The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast

Hosted ByTaylor Holiday & Richard Gaffin

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.

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The Ecommerce Playbook | Why 8-Figure Brands Waste Days Finger-Pointing When Results Miss (And the Fix)

August 10, 2026 The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast 00:22:20
The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast
The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast
The Ecommerce Playbook | Why 8-Figure Brands Waste Days Finger-Pointing When Results Miss (And the Fix)
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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 CTC, calls this the finger-pointing problem. It is not a personality issue. It is a structural one. And the structure most agencies use, where performance is measured by channel KPIs like ROAS or CPM, is exactly what creates it.

In this episode, Brian walks through how CTC’s Prophit Engine eliminates blame cycles entirely by tying the agency contract to business outcomes, specifically contribution margin, not channel metrics. When CTC is accountable to the brand’s P&L rather than Meta performance, CTC is no longer defending the ad account. They are solving for the business.

Brian also explains how Statlas gives brands a daily green/red view of whether each channel hit its expected target, how Profit Engineers pull the right levers when a channel misses, and what brands can do right now if they are not yet on the Prophit Engine.

Show Notes: