Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth
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.
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
Mentioned books
Feb 26, 2026 • 1h 30min
Turning Incrementality Tests Into Action That Makes You Money
George Davis, CMO at Cozy Earth, shares hands-on experience running holdout tests for a DTC home goods brand. Olivia Kory, Chief Strategy Officer at Haus, designs and operationalizes incrementality experiments. They discuss when to run holdouts, why results shift month-to-month, how to turn iROAS into actionable IMR, practical levers to improve tests, and how to use incrementality factors for real budget decisions.
Feb 24, 2026 • 9min
The Sales Tax “Nexus” Trap Most Brands Miss
Ryan Pinkham, VP of Go-to-Market at TaxCloud and sales-tax automation expert, explains why nexus suddenly makes sales tax complicated for growing ecommerce brands. He breaks down common brand behaviors, changing state rules like the Streamlined Sales Tax program, and a start-of-year nexus checklist to revisit after expansion. Practical, timely, and focused on avoiding costly compliance surprises.
Feb 19, 2026 • 33min
How OLLY Built a Retention Engine for a Brand Sold Everywhere
Jennifer Peters, Director of DTC, MarTech & Digital Compliance at OLLY, leads retention, loyalty, and lifecycle marketing for the gummy vitamin brand. She discusses retention beyond subscriptions. She explains using loyalty and receipt scanning to find in-store shoppers. She contrasts email vs SMS and segmentation. She covers ESP migration, partner service, and practical AI uses for lifecycle work.
Feb 17, 2026 • 31min
224 Calls Later… This One Problem Showed Up Everywhere
Luke Austin, VP of Ecommerce Strategy at Common Thread Collective, helps mid-market DTC brands unify data and measurement. He reveals how 224 sales calls exposed a single recurring problem: teams don’t trust their numbers. Short, punchy takes cover dashboard chaos, a three-step clarity framework, geo-holdout incrementality, and a new high-capacity operator role to speed decisions.
14 snips
Feb 12, 2026 • 41min
The $1M → $10M Ecom Growth Map
Joyce Sharma, Head of Global Accelerator at Common Thread Collective, builds growth roadmaps for seven-figure DTC brands. She maps one decisive move per revenue stage. Topics include creative volume and cadence, offer-market fit and testing, product plays for LTV, bespoke media/account structures, and when hiring top talent becomes the real multiplier.
Feb 10, 2026 • 42min
Stop Guessing Your Ecommerce Budget
Luke Austin, VP of e-commerce strategy who advises DTC brands on media and modeling, walks through three practical models. He explains the Spending Power Model for budget caps. He outlines the Creative Demand Plan to size ad output. He presents an Incrementality Roadmap to prioritize channel tests and reduce uncertainty.
4 snips
Feb 5, 2026 • 1h 24min
When AI Knows Everything, How Do You Decide Anything?
They explore how AI creates information overload that can paralyze ecommerce teams. Conversations cover conflicting forecasts, unreliable tests, and why more insight does not equal clearer decisions. They stress picking metrics that actually guide action, documenting playbooks for consistency, and favoring bold brand moves over endless tactical fiddling.
15 snips
Feb 3, 2026 • 30min
Agentic Commerce Is Here and It Changes Everything
Tony (Tony the Chopper Shop), an ecommerce and technical marketing practitioner focused on product data, feeds, and platform integrations. He explains agentic commerce, Shopify’s UCP work, and how AI agents can discover, compare, negotiate, and checkout for shoppers. Discussion covers why product catalogs and feeds are becoming the foundation of commerce and how social video and platform integrations make everything shoppable.
16 snips
Jan 29, 2026 • 39min
How our Prophit System Forecasts Creative Volume
Adrian Barkley, VP of performance creative at Common Thread Collective who builds creative demand models. He explains the Prophit System’s 12-month creative forecast and how it ties to spend targets. Topics include creative scoring and metrics, persona-focused ads and AI-generated briefs, vendor mixes and evergreen creative, and using forecasts to plan production cadence and expand channels.
4 snips
Jan 27, 2026 • 13min
Why Real Growth Comes From Accountability, Not Tools
The conversation centers on why durable growth comes from clear ownership and daily accountability rather than new tools. It highlights repeating forecast-measure-learn cycles, two operating rhythms for short and long wins, and the role of people in bringing software to life. Topics include confronting friction, linking team responsibilities to P&L, and the clarity-capacity-accountability framework for predictable growth.
