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.

The Ecommerce Playbook | How Meta Actually Works in 2026

The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast
The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast
The Ecommerce Playbook | How Meta Actually Works in 2026
Loading
/

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 our profit engineers manage accounts every single day.

Topics covered:

  • How Andromeda and GEM replaced audience-first targeting

  • The breakdown effect and why historical ROAS doesn’t predict future ROAS

  • Campaign structure: evergreen vs. marketing moment campaigns

  • Signal quality, CAPI integration, and event match quality scores

  • Budget liquidity and why day-to-day spend variance is a feature, not a bug

  • The four-phase framework for solving underspend

  • Why turning off ads is the single most common mistake brands make

Key stat: Meta’s Andromeda enables a 10,000x increase in model capacity per impression opportunity.

Show Notes: