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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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,…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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….
Read More
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)…
Read More
