BLACK FRIDAY BOOTCAMP 2026 — FREERegister Now → Black Friday Bootcamp — FREERegister →

Listen Now

Tyler and Alex from TBAR just joined CTC — and in this episode, Shack sits down with them right after their first-ever stage presentation at Commerce Roundtable to break down everything they know about building winning TikTok Shop programs.

This is the tactical breakdown behind one of the fastest-growing creator commerce agencies in the space: how they built their client roster (Ridge, David Protein, Jones Road and more), why video volume beats virality every time, how they structure creator communities in Discord, and where social commerce is heading next.

In This Episode:

  • Why TikTok limits views on shoppable videos (and why that actually doesn't matter)

  • The GMV Max algorithm explained: why it's a slot machine, not a science

  • How to get 3 videos back for every sample you send

  • The creator community flywheel: Discord, coaching, competitions, retainers

  • Halo effect to Amazon, Shopify, and retail — when to expect it and how to measure it

  • Where social commerce is heading: YouTube Shop, Meta Reels, and live selling

Show Notes:

Watch on YouTube

[00:00:00] Alex: But like it normally takes like a month to build the program up. Um, but like for us and like our focus is not to get one viral video.

[00:00:07] Alex: We wanna get like thousands of videos, right? But like I wouldn't say like they're, they're viral videos because I will say like TikTok Shop, TikTok, they limit how many views that these shoppable videos get, right? So like

[00:00:19] Shack: I didn't know that. Wait, is that... I didn't know that

[00:00:21] Alex: they don't want like when you s- when you go on TikTok the app, they don't want their feed to be just TikTok Shop videos,

[00:00:27] Speaker: This episode of The Ecommerce Playbook is brought to you by Lutik. On Meta, you give the algorithm a portfolio of ads, and it predicts which creative each impression should see. Imagine if you only ran two creatives and A/B tested them, your performance would be dramatically worse. Lutik brings the same thinking to landing pages and the post-click experience.

[00:00:48] Speaker: You'll generate on-brand landing pages in Lutik or add pages you built with Claude or ChatGPT. Lutik predicts which page to show for each ad click so you can focus on iterating and moving quickly. Expect a significant lift in sales by giving every paid click a better page to land on. CTC listeners get twenty-five thousand dollars in Lutik platform credits.

[00:01:09] Speaker: Start with a no-platform-fee proof phase. If Lutik proves lift and you continue, the credits apply to future platform fees. Claim the offer at lutik.com/ctc. That's L-U-T-I-Q dot com slash ctc.

[00:01:23] Shack: What is up everybody? We are back with a pretty incredible episode. These guys that I'm talking to have had a hell of a whirlwind of a couple weeks. I feel like we were just recently playing golf on the course, and we did okay. I think, I think you, I ended up beating me and Taylor Hall. Did you, did you beat all of us or no?

[00:01:43] Alex: I think we got first place, didn't we, Tyler?

[00:01:47] Tyler: I think, I think if I remember correctly, I think Taylor left after the 13th poll 'cause he was losing so bad. If I remember correctly, I don't know

[00:01:54] Shack: yeah, I, I remember that too actually, now that you think about it. I think he just literally gave up and walked off the course, which is kind of, it's unusual for him. Usually he likes to stick all the way around and, and just like end up losing. But yeah, you've first off won on the course, which is pretty incredible.

[00:02:07] Shack: Then you hit your very first stage. We had a, a pretty, pretty big event at Commerce Roundtable, and then we're able to announce, obviously at this point when this comes out, the acquisition of you guys joining onto CTC. And look, I've known about you guys for quite some time 'cause we're both pretty aggressive in this, uh, LinkedIn growth marketing and talking about our services, which I think for this episode I really wanna do two core things.

[00:02:29] Shack: One, talk about like how'd you get here? Like you guys have sped run this thing and it's an important market. It's, it's really, really necessary for all of our brands. Like I'm starting to see this in the internal channels of like people that are wanting to have CTC services or actually just wanting to have a lot of like TBAR services now that's underneath the CTC umbrella, which is so cool for me to see on the marketing and the sales side of things.

[00:02:50] Shack: And lastly is you guys then ended up going back home to on campus and you guys are growing and building this back in the lab again. So my first question is, how was it jumping on stage for both of you? I know you both had two individual different roles that you played in the, in the presentation, but, um, give me the beginning of when you guys were just about to jump on stage to the rehearsal, to how you guys think you did.

[00:03:17] Tyler: Uh, yeah, I would say so there's a lot going on around the time of the event. So to be honest, Alex and I did not practice at all until the day before when you took us on stage. So that was our first practice. And so I thought the practice went, went pretty well. Um, and then also the, the pitch deck we put or the slide deck that we put together, I maybe prepared it like a week before, I think, Alex.

[00:03:40] Tyler: Like I, I don't even really remember when we prepared it, but it was-- There was so much going on where it was last minute

[00:03:45] Alex: Our mindset, and we do this on our sales calls, is like we are better talking to somebody, the audience, whatever, than reading off a slide deck. So we kind of put that together while the acquisition was going through, and we're like, "Okay, we're just gonna see, you know, the slides," but really talk and explain to the audience, um, you know, w-what it was.

[00:04:04] Alex: So we were, uh, I don't know, I think right before we got on we were a little nervous. We, we, we were kind of pacing back and forth for like five minutes with our little mic on, um, kind of tweaked that a little bit. But like, I don't know, like I, I was more nervous-- I was telling Tyler this, I was more nervous for an online podcast I did like a few months ago than I was for Commerce Roundtable.

[00:04:05] Alex: And I think the reason why, and I think I credit, I credit to you and the event, like one, the rehearsal the night before was great, and I just felt like the stage and how everything was set up was very comforting. And like having like, you know, you as the emcee and the people that we knew, and it was just like, okay, this is just like a room full of people that we've, you know, already spoke with.

[00:04:06] Alex: Um, and

[00:04:39] Shack: Sure

[00:04:47] Alex: I, I honestly felt pretty comfortable. I was, I was a little nervous beforehand, but like I th- I, I thought it went pretty well.

[00:04:56] Tyler: I agree. Yeah, I think it went well. I would say the worst part was the anticipation, just like waiting for us to do it. Like, we really couldn't enjoy ourselves 'cause we knew it was lingering. But like, once we got it, like, u-up there, it just kinda entered that flow state where it's just... Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't that bad.

[00:05:09] Tyler: And then after, we felt great and, you know, we were able to enjoy ourselves a little bit more. And then we got some reassurance from people that we did pretty well, so, uh, that was great too

[00:05:19] Shack: It's the number one fear people have. It's like spiders, dr- heights, drowning, and then like on stage having a presentation. Like it's all-- it's, it's one of the hardest things for people to do. And I was, I was, I don't know, I think I might have been telling this to you, Alex, it's like it is kind of our duty, like as, as if we wanna be men in business or if we wanna be even if w-women in business.

[00:05:40] Shack: But if you wanna be a, a person in business that's trying to do big things, which you guys clearly are, you have to hit stages, you have to give presentations, you have to get people to listen, you have to be compelling, you have to do all these different kinda non-work related things, uh, or like w- get the work done related things.

[00:05:58] Shack: You have to be able to like talk about it. And so just being a host for you guys and seeing it, like I wanted to go above and beyond and like get you guys in a really good spot. Taylor Holiday kicked us off, which you and I both know that dude is, uh, he delivered the presentation to me that morning, okay?

[00:06:12] Shack: So I, we, none of us saw it. It was beautifully done, of course. Um, the data was there, his energy was there, and he delivered in his, uh, his Taylor Holiday manner as he does. And so it was, it was cool, especially I remember the very first time I did a presentation, which was at this point 10 and a half years ago.

[00:06:28] Shack: Um, I did it with actually a CTC client, Pop Socks. So like there's a very full circle moments in all this. And the one thing I remember, and I'll tell everybody, anybody that's listening, is like nobody knows what you're about to say. They only know how it comes across. So if you have that confidence, if your, if your chest is out and you're speaking correctly, dude, it's, it's all day.

[00:06:46] Shack: It's, you can do, it's al- it's almost what I like to call, it's automatic and it's a back pocket talk, a talk at any time that you can pull it out and deliver it. And so I think you have, and I, I, I get a look at this and stare at it here 'cause what blows me away, dude, is I'm, I'm just gonna read off Byte, Melting Forest, One Up, Jones Road, Grunes, Ridge, David, Create, Goally, Equip, Hollow.

[00:07:08] Shack: You have Alp, you have like the, the names of the names of the names on this. And, and I'm actually curious like why, why and how did you get all these ones? And where did most of this like interest come from?

[00:07:21] Alex: So early on when we started the agency, we asked ourselves the question, it was like, where are the business owners? And they're on LinkedIn. So we started posting on LinkedIn. Tyler made a post way back in the day when we first started, I think it was like two weeks after we started the agency, essentially calling out David Protein, like how we would take them from zero to a million dollars a month on TikTok shop, and then he would tag the found- he tagged the founders in that post.

[00:07:48] Alex: It worked like really well, so we just started spamming that post, and then it

[00:07:53] Shack: by one

[00:07:53] Alex: It, it got copied eventually, but it worked for like three months. It was insane.

[00:07:59] Shack: I mean, the thing that, the hardest thing about this is, and I'm learning this firsthand, is like as I'm trying to build a, a, a, a TikTok program and, and a creator platform, it is actually a lot of like upstart. Like there's so much like thinking and strategy and program building out of this. And I even, even the way if I look at like this is you, you go, what is a poor program?

[00:08:19] Shack: What does a poor program look like? And I'm gonna name the five things I want you like to call out in the order. Maybe they are in the right order. Sample volume is low. A bad program has low sample volume. A bad sample problem is you're shipping... Like you don't have enough samples shipped to how many videos that these people are gonna be posting.

[00:08:36] Shack: No creator community or any loyalty to the brand, which I, I don't really wanna talk about a lot of that 'cause Tyler, I know you spent a good portion of the presentation on what does that community potentially look like. No contents, flywheel, and spillover. We'll spend some time on this one right now, and then the bottom of funnel is the only content that's ending up converting.

[00:08:54] Shack: So when you look at TikTok as a channel, is it a bottom of funnel channel? Is it a top of funnel? Do you think it's a full funnel? How do you view this?

[00:09:04] Tyler: Uh, so I would say inherently, like it's top of funnel, but it also plays a part in the entire funnel. So like, obviously you have like the impressions that are now flowing down to like Amazon, and you talk about the halo effect. Um, and so that's where like the real top of funnel comes from is, is those impressions and the halo effect to Amazon or retail or D2C.

[00:09:21] Tyler: Um, but then you also have the content play. And so like you have all these creators posting content, and so most brands are getting a couple hundred pieces of content per month from TikTok Shop, if not thousands at scale. Um, and a lot of those creatives are really good creative that performs on Meta.

[00:09:35] Tyler: Not every brand's actually taking that content and using it on Meta, but the ones that are are seeing a ton of success. And so I always go back to like the case study. I know we presented this for Ridge. Like 20% of their Meta budget right now is going towards our TikTok Shop content, and they haven't even been on the platform for, I think it's been like six, maybe seven months that they've been on the platform.

[00:09:55] Tyler: Um, and 20% of their Meta budget is going towards their TikTok content. And so they're seeing a ton of value from that, uh, the TikTok Shop as a platform. And I would say most like d- big D2C brands aren't looking at TikTok Shop as a sales channel, 'cause it's not like this massive sales channel that's gonna change your business.

[00:10:11] Tyler: But it's probably the most insane, valuable channel, like once you get cr- that creator flywheel going, a viral video, and I know a lot of brands see this, just like that, that top-of-funnel awareness, it gets pretty insane across all channels 'cause you see it everywhere

[00:10:26] Speaker: Most paid social teams run dozens, hundreds, even thousands of ads. They haven't been able to experiment with landing pages at the same scale because traditional A/B testing makes the team wait for every new test to reach statistical significance. Meta can quickly figure out which ad to show to whom.

[00:10:43] Speaker: Lutiq does the same thing after the click. Generate on-brand pages in Lutiq or add pages you built with Claude or ChatGPT. Lutiq predicts which landing page each click should see to maximize conversion rates so you can test more ideas and scale much faster. You'll expect a significant lift in conversion rates.

[00:11:02] Speaker: CTC listeners get $25,000 in Lutiq platform credits. Start with a no-platform-fee proof phase. If Lutiq proves lift and you continue, the credits apply to future platform fees. Claim the offer at lutiq.com/ctc. That's L-U-T-I-Q dot com slash ctc.

[00:11:20] Shack: Well, they, they, they say like you can't plan for virality. Have you seen most of the brands have like one or two that take off? And like usually how long does it take for a brand to be like, "Oh my gosh, like that one video kind of put us on"?

[00:11:34] Alex: It normally takes like at least a month to get like things rolling. Like, but once you get that first viral video, it just snowballs and you get, you get 10, then you get 100, and it just goes from there. But like it normally takes like a month to build the program up. Um, but like for us and like our focus is not to get one viral video.

[00:11:53] Alex: We wanna get like thousands of videos, right? But like I wouldn't say like they're, they're viral videos because I will say like TikTok Shop, TikTok, they limit how many views that these shoppable videos get, right? So like

[00:12:05] Shack: I didn't know that. Wait, is that... I didn't know that

[00:12:07] Alex: they don't want like when you s- when you go on TikTok the app, they don't want their feed to be just TikTok Shop videos, right?

[00:12:13] Alex: They want like I think it's like 10% of their entire feed to be shop videos. So they lower the amount of views on these shoppable videos. So it's less about virality, right? And views. It's more about getting so much content like so, like, like volume of videos, right? Volume of videos with the product tag.

[00:12:32] Alex: It's more about that. So like our goal, right? Like after a month is to get at least 1,000 videos back for the brand. Those videos then go into GMV Max, right? TikTok Shop's ad algorithm. Money goes behind those videos. That's how that virality happens. But like the view side, like views are kind of irrelevant on TikTok Shop because TikTok, you know, inherently limits the views on these shoppable videos.

[00:12:54] Alex: But like it's all about how many videos you're getting back.

[00:12:57] Shack: Okay, so this is why you're telling me... Okay, this makes a lot more sense. You're wanting to get as many of the videos back as possible. You're not looking to, like, go viral and, and you're like, "I need to get the 1,000 videos in." That's like a good base mark for your head 'cause it's not just 1,000 videos, it's 1,000 videos from, like, the minimum GMV floor, which you guys recommend and believe in, which is, like, at least 3,000 in GMV generated from a creator.

[00:13:21] Shack: Is that, is that fair to say? Is it changing? Uh, 'cause some people keep telling me it's 5,000, it's 10,000. I feel like that's unrealistic for brands just starting on the program.

[00:13:30] Tyler: It, it, it changes all the time. So, like some of our brands are at 1K GMB when they're just starting, and then you have some of the brands that are-- have a lot of brand equity, and they're getting all the top creators requesting samples. And so, that criteria can be a lot higher. So, it really just-- we kind of play that based off creator interest.

[00:13:45] Tyler: I would say most brands are probably in that 3K to 5K range for samples. Um, and then we also look at post rate. So, like usually post rate's gonna be 60%, 70%, sometimes 50%, um, or above is what we're looking for from creators

[00:13:59] Alex: In that slide, like that's all custom for the b- for the brand, like Tyler said. Like we have brands where we'll set, you know, a baseline of anybody above 10K GMV, 70% post rate. We have brands where it's 1K GMV, 50% post rate. But like Tyler said, and he hit it on the head, it's all about affiliate demand. If you have really good affiliates requesting samples, you just raise the bar.

[00:14:19] Alex: If you don't have good affiliates requesting samples, you have to lower it. Um, but like that's all done on the outreach side. Like that big, that big bullet point, uh, the sample shipped to video volume ratio, that's like, I, I guess at a high level, like our main focus as an agency is how can we get as many videos back per sample we send?

[00:14:39] Alex: So if we send a sample, we wanna get at least three videos back per that sample. These affiliates are only required to make one video, right? So if we send 1,000 samples, instead of, instead of getting 1,000 videos back, which is, you know, all you're required to get back, we wanna get 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 videos back.

[00:14:56] Alex: 'Cause GMV max and GMV, right, revenue on TikTok Shop, it's, it's a direct correlation with video volume. The more videos you get on TikTok Shop, GMV naturally follows. So we wanna get as many videos back

[00:15:09] Shack: Got it.

[00:15:09] Tyler: that is how GMV Max works. So like if you-- when you look at GMV Max, GMV Max is an algorithm, so nobody knows what actually goes into the algorithm. We just know,

[00:15:17] Shack: black box

[00:15:19] Tyler: yeah, we just know that it's like if you have a slot machine, you spin it 100 times, the person that spins it 100 times has a lot likely ch- more likely chance than the person that spins it one time to hit the jackpot.

[00:15:27] Tyler: And so it's like, that's why there's that volume game, 'cause the more shots you get up on a free algorithm, the more free videos you post, the higher chance you have it going viral. And then it's also based how-- off of how GMV Max actually performs. So like when a video goes into GMV Max, it reads all that data of like, what was the hook?

[00:15:44] Tyler: What was the angle? And then it g- and if it does well, let's say that video goes viral, it was a video on how to make your hair grow or something. It was a hair growth supplement, uh, for older women, and it would take that angle, find all the other videos just like that, and start putting spend behind it.

[00:16:00] Tyler: And so that's why it's a, it's a, a video volume game. So the more angles we can get matching those that are working, the more it's gonna continue to spend and scale up.

[00:16:08] Shack: Well, one of the coolest things that you taught me after this, and I've actually started using this on some, some like, at least how I'm like educating other people as they jump in the market is, and if you're listening to this on, on-- You're gonna have to watch the video. You're gonna have to go to YouTube because I'm showing this on screen is this was such a good example and, and st- uh, I don't know if you guys r- saw this on stage.

[00:16:27] Shack: Alex, maybe you didn't. Tyler, maybe you're like too locked in. But as soon as this hit the stage, the amount of people that went like this to, to take a photo and pick up the... It was like, it was almost like if you look out, everybody was taking photos. It was like, yeah, that's, that's some interesting stuff because everyone has briefs and build out.

[00:16:44] Shack: So let's, let's talk to the consumers like why, why does this work so well? And there's a couple other slides I'll go, go through for you on, on, for, for those that are listening. But why does this work so well? 'Cause I feel like it's, a, super digestible. I feel like I know where I'm going. I can obviously join the community, but talk me through like this page one of the creative brief.

[00:17:04] Alex: So with our briefs, like there's a few main goals we, we want to get away from it. We wanna make it very visual. So like obviously TikTok shop is super visual, so a few slides, you know, as you keep going is like literally videos that have gone viral that they could click on and play and just see what works right away.

[00:17:22] Alex: But like, to be honest, the goal is to get people into the community. So the first thing that they see is please join that Discord community. If they join the community, the brief will also be in there. The goal is to get creators off platform inside the Discord, where we then start to coach them. But like the first slide, as you could see, right above the Discord community, we wanna give these people essentially incentives to join the community.

[00:17:44] Alex: So, hey, you want more resources? Join the Discord. You want fun competitions to get free stuff and cash? Join the Discord. You want direct coaching? Join the Discord. Future retainers? Join the Discord. So like the whole goal is to funnel creators inside the Discord, and then right below that is a snippet.

[00:17:58] Alex: Basically what we were saying earlier, like TikTok rewards not one video, but seven to 14 videos. Just trying to ingrain in creators' minds to post more than one video. Then obviously on the left side you have the product highlights, the target audience, so they have some, you know, ideas of, you know, what the product is and like, you know, who it's going after.

[00:18:15] Alex: And then obviously, you know, the product details slide. But like the whole goal of the brief is to get people into the community

[00:18:20] Shack: Yeah. Yeah

[00:18:23] Tyler: And I, I was just gonna add one more thing. So the, um, if you go back to the, the original slide, um, like every, every brand has their own-- like almost every brand on TikTok has a Discord community, but like why should a creator join yours? So we wanna make it very clear to creators going like, "Okay, you're gonna make a ton of money with competitions.

[00:18:39] Tyler: You, you can make more money with retainers. We have coaching in there," which a lot of people don't have. And so you have to make it very, very clear of why should someone join your community and what they're gonna get out of it. Um, either one-on-one relationships for every brand that's gonna be different based on what they can obviously provide.

[00:18:54] Tyler: For us, we, we have a lot of, of, a very, very big focus into, um, coaching and competitions, and so a lot of creators love that. And so we've leaned really, really hard into providing that for creators because it's a ton of value for them.

[00:19:05] Shack: This is a... Go on. Yeah, go

[00:19:07] Alex: sorry, one thing about that too, like not even like what you're showing, but even before they get the creative brief, in the Yuka messaging when we give them the option to join the Discord, like Tyler was saying, every brand has a community, but like we wanna make it so, so clear to join ours. We hire these top affiliates, we call them content coaches.

[00:19:25] Alex: Affiliates normally have to pay, you know, a few hundred dollars a month, $1,000 a month to go in these coaching programs. We give it for free for our brands inside these Discords. So we let them know like, "Hey, you want free coaching from, from a top affiliate that you normally have to pay $1,000 a month to get?

[00:19:40] Alex: Come join Groomed's Discord and you'll get it for free."

[00:19:43] Shack: That's a crazy value 'cause I, I started to see that as I'm getting-- 'cause I'm trying to learn it from the, the actual content creation side to see like what is the experience to the person. Did you guys do any content yourselves before you kinda jumped into like booking people or, or building the communities or no?

[00:19:59] Tyler: No. No, we don't, we don't, we don't, uh, we're not creators. But early on we realized-- 'Cause early on we did coaching calls ourselves, and it's like creators respond so much better when a creator gets on a call and is like, "Oh, I've generated 100K in GP in the last 30 days. This is why you should listen to me."

[00:20:14] Tyler: And so, like that is a very strong hook when you get on a coaching call and also telling a brand that they're in good hands and like this guy or girl knows exactly what they're talking about. And so, like very early we delegated that to a content coach 'cause we knew the importance of it because everything goes back to quality and getting creators everything they need.

[00:20:31] Tyler: So we don't wanna cheap out on that and, and, and get what Alex or I or someone that doesn't know content

[00:20:36] Shack: Yeah, I feel you. I know sometimes it's like, it's like wishful thinking to think that you're gonna get somebody into the program and then-- 'cause what, what I'm nervous about on building these programs, and I think a couple other brands I've talked to, they're like, "Well, do I have to be there 24/7? Like, do I have to always be talking and sharing and giving updates all day?

[00:20:54] Shack: Do you like schedule this? Do we build an MCP to kinda communicate to community or do you not wanna automate it?" Especially at the beginning, 'cause you kinda want the brand voice to come out.

[00:21:04] Alex: I mean, yeah, we know these affiliates, they have, you know, lives outside of TikTok shop and, you know, our specific brands. So we wanna make it kind of clear like, "Hey, we have our weekly call at this time once a week." Like, you know, set that time aside. That's where you can come on for an hour and just get a bunch of sauce on how to make good content.

[00:21:20] Alex: And then, you know, from there it's as little or, or as much as they wanna participate. Like every single day we have our coaches send daily hooks, daily inspo. If they wanna drop their videos in the feedback chat, they'll give feedback in every single video. So from there it's kind of just like a participation game.

[00:21:36] Alex: What we normally tend to see is for like every brand, there's normally like five to 10 people that are super, super invested. And funny enough, those five to 10 people drive 90% of the brand's overall revenue.

[00:21:49] Shack: So this is interesting. So now my head is like, okay, the first month, two months, speed at which we get to 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 videos, and actually through that is finding your, your first set of like brand loyalists that are willing to be the coaches or willing to be just like, "Hey, we got you. Take care of us.

[00:22:09] Shack: We'll be here. We'll keep the community running." Is it-- Which one do you use usually first? Like, does it take some time to find someone that's like, "Oh, they hit for grooms," but they might not hit for Ridge, but they're gonna continue to hit for like niche style products? Because I feel like if you're health and wellness, you might do good across other health and wellness things.

[00:22:25] Shack: Is, is this, those are some of the trends that you see, which is also the benefit of you've worked with some of the big boys, so you start to see health and wellness, home, accessories, male, female. Any like macro trends that you guys are seeing right now across the portfolio?

[00:22:41] Tyler: Yeah. I mean, I, I would say it takes for you to send hundreds of samples a month to find those top 10. And so it's, it goes back to being a volume game. Like you're gonna-- A lot of creators are gonna fail. They're not gonna do any GMV, but it's gonna take that volume to find those top 10. Um, and then you can obviously look at their data of like what they've done for Gruens if you're another supplement, but it doesn't mean they're gonna do well for you.

[00:22:59] Tyler: And, and, and the problem a lot of brands have is if a creator is crushing for Gruens and making a ton of money with them, why should they promote your brand instead and go to your brand if you're something similar? Um, and so that's where you have to go after those mid-tier creators, coach them up, get them bought into what you're building, and build up that creator program.

[00:23:15] Tyler: So very similar to like what Hudson did early on, is he just poured into creators, one-on-one relationships with them, giving them everything they need, and then over time they became his top creators. So it takes time, but, um, that's the best way to do it 'cause those creators will never leave you. That's where that cult-like community comes from.

[00:23:31] Tyler: Um, and that's what Comfort Clothing Playbook is when people talk about it. It didn't happen overnight. It was months of pouring into creators, and they're still pouring into creators every single day and, and have one-on-one relationships with them.

[00:23:43] Shack: Dude, Hudson's post when he like starts sharing like, "Oh my God, I did $75,000 this month," and he just like-- It's just somebody that's like, "Hey, thanks for changing my life." I'm like, bro, this is-- It-- Back in the day, you used to feel gross being an affiliate. Like you'd be like, "I feel weird," like, "I don't wanna be affiliate."

[00:23:59] Shack: Like you're like, "How dare you af- like, uh, offend me by calling an affiliate." Now you're like, "Bro, you give me any product, I will sling that product." People are proud to make content. It's just like I feel like TikTok Shop is completely, and especially TikTok creators, has completely changed the persona of like, for lack of a better phrase, shilling products.

[00:24:17] Shack: Have you seen this?

[00:24:19] Tyler: Yeah. And I would also say we're seeing that now. It's like everything's going to the TikTok model where you have the tribe and where they're trying to give a percentage, uh, to creators on Meta. And I think, I think it just aligns incentives with creators and brands. And so I think it's-- it makes a ton of sense with-- to continue to do this.

[00:24:33] Tyler: And I don't know why this was never done in the beginning, because it just aligns incentives. So when you make money, the creator makes a ton of money, and everyone wins in the end, and everyone's incentivized to make really, really good content and perform.

[00:24:44] Shack: Okay. You, you hit on something very important. So obviously the owner of Tribe, he was there. He, he was watching and listening and paying attention. So where, where I think this goes, and I'm gonna be like a little bit futuristic, so I'm curious on what you guys think about this too. Tribe pops up and there's already been platforms like, uh, Get Brands and, uh, Incense, and obviously now you have Tribe and you have a bunch of like Creator Circle.

[00:25:12] Shack: Like there's a bunch of these platforms that people can use to get access to, to creators that'll eventually just be percentage of spend and it'll eventually just be across every platform. We already hear the mumbles and grumbles of Meta going to do this on Reels. Like it's, it's, it's gotta all go this direction where like you gotta build your community, you have to build as many like deeper connections as possible or else no one's gonna be around this anymore.

[00:25:36] Shack: Do you have like a, like a crystal ball? Do you have a vibe? Do you have like a projection of where this all goes from a creator standpoint?

[00:25:44] Alex: I would say, I mean, we're seeing it real time, like you just mentioned it, like there's so many softwares and platforms trying to do the tri-model, the same thing. I would say like the crystal ball, like if I had to guess, um, like where th- this is heading, it's if you wanna like succeed like in the future as a brand, you gotta really have a loyal community, so then whatever software is ripping at the time, you just deploy your loyal community into.

[00:26:09] Alex: And then like the affiliates earn commission over onto Meta as well. Um, but like, I mean, social commerce is changing so much. Like two years ago, like TikTok Shop was like brand new. Like this wasn't even a thing. Um, so it's just, you just gotta be on your toes. But like if you have a loyal community of creators, then you can just be on your toes and deploy them into whatever it's, you know, what- whatever's new.

[00:26:33] Tyler: Yeah. I, I would say-- So, like, we're already seeing, like, big players, like Amazon just partnered with YouTube to make YouTube Shop and, and kind of have, have that. So we're gonna start to see big players like that. I don't think Meta's taking it very, very seriously, because they've tried launching it before.

[00:26:47] Tyler: And so, like, this is the second time they're launching Instagram Shop. And so if they act-- Or trying to launch Instagram Shop. And so if they take it serious, I think it could be an, a big opportunity. Um, but I think their priorities are in, like, creating, like, the meta world or whatever they're doing on, like, the AI side.

[00:27:00] Tyler: So I, I don't know if they'll ever get there. I don't think they're gonna catch up to TikTok. I think TikTok has so much momentum right now. It's, like, the number one fastest growing e-commerce channel in, like, the entire world. Um, y- And then I would also say live selling. I know big-- a lot of people talk about that as well, part of social commerce.

[00:27:16] Tyler: I don't think it's gonna ever be as big as people say it is. Like, I, I just don't think we have the same infrastructure as, as China, because, like, I don't even know if China has, like, retail stores. Like, everything they do is online, like, selling. And so it's like, it's a completely different world over there for, for commerce.

[00:27:31] Tyler: So I, I don't think, like, live selling is ever going to be as big, um, in the United States. So I think a lot, a lot of people are putting a lot of focus into that, but I'm, I'm kind of not, not all in on that yet. Yeah.

[00:27:43] Shack: Yeah, that's interesting. I've, I've, I've thought about this a lot too. I'm like, "Where does this go?" And obviously you guys have seen that crazy rocket ship in growth, and I mean, kudos to Tay, kudos to CTC for them seeing that, like, this is undoubtedly where the future goes. Now, whether it's live shopping, which they're trying to do that stuff too with Jordan.

[00:28:00] Shack: He's in the, he's in the shop trying to, like, cook up some offerings and thought processes around. Some brand somewhere will have to take it seriously. I've-- I truly have been watching this. Like, I watch the Get Salud team, and those guys are cooking every single day, slinging hydration. And I'm like, guys like that get it.

[00:28:15] Shack: You know? Like, guys, guys that are saying, "Hey, we're gonna go all into this. We're gonna commit to it." And they don't think about this, and you said it at the beginning. They don't think about it from like, "I'm gonna spend $1 and I'm gonna get $3 out. I'm gonna spend $1, I'm gonna get $10 out." That's how they used to think about any other average chan- ad channel.

[00:28:31] Shack: Meta, Google, you-- like, you-- I, I named those two because those ones are the one I'm specifically used to playing with. But everybody else can't use TikTok as like, "I'm gonna spend $1 to get two." It's, "I'm gonna spend here 'cause I know I need the content, and it's going to lift all the other channels." Before I let you guys go, I, I wanted to speak a little bit to what is, like, the halo impact that you usually see, and is that something that we measure month one or more like month six?

[00:28:59] Alex: More like month three to month six. Month one, like you really won't see much halo if you're a new brand because you're setting up the shop, the listings, doing outreach, getting product in people's hands. Those videos are starting to get posted. Those go into GMV Max. Like the month one, you don't see much halo.

[00:29:14] Alex: It's kind of around like day 90 is when you'll start to see it. What we see, like for every, you know, three sales on TikTok Shop, you'll see a sale either on Amazon or, you know, Shopify. Like that's kind of like the number that we're seeing

[00:29:29] Shack: That's huge. Well, is there anything,

[00:29:31] Tyler: and I would also say on top of the halo effect, like you have to count for like the content play to meta. So like you could see that early on, like month one, month two, you could start testing content to meta and, and see value from that. Um, but yeah, the, the, the halo effect right now-- and I would s- at least what we're being told from the reps is the halo effect to retail is like six times bigger than the one to Amazon, and it's pretty crazy.

[00:29:51] Tyler: But the problem is it's foot traffic, so you can't actually track it. You can just do a gut check. Um, and so I, I really am curious to see where that goes and how people are starting to track the retail halo effect, 'cause everyone talks about it. Eventually, there's gonna have to be real numbers behind it.

[00:30:05] Tyler: Um, but I don't know how we'll do that.

[00:30:07] Shack: It's tough right now. Even from what I know, what access most of these guys have, they don't, A, they don't give daily updates. They give, like, weekly or, like, monthly updates for-- And so everything's in retrospect, so you're gonna have to measure... Now you'll have that from total ad spend for that month, but you're gonna have to look, like, geo-specific.

[00:30:24] Shack: You're gonna have to look at where-- Did you even-- Were you even on the shelves? Whether you even-- Were you sold out? Do they keep it stocked? There's so much more play on the, uh, digital to retail pull-through or, like, social commerce to retail pull-through that I don't even know if they ever get there. I hope they do, because it would make it a lot easier for some of these larger and bigger brands, but no.

[00:30:42] Shack: Um, man, I'm so excited. Like, at, at first off, we get to, like, join forces for a little bit. I've seen what you guys do on the content side. I see how much you're in the weeds of things. Did it feel good to kinda, like, get back after, like, seeing the, the, the whole entire ecosystem and get kinda back behind the computer?

[00:30:56] Shack: Felt good?

[00:30:58] Alex: Yes, it felt good to get back in a routine. We still need to get, like, our ac- our actual, like, desk. Like, Tyler and I just moved into this new apartment, so, like, I'm literally, I'm literally taking it from, like, my bed. And we need to get, we need to, we need to get, like, desks. So that's what we'll do probably tonight, maybe hit up, uh, Walmart or something.

[00:31:17] Alex: But it feels good to be finally back in a routine on our computers, slinging calls and, you know, on the back end of stuff.

[00:31:23] Tyler: Agreed. Agreed

[00:31:25] Shack: Hell yeah. Well, boys, I appreciate your time. I thank you for all the sauce you're about to drop and be consistent. I can't wait to get you back out to California. We have, we have events to deal with. We have Black Friday to deal with. We have golf to deal with. We have all the things. And so, uh, I'm super proud of you guys jumping on stage on such short notice with all the things going on, delivering, get that first one under your belt.

[00:31:44] Shack: And look, it was only, it was only 650 people. Not a big deal, right? I told you it was gonna be super easy. Um, thanks guys. Good to see you boys.

[00:31:52] Alex: Thank you.

[00:31:52] Tyler: Yep. Thank you.

[00:31:53] Alex: you

Cashmas in July — Turn stale inventory into cash before Q4. Apply Now →