the real story...

Steve Rekuc, Director of Data at Common Thread Collective, joins Richard to break down the Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025 year-over-year data from the DTC Index. The headline: Meta spend is up 25% year over year while ROAS only degraded 3%. Google ROAS actually increased 12% despite higher spend. The platforms are getting more elastic. In this episode: Total revenue up 13.6% YoY with more coming from returnin...

The number one pain point brands bring to us: "My current agency gives me execution, not strategy." Luke and Richard, break down why that complaint, while valid, doesn't go far enough. Most brands are stuck in one of two broken relationships: An agency that only executes (you tell them what to do, they do it) A consultant that only strategizes (they give you a plan and leave) Neither...

Taylor and Luke, walk through exactly how the Prophit Engine system enables one person to deliver the work and outcome of three. This isn't about replacing people with AI. It's about what happens when you combine 12 years of methodology, a purpose-built data infrastructure, and an operator empowered by enterprise-grade tooling. In this roundtable replay, Taylor demos: How data infrastructu...