We Acquired the Fastest-Growing TikTok Shop Agency.

[00:00:00] Luke: We just acquired the fastest growing TikTok shop agency. Why does that matter to you? Stick around to see how they are helping some of the largest brands to grow on TikTok shops today.

[00:00:10] Hey, folks. Welcome to the Ecommerce Playbook podcast. I'm Luke Austin. I'm the president here at CTC, and I'm joined by Tyler and Alex, the co-founders of TBar Partners. And if you haven't heard, uh, the announcement already in some form or fashion, uh, on X or via Commerce Roundtable or some other channel, um, we, uh, have, uh, officially acquired TBar Partners, uh, and, and partnered with them at CTC.

[00:00:39] Um, so Tyler and Alex are part of the CTC family. TBar Par- TBar Partners is a Common Thread Collective company, and we couldn't be more stoked, um, about where, where we're sitting at today. And so I'm sitting down with the guys today, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna walk through a bit of the origin story, how we, how we got here, um, why we ended up here.

[00:00:56] We're gonna walk through how they think about growing TikTok shop stores, um, for e-commerce brands. And then we're gonna land with, uh, we've got like two or three specific examples of brands, um, that, uh, specific competitions, campaigns, product launches that have just blown out of the water and what they've seen work specifically.

[00:01:12] Um, uh, that'll be some interesting stories from Ridge, Hexcloud, and some other brands as well. So got a lot packed in. How we doing, guys?

[00:01:20] Tyler: Good. Good. Yeah. Glad to be here. Thanks for having us. Uh, so yeah, thanks for having us.

[00:01:23] Luke: Yeah. We're, uh... If anyone's watching, you'll see we're all in pretty athletic attire.

[00:01:28] Um, we're cruising to a HYROX, uh, workout, um, in about forty-five minutes here all together. The... A group of us here at the office at CTC are doing HYROX Doubles in Anaheim. Um, and Tyler and Alex are joining us for their first, uh, HYROX workout this afternoon. And I think they're both feeling really, really confident.

[00:01:44] No, no, uh, no apprehension whatsoever.

[00:01:46] Alex: Yeah, I don't know about that. Yeah. It's- Yeah, we're washed up baseball players out of shape, so I'm not looking forward to it.

[00:01:54] Luke: Yeah. Especially with the, especially with the recent Hyrox, Hyrox news and, uh- Yeah ... what, what happened in one of the most recent women's pro contests.

[00:02:01] It's, uh, it's not for the faint-hearted. Yeah. It,

[00:02:03] Alex: it

[00:02:03] Tyler: doesn't seem like

[00:02:04] Luke: it. That's for sure. Um, okay. So, so let's, let's dive in. I'm gonna set some context, um, for us. Um, the... These, these are things that you guys, that y- you both of you guys know. But for, for CTC, we have been, um, pursuing a thesis around TikTok Shop, but more specifically channel expansion to additional sales channels for, for a while now.

[00:02:23] And so, um, what we, what we see, the sort of idea that we-- that we're oriented around call-- and calling it the e-commerce demand cascade, is that the, the fastest growing brands right now in D2C e-commerce, um, are ones that have a combination of the core media channels driving growth. So they have Meta, Google.

[00:02:42] AppLovin is in the mix as the fastest growing net new channel. Have TikTok, uh, YouTube on down the line. But then as a part of that makeup, the sales channel complexity is getting, uh, is getting more and more nuanced as well. So where dot-com would previously be a lot more of where the demand creation and capture both lived, now TikTok Shops and Amazon in particular, and then retail dot-com or retail channels are, are a more important piece of the full picture for brands.

[00:03:09] There's more demands being captured on Amazon. And then TikTok Shop is really unique because the-- some of the fastest growing brands, it is a sales channel where, where people are making purchases, but TikTok Shop actually serves as a net new demand creation channel as well. And that demand trickles down into dot-com and into Amazon, and then into retail as well.

[00:03:29] So- For CTC, this has been something that we've been pursuing for a while, um, through a, a, a number of different modes and conversations with partners, other agencies, leaders in the space around how do we bring the best TikTok shop service offering to our customers to partner with them in the growth of their brands.

[00:03:46] Um, and after many, many months of exploration and conversations around this, um, TBar Partners, uh, was very clearly to us, um, what Tyler and Alex were doing, um, it was just, it was just lightning in a bottle, and it was something that we knew we wanted to be a part of and bring to our customers as well. So that's the backdrop for CTC.

[00:04:06] That's like the impetus for how, how we're here. Why don't you guys s- uh, start by maybe taking a step back. Take, you know, a year and a half, two years back. Talk to us a bit about your guys' origin story. How did TBar Partners start? And then walk us through some of the initial, like some of the big milestones over the past year and a half, right?

[00:04:21] Like the first, the first customers, the first big hits. Like what, what were some of these big milestones as you look back over the past year and a half that helped to get us to where we are today?

[00:04:29] Alex: Sure. So I'll give an origin story. So Tyler and I, we met freshman year at Grace College. We were both playing baseball, um, actually living in the same dorm room, uh, or same dorm building, not the same room.

[00:04:40] But we knew each other, um, but like we weren't super close at the time. We were playing baseball. It was like, you know, fifty guys on the team, and we started kind of talking and getting to know each other. And then as the season ended, we were both, uh, going back to school or going back home from school, obviously, working at different agencies.

[00:04:55] So during the school year, um, during the baseball season, we're, you know, balancing school and working in different agencies. Um, we kind of both had an agency background, and we went home, you know, for, for summer and I basically said, "Hey, like, let's start our own." And he was like, "Let me think about it." And like an hour later he said, "Let's, let's do it."

[00:05:11] So we started the agency in June of twenty twenty-five, um, and I would say like two weeks later it kind of took off on LinkedIn. Um, and we didn't have any idea what it was gonna turn into. Uh, we just essentially just spent all day on our computers grinding away, and then it just took off really quickly.

[00:05:29] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. I would say like it was... I think week one I made a post on LinkedIn about David Protein, and it was like how we'd scale them to a million dollars a month in ninety days. And then the co-founder of David Protein, Zach, commented on it, and then all of a sudden it's just like that post instantly blew up.

[00:05:46] Like every CPG brand, every e-com brand was commenting, like DM-ing us, like asking if... I don't even know if we had like a Calendly link at the time. Like we were just like- No ... like we had no process, no nothing, no clients, and then all of a sudden it's like that first week we had like three people wanting to sign.

[00:06:00] And then from there it was like that's how we got the initial, um, kind of clientele to trust us. And then- Almost instantly, our first two clients, we had a great case study, um, in like the first month. And so from that, we just kind of leveraged that, then got into some talks with like the Grunes of the world, like the Connors.

[00:06:16] And then so that's kinda how everything started. But even before we started our agency, like I worked at a TikTok shop agency. Alex was more on like the meta side, and so we both kind of like were already familiar with agencies, but not like at a point of like running our own or managing teams. And so there was a lot of growth that had to happen quickly as like leaders and like managing people and, uh, operations and systemizing everything that happened over a very fast period of time 'cause we ramped up so quickly.

[00:06:43] But like, I think going into it, like I was expecting, okay, maybe we can make a couple extra thousand dollars a month each, and like I would be really, really happy, um, because I had a supplement brand I started at the same time. And so The idea was to start the agency as a kind of just a cash flow thing to kinda do on the side while I was waiting on manufacturing to finish the supplement.

[00:07:02] And then, I mean, it was just instant where it's like, okay, we have something, and then the supplement's just like... I have 1,000 units sitting in a garage right now where it's like, I don't even care about that. Like, I'm all-in agency. I love it. Like, we get to work with some great clients. So it's, it's been a really exciting ride.

[00:07:16] I mean, I think right now we're 15, 16 months in, so it all happened really, really fast and, uh, we get to work with some really, really cool clients that we're really excited about and, and some great people and, you know, we've been blessed to manage a, a great team of people and, and be able to lead them and provide for them and, and, and provide cool opportunities for everyone involved.

[00:07:34] Luke: Hmm. That's rad. So walk through... You, you have a bunch of things going on. You're at school, you're doing baseball, got supplement brand, got the agency work going on, uh, and then you've got some of these initial customers that you're working with. What was, what was the moment where it was, "Okay, we're, we're going all in," right?

[00:07:53] Like, "This is going to be the focus. This is what we're going to... This is what we're going to do." Um, and then what was the, what was the goal at that point when you thought, "Okay, no, we're all in. This is the thing we're gonna focus on"? Then did you have... Did you guys have something in mind in terms of, "Okay, this is the goal.

[00:08:06] We wanna get to this many customers, or we wanna work with this size of brand, or we wanna, uh, scale into this size of an agency or seller"? Like, what was the, like, all-in moment and, and goal vision for the thing- Yeah ... at that point?

[00:08:17] Alex: The all-in moment was August. So we're... Obviously, we started in June. In August, we quit baseball.

[00:08:24] So that was okay, we're gonna go all in, um, agency only, and then obviously, like, we're still going back to school, but we barely went to class. Um, at, at that time, kinda in the summer, we were kinda just doing everything, seeing what worked, um, working with a bunch of different clients, probably clients we shouldn't have taken on, but we were just trying to do anything we could, uh, to kinda get cases under our belt.

[00:08:42] We had two really good case studies, um, Mythology and, uh, Patch RX. We scaled those two brands' TikTok shop from, like, you know, zero to 50K, and for us that was, like, really good. Uh, that was in July. Um, we used that as leverage when all these new brands were coming in, and then in August we were like, "Okay, let's just, let's just, you know, stop playing baseball," which we, you know, did our whole entire lives.

[00:09:03] Um, that was kinda the moment where we're like, "Okay, this is serious." And then we went back to, uh, to school, um, and like I said, it was just- Trying to manage that, but we, we really didn't go to class. It was just like in our dorm rooms all day, um, just in the backend of TikTok Shop Seller Center.

[00:09:18] Tyler: Yeah. I would even say it's kind of...

[00:09:20] It was earlier than that, like even earlier than we wanna admit. Like, over the summer we didn't practice baseball at all. No. Yeah, yeah. Like, we knew in the back of our minds- Yeah ... like we have something here, and it's like we didn't wanna say it out loud. Like, we'd never talked about quitting baseball 'cause it's like always been our life.

[00:09:32] Our entire, I mean, my entire life, his entire life has been baseball. It's like somewhat was our identity for a l- a long time. And so I think we just didn't wanna admit it, but we knew like we have something here. We, we love what we were doing and it was just growing so fast where it's like, if we don't go all in on this, like we're, we're...

[00:09:47] This is really stupid. Um, and so, you know, I think both of our parents were like a little like bummed that we're quitting baseball because obviously that's like, they obviously love watching us play baseball, but they also knew and were very supportive. Like, "Hey, this is like the right thing to do 'cause this is like a rocket ship right now."

[00:10:03] And so I think it was just so early on, but I think really the turning point for us where it's like even like just started to multiply really, really quickly. Like we started off hot and then we had those case studies where it's like, okay, we were still doing well, signing a lot of clients, but it was around August and September where we got connected to the CMO of Gruens, Connor.

[00:10:23] Um, and he just got us in that circle and we pretty much worked for them for free. It was like barely anything. Um, but we knew like the power of that logo and we knew the power of just getting in that circle, doing great work for great people. And so When we did creator campaigns for them for TikTok Shop, um, they were working with another TikTok Shop agency, and so we were like, "Okay, we just want in the door.

[00:10:42] We'll just do some work." And so we did that. We crushed it. We did great work. Um, and he introed us to Cody from German Roots Beauty, and so that got us into that cir- in, into him, and then he introed us to Ridge, and then Ridge introed us to Hexcloud, and it's like once you get into that circle, it just started to multiply.

[00:10:57] Like, we've been able to work with some really cool brands and really cool people because of that. And so, like I, I think it was just so early on we realized that the power of getting into great circles and, and networking and doing great work for great people, and that's been like the core of everything is like we wanna provide a really, really great service.

[00:11:11] And so, you know, like obviously you're not gonna have 100% success rate, but even the people that haven't had success with us, like we all leave on good terms because we wanna make sure everyone feels fair. We, you know, we worked as hard as we could on the, on the account and, and make sure everyone, um, feels...

[00:11:25] Yeah, has a, has a good reputation about TBar Partners. So that's been like a big part of our entire offering of just like making sure we provide great work.

[00:11:33] Luke: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Alex: Kinda at that time, September, we onboarded the number one Christian clothing brand, and that was like our best case study. So we took them from 250K a month to 1.2 million in three months, and that was kinda like the September, October timeline.

[00:11:45] Um, and then we just posted that all over LinkedIn, and that was like, that was like the big case study that blew us up. Mm-hmm. And that was at the same time that we were getting connected to the, you know, Connor at Bruins, to Connor at Ridge, to Connor at Hexcloud. Um, yeah, th-those two things coming together, like that was huge for us.

[00:11:59] Tyler: Yeah. And I would say like a, a... Like for the longest time, LinkedIn was where all of our leads came from. Like LinkedIn was great for us, um, but then like in the last six months it's been like 90% referrals. Yeah. Like we just... Not to say we don't have time for LinkedIn, but like we don't post as much, um, and we don't need to because we have so many leads coming in where it's like we have too many where we have to turn some away.

[00:12:20] And so, um, it's, it's just been awesome like- Oh, once you get into those circles, like I can't say it enough, like they are great people that refer you. They wanna see everyone win in that space. And so, um, we've just leaned so hard into that and just providing great work for them. And so we're really thankful for all those brands and, and just trusting us with...

[00:12:36] 'Cause I mean, we're young, like they-- why, why would they trust us? You know, we're two 20-year-olds that just run a TikTok shop, but, uh, we provide them with great results and, and we have great case studies from that. So yeah, it-it's been a, it's been a very fun ride and, and happened so quick.

[00:12:50] Luke: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's something for us even in, in our early conversations and under-- and, um, and us being connected in, in, in this space, uh, and, uh, having conversations with those individuals and these brands is like the, um, there-- a lot of, a lot of agencies and service providers can have the lo- the big logos out there that they worked with at one point or worked on a c-campaign, but it's a whole 'nother thing when the main folks, main decision makers are referring to the people in their close circle and say, "No, I tr- I trust these guys."

[00:13:20] And the guys on the Operators podcast, like most of those brands you guys are working with directly, and they're all referring as well. That, that says more than anything really about the, about the results and trust and was something big for us, like in our initial conversations and be like, "Oh no, this, this, this signal is coming back from what Tyler and Alex are doing.

[00:13:36] This is, this is real." Like the ca- the case studies and the results aren't just the fl- the flashy lead tin thing. Like this is happening everywhere and people are willing to refer their close friends, close connections, people they have deep relational equity with. That, that's a, that's a very strong signal.

[00:13:50] So, so let's talk shifting from the origin story a bit. Let's sh- let's shift into, um, how, like, wha- what's-- why what you guys are doing is working, right? Like how do you approach TikTok shop strategy? Um, you, you had mentioned, uh, you had mentioned earlier, Tyler, that like you guys over the summer are starting to see like, oh, we have something here.

[00:14:09] Like there's a, there's a playbook, there's a, there's an approach that is leading to these results and what you're seeing. Talk us through how you guys think about growing TikTok shops for brands. What are the key components? What works well? What doesn't work well? What are the key things to focus on? How do you think about delivering

[00:14:24] Alex: results?

[00:14:24] Yeah. So I would say like for us, like in all our sales calls and kind of when we start like actual work, we tell the brands like the outreach is pretty automated, right? We have-- We use Zuko, we do the individual DMs, we do the email campaigns, all that good stuff, pushing creators to request a sample. But like every agency kinda does the same outreach, right?

[00:14:40] What actually moves the needle is what happens after the creator receives product, which is what we do best. Mm-hmm. So for all our brands, we build a custom Discord community, and the whole goal is anybody with product, we wanna funnel all those creators inside the community, and then we actually have to start to manage them.

[00:14:54] 'Cause these creators, they're only required to post one video. That's all they're required to make. But like one video is not enough. So let's say you're sending 1,000 samples and you get, you know, one video back, you're only getting You know, a thousand videos back. Our goal is to get at least three videos back per sample we send to each creator, right?

[00:15:10] So that's just three X-ing the output, and we know on the back end of TikTok Shop, video volume and GMV have a direct correlation. So like, if we can get as many videos back per sample we send, it just makes it more profitable for the brand. The more videos we get back are... Those videos are going to GMV Max, those are getting scaled, and it just makes everything more profitable.

[00:15:26] So in these Discord communities, we essentially hire ex-TikTok Shop affiliates. We call them content coaches. They're the ones that are leading the coaching. They're the ones leading the scripting, the hooks, the inspiration, teaching these affiliates what's working. They know content much better than myself, much better than Tyler.

[00:15:40] We've never filmed a TikTok Shop video. We're just on the back end and running the, the brands, but like they're the ones that know the content, h- what actually works when posting a video. So we hire these affiliates. They're the ones in the communities coaching and leading them, and then we run these contests that we've seen work extremely well.

[00:15:55] So essentially, we push these essentially contests. They're open retainers in the mass outreach. So for example, it's, "Hey, if you're a creator and you make ten videos, we'll give you a thousand dollars cash," right? "If you make 20 videos, we'll give you, you know, two thousand dollars cash." Now we make it so the, the cash and the GMV minimum are one to one.

[00:16:12] Yeah. So they have to at least drive, you know, if the, the cash is a thousand dollars, they have to at least drive a thousand in minimum GMV for the brand. We push that in the mass outreach, and we push that inside the Discord community. So we have two ways. We're acquiring new creators with that contest, and then we're pushing inside our community.

[00:16:27] We get thousands of videos back from that, from those competitions, and we know, like I said earlier, video volume and GMV, it's a direct correlation. So we're getting so many videos going to GMV Max, and the big thing, in these contests, any video submitted in that timeframe, the brand gets full usage rights in perpetuity.

[00:16:43] So for Ridge, for example, we ran a contest in June for them. They got five thousand videos back. Five thousand videos that are now going to GMV Max. That was their biggest month. That was like the month that they really, you know, blew, blew the top off, um, but now five thousand videos they have full usage rights to use.

[00:16:58] So we, we took those videos. We gave them to their paid team. They told us how they took like the top two hundred videos. We're taking up twenty-five percent of their meta budget from our TikTok creative. It's outperforming their other UGC. So obviously, they're doing super well on TikTok Shop. They're doing about half a million dollars a month, but like that's a drop in the bucket compared to their, you know, their DTC revenue.

[00:17:15] Now we're supplying them with their top ad content. Um, so these contests we're seeing work super well, and like I said earlier, the creator relationship side, the community management side, that's what actually moves the needle on TikTok Shop.

[00:17:25] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. And I would also say like- TikTok shop, to have an internal team for that is just extremely hard.

[00:17:31] You need five different people, and most brands don't have the budget to do that, or they wanna see results before they ever, like, hire in-house. And so I think we're very, very competitive on pricing, and our structure has allowed us to do that. And so, like, all-- every single account that we manage has a, like, a strategist that's managing point in the account, you know, the strategy b-behind the content, you know, the outreach, uh, the competitions, the retainers, all that kind of stuff, the operations.

[00:17:53] And then we have people just managing sample requests, the affiliate center messages, someone just managing GB Max. We have a community manager and then a content coach. And so it's like you would need like five people to do that in-house and, and you can't do that. But we've built a great system. We have great people and so A big part of our strategy is building these communities, like Alex was saying, and it would be extremely hard to do that in-house because you would need a top TikTok shop creator on, on staff that's doing all the coaching.

[00:18:16] And so we have, you know, like four or five of those that we just have on staff doing all the coaching there. Um, and so we're not only able to, like, manage creators really well, but we're also have a system that we've been able to build up, let's say, mid-tier creators to these high-tier creators that'll be your top performers.

[00:18:29] And so, like, when everyone thinks of TikTok Shop, they think of, like, the comfort clothing and, and that playbook. And so our entire playbook is the same as comfort clothing. We've just been able to do it at scale across many brands because we can build a team. But most brands, they wanna replicate what comfort clothing's doing, but it's almost impossible to do that in-house for, for a, a medium-sized brand unless you have massive budgets to put, put behind the platform.

[00:18:50] And so I think that's been a great competitive advantage for us, is just being able to really compete on price and, and make it a no-brainer for these brands to, to work with us.

[00:18:58] Luke: Yeah. Um, let-- I'm, I'm curious to talk a little bit about the sort of creator, the creator and the creative economics as well, right?

[00:19:06] Because when you talk about... So there's a big piece of this that's volume-oriented, right? Which is high volume outreach, thousands, tens of thousands, then building out the Discord communities with a volume of creators. Um, and then on, uh, on the creative side as well, when you get all the ads, run them in GMB Max, you run them in Meta, and you have thousands of videos.

[00:19:25] So there's like this sort of volume, uh, tier at the top that is, like, the starting point for all of this. But I think what we typically see, right, is that, like, a s- very small percentage of all those things is actually what's driving the most of the value. On the creator side, it's a very small percentage.

[00:19:39] It's a core group of people. On the creative side, it's, it's a, a few percentage of the, of the actual ads you're launching are driving seventy, eighty percent of the value. Mm-hmm. How do you guys think about going from, you have to start here. We, we have to start with big numbers, big volume as it relates to outreach, bringing creators building.

[00:19:55] But then we know that for brands, s- majority of the value, seventy, eighty percent of the value is gonna be driven by a much smaller cohort of the creators and the, and the, and the pieces. How do you think about building that for brands that you work with?

[00:20:07] Alex: Well, with the outreach, like you said, you have to cast a really wide net.

[00:20:10] But like, like you said, like if you look at any big TikTok shop brand, ninety percent of their revenue comes from their top ten affiliates. Mm-hmm. So like with this, you know, big net, we're doing tons of outreach, right? Sending thousands of invites a day for creators to request a sample. We get them through into our CRM, we get them to the Discord, we coach them, and we kinda weed out who's gonna be our top ten people.

[00:20:28] And then once we find those top ten people, inside the Discord, we have a subsection we call our VIP group. Those are the people we're hopping on calls one-on-one with every single day. Our content coaches are super, super high touch with them. And like I said, like if you look at any brand, most of their revenue, ninety percent of their revenue comes from those top ten people.

[00:20:45] So it's how f- how fast can we find those top ten affiliates for you guys. Mm-hmm. Um, and then you get those affiliates over on other platforms. That's kinda like what, what Comfort's doing and all these big brands that we're w- seeing work super well. Um, but in the beginning, you have to cast a wide net to find those people.

[00:20:58] Tyler: Yeah. And I would say just in general, like you kinda have to look at TikTok Shop and like how you're thinking about the volume and creators and, and videos you're getting on the al- on the, in the algorithm and... 'Cause it is an algorithm, so we really have no idea what goes into the algorithm, what makes a video go viral.

[00:21:11] But we do know the more shots you get up, the higher chance you have at something going viral. So it's kinda like a slot machine. The more times you spin it... It's a free slot machine, so the more times you spin it, the higher chance you have it going viral and, and, and getting that video to pop off. And so that's kinda how we think about it.

[00:21:25] Um, and then GMV Max as well, it's like everything in GMV Max runs off of video volume, and GMV Max is where ninety-five percent of your sales are gonna come from. Everything's done through GMV Max now. Organic TikTok Shop is dead. It's like gonna be a very, very small, uh, portion of, of your actual revenue.

[00:21:40] And so GMV Max, every single time you get a video in there, every sing-- Like, let's say a video goes viral. It will take whatever that hook was, whatever that angle was, their AI algorithm system, which we don't know, it's like pretty much a black box, but we know that it takes that data point and will start running across other videos very-- with very similar angles, very similar hooks.

[00:21:59] Um, and so really it's like once you find that first video that starts to work, you just need to give it as many videos into GMV Max with similar outputs and, and, and similar angles. And so that's like the entire goal is just getting that first viral video and, and you have to cast a, a very wide net for that.

[00:22:15] Um, and so we just, like our kind of number that we just go a rule of thumb is like how fast can we get to a thousand videos a month as fast as possible. Mm-hmm. We see... And not to say that's the number that you're gonna have success at, but a thousand videos a month, you're just getting a ton of volume where it's like a lot of brands, once they get to that point, they eventually find something that works.

[00:22:31] Alex: I will say, like with the wide net, sometimes brands have a misconception where they kinda think of that as like a spray and pray approach. Mm-hmm. But like our goal is to do the opposite. So obviously we're having a wide net, but what-- we wanna be very, very high touch with this creator. So like even before the Discord, we send every single creator after we accept their sample, a creative brief.

[00:22:47] So in that brief, it's essentially all the things that they possibly could need to be successful. And obviously in that brief, there's Discord links to join, but like we wanna have multiple touch points before they even join the Discord. Yeah. So they have the creative brief, they have another message, they have the Discord link.

[00:23:01] After they post a video, we give them a link to join again. So like- It's not a spray and pray approach. We're trying to, you know, you know, just send so many samples, so many invites, and they make one video and fall off. It's get these people into our CRM, get them the creative brief, get them the Discord, coach them by our top affiliates, so they can make tons of high-quality videos to find those top ten people to then, you know, get them on those, you know, retainers and the one-on-one chats and everything.

[00:23:23] Um-

[00:23:24] Tyler: I-- Yeah, I also think it'd be good to just, like, go deeper into what GBMax is. Like I, a lot of brands come to us and talk to us just like, 'cause they're so used to meta and, like, manual media buying and like, okay, a better media buyer is gonna cost better results, but there's no such thing on TikTok.

[00:23:36] Like it's, it's pretty-- not say set and forget, but, like, really you can only focus on the inputs. If you want GBMax to perform better, focus on the inputs, and then GBMax will perform better. And so what those inputs are is providing more high-quality content and volume of content, like I was just saying earlier.

[00:23:50] And so I think a lot of brands need to understand that and shift their focus of like GBMax is just providing as much content as possible at a high, high quality content as possible, as fast as possible to get GBMax to speed up that learning and then get it to start running efficiently.

[00:24:04] Luke: Yeah. Yeah, and I think there's, there, there is something interesting about the relationship between consistently having more volume of options to be able to find winners, and then once you find the winners, how you compound those, those winners at the same time.

[00:24:16] And so even things like, um, that, that you guys started doing with that VIP group of creators of, um, the incentives around them, having their own community, getting them on Tribe or other affiliate platforms, so they're also earning additional commission outside of what their normal rates are, right? Like, these are all-- 'cause I think this, the, the challenge that I think a lot of brands are already running through and, and will, will, will continue is, uh, de- you know, depending on the sort of creator supply-demand economics is people are getting creators more and more on retainers to try to just bring them to th-their brand and get their re-- attention on them.

[00:24:48] Ultimately, people are gonna pay attention to wherever they're earning the most, um, the most money, right? Yeah. Where they're, where they're being taken care of in that way. And so finding unique ways for creators to see, okay, I'm successful with this brand, and there's other ways, other avenues I'm earning from them, is gonna, is gonna keep them around.

[00:25:04] Okay. So let, let's pivot now. You, you hinted at, um, at, at the Ridge, uh, case study earlier. Um, so I think we have two or three examples we wanna talk through. Ridge, um, Hexcloud and Naked Sundays, any others that come to mind. But give us-- We, we talked sort of high-level strategy, how you guys think about some of the core pillars.

[00:25:20] Let's talk through some specific examples. Some specific product launches, campaigns, competitions, some specifics around those that really blew up for brands. What, what worked really well for brands that you guys have worked with in terms of specific- Sure ... components that led to the outcomes that they saw?

[00:25:36] Alex: Yeah, maybe I'll speak on Naked Sundays. You can speak on Hexcloud. So for Naked Sundays, and they're a s- you know, a smaller brand, seven-figure brand, not, you know, a, a nine or ten-figure brand like Ridge and Hexclad. We essentially launched a TikTok exclusive bundle with them, and we did a, a blitz launch is what we call it.

[00:25:51] So we pre-seed product to a bunch of affiliates inside that Discord community with a set essentially launch date. So we, you know, sent th-these suitcases full of, you know, makeup products to, you know, 100 affiliates. They got the product, and we basically ran a competition around it, a blitz launch, essentially with the video volume goals in mind.

[00:26:08] They all posted on the same launch date, so it spiked the, the algorithm, spiked GMB Max. There were, you know, 1,000-plus videos going up on the same day that they were all going to GMB Max, and, like, the product blew up. We literally sold them out of all their inventory, um, to the point where we have to pause with them now.

[00:26:23] So that was, like, a r-really, really, you know, good case study for us and, like, I know we, we work with a lot of huge brands, but, like, they're a s- smaller seven-figure brand. Like, it was, like, insane. The, the founder, Sam, she was, like, calling me, like, just almost in tears- Mm-hmm ... like how happy she was. Like, it...

[00:26:37] She was like, "You guys blew up my business." It was, it was insane. Um-

[00:26:41] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:26:41] Alex: So yeah.

[00:26:42] Tyler: Yeah, that's the power of TikTok Shop. Overnight, like, things can change. You'll hear about those unicorn stories where it's like- Yeah ... holy crap, like, once you get creators posting and, and you get into the algorithm of TikTok and something goes viral, it, it gets pretty crazy pretty fast.

[00:26:54] So, um, yeah, that's, that's a great case study. And then I, I think I'll touch on Ridge first 'cause I, I think there's an important aspect of this in, like, the merchandising part of it. Um, so, like, for Ridge, their entire business is wallets. Like, 90% of their sales on, on Meta is, is wallets, and so we launched those on TikTok Shop.

[00:27:07] They did, like, 200K a month, but it really wasn't blowing up. Like, it was... It wasn't going as expected. And so we started testing their other SKUs and their other products, and Tracker Cards was one of the ones we tested, which is their worst seller, their D- on their D2C site, which we were like, "Okay, this probably isn't gonna work.

[00:27:23] Nobody really wants it." And then we launched it, and right away when we launched it, it instantly blew up. It did, like, 400K as, as its own product or something crazy in that first, the first two months. And so- It instantly blew up. And the reason becau-because of that, and we see this across a lot of brands, is like if your product has a visual hook or some type of like value add ma- that makes it unique.

[00:27:43] And so their tracker card, when you click the button, it would make this really loud beeping sound. And so when creators would post about it, they'd, you know, do skits or whatever where they're like, "Oh, I lost my wallet," and it... the beeping would be going off, and it would stop someone in their scroll. And so I think it's very interesting 'cause, like, the merchandising part of TikTok Shop isn't talked about a ton, but it's also really, really important.

[00:28:00] And you need a product that works and that looks visually appealing or that has some type of something to stop someone in their scroll on TikTok Shop. Um, it's such an important part of the strategy. And so for them, like merchandising was an important part of that strategy and how it evolved over time, um, and, and trying to figure out what products do work.

[00:28:16] And we've had that across a lot of brands. You know, we had a, a date company that instantly blew up because right when you bit into it, we just leaned into like right when you bit in, like there's peanut butter inside that was... it was out. And so, like, really leaning into those visual aspects of the product and, and stopping someone in their scroll is a really important part of our strategy as well.

[00:28:31] It's not talked about a ton. Um, but like for Ridge, what really, like really got it going and around that tracker card time was we were launching competitions and they were volume-based competitions. So going back to that video volume and GMV have a direct correlation. We were just new, okay. Instead of incentivizing creators on GMV in, in the beginning, 'cause no one's making money right now, we need to incentivize them on volume, which we know they can do.

[00:28:53] Everyone inherently knows I can post 40 videos this month. I can just sit down and grind it out. So it's like an effort-based competition. Um, and so that instantly blew up. We had, you know, I think it was like 7,000 videos in a single month from that, just that competition. That's not even including sample-only creators that didn't participate.

[00:29:09] And so it instantly got pretty crazy. That was their best month. I think we did almost 600K that month, um, when we were scaling up really, really hard. Um, and so that is really what moved the needle for them. And so I think a big part of our strategy across all of our brands is launching these volume-based competitions because, like, knowing that video volume and GMV have a direct correlation should impact the strategy behind that.

[00:29:29] And so everything we do is on an input basis of just getting more shots up, and we, we'll keep talking about that, just getting more and more shots up on the algorithm until eventually something hits, and that's where we obviously get strategic. Okay, now that video hit, now we have to make, you know, 100 variations of that video to make sure we're feeding GMV max well.

[00:29:46] Um, so that was the strategy for Ridges. Competitions, coaching those creators up in that Discord community, and then all-- literally the same thing for X Glass. It literally blew up X Glass. We launched that competition, got them in a community, uh, did coaching with those creators. And so, like, a lot of our brands that have had a lot of success is these competitions.

[00:30:03] And then once we have something that works, it's, it's just scaling up what's working with, you know, either doing retainers to retain top creators, um, or just continuing to run competitions.

[00:30:13] Luke: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's land with this, the last, last couple minutes here. So what, what are some of the things you guys are excited about as it relates to what Ti- new things in TikTok Shop, the broader e-commerce ecosystem, the interplay with the other channels?

[00:30:29] What are the-- some of the things, okay, we have, we have this playbook, we have these things we're gonna do. The platform's gonna continue to change. There's a broader ecosystem at play. What are some of the guy-- things you guys think about in terms of- Yeah ... okay, this, this is what I'm excited about, what's, what's next in the next frontier for us in this next chapter?

[00:30:44] Alex: Obviously, still super excited about, like, what we're doing on TikTok shop side, but what we're really starting to explore is TikTok live selling. So I know we're building that out at CTC right now. It's gonna be a huge thing. I, I know in China, I don't know what the stat is, but like, um, maybe it's like eighty percent of all their, all their, their commerce is coming through live selling.

[00:31:01] Luke: Yeah. I think that's what the Yuka, the Yuka CEO, it was somewhere on... It was, it's on Douyin, right? Yeah. Not on TikTok, but on, on Douyin for them, it's, yeah, it's close to eighty percent- It's insane ... of their selling is, is on lives. It's wild.

[00:31:10] Alex: And, like, there's a few live agencies out there, and they're crushing it, but, like, there's so much market share to take and, um, obviously we have a ton of big brands on TikTok shop running, running their shop.

[00:31:18] But lives, it goes hand in hand 'cause, right, if somebody goes on a live but they don't buy, now they're in the funnel, so now they're gonna see all the affiliate videos- Yeah ... and they'll convert there hopefully. Um, so super excited about TikTok lives and, you know, building that out as we speak. Um, but, like, I think, like, with CTC, like, obviously you guys have all this proprietary software where you can actually start to see the halo, the spillover.

[00:31:38] 'Cause, like, TikTok shop, we tell the brands on our sales calls, it's not the most profitable channel. You might run it at break even. Um, you know, you might be, you know, similar to profit, but most likely break even. But the reason why brands do it is 'cause of the spillover to Amazon, the spillover to, you know, dot-com and Shopify, the spillover to retail, and then fourth, the meta content like we've been talking about.

[00:31:56] But you guys, like, have the actual, you know, software to track that in, in a, in a, in a true way. Um, so I'm super excited to kinda implement that across all our brands.

[00:32:05] Tyler: Yeah. And I would even say, like, Alex and I wear all the hats in the entire operation right now from sales, marketing, operations, being our own HR, accounting.

[00:32:13] Like, it-- we honestly don't like anything but TikTok shop and, and just running TikTok shop. That's what we're good at, and so obviously that comes with the responsibilities of running an agency, and so we're super glad to now have a team that can handle that, and we can just go all in on TikTok shop.

[00:32:26] 'Cause as, as we got a point of scale where it's like, okay, this is a lot. It's taking a lot of our time, and we just really wanna focus on TikTok shop and providing great work for clients. And so that allows us to do that. And then also touching on like the, the software, tracking the halo effect is such a, such a big value add.

[00:32:40] And you know, we keep telling brands it's there, it's there, but it's like we can't put real numbers behind it even though we know it's there. And so it just goes back to being able to like... Which I know is a big part of the methodology behind Common Thread Collective is like putting real numbers behind stuff and like forecasting within a very accurate percentage.

[00:32:55] And so it's gonna be really cool to be one of the first agencies, if not the first, to actually really be able to put numbers behind that stuff. And then also a big part of our strategy is this Meta content pipeline. And so we've never really had a, a good, uh, system for it. Like we have the competitions, which gives us a lot of content, but we've never had a really good system to upload it to Meta for these brands, because we don't run Meta ads, we don't run any paid media, uh, besides GMB Max.

[00:33:17] And so, uh, CTC and, and their team is, is great at that. They're best in class. And so now they have ins- inside of Statlas, their proprietary software, a way to automatically u- upload all this content, which is gonna speed things up. It's gonna 10X what we're doing on the content side, um, because all of our brands are seeing a ton of value from that.

[00:33:33] I would say probably like s- fifty, 60% of our brands right now, like we're like one of the top five ads in their ad account from TikTok Shop, which is i- insane to say. So we're really excited to just 10X that, scale that up. Um, so yeah, we're, we're really excited and then we get to continue working with really cool brands.

[00:33:49] So that's gonna, that's gonna be awesome.

[00:33:50] Luke: Great. Love it. Yeah. And we've got a, some, some exciting stuff we'll, we'll share with you all in the coming weeks around some of the stuff they, they mentioned around, uh, integrations with additional sales channels and Statlas tracking Halo, uh, Halo effect and demand, and then integrations with Yuka and the TikTok API to be able to automate, you know, if we're getting two thousand, three thousand, four thousand ads a month, being able to pull those in, um, in an automated way, bulk upload, push to build stuff.

[00:34:13] So some exciting stuff we'll, we'll leave for the coming, for the coming weeks and the conversations. But I think that, that about does it. Do you guys wanna leave the people with anything? Any last final thoughts?

[00:34:23] Alex: Mm. I guess if you're a brand out there that's struggling on TikTok Shop, hit us up.

[00:34:29] Tyler: We'd love

[00:34:29] Alex: to help.

[00:34:30] Tyler: Yeah. I would just say like, I think there's... I think for TBAR Partners, like we've had a great relat-- like reputation and we're excited to continue to scale this up. And it's like our operations, Alex and I, this is our first time ever doing an agency. And so like I would say we're pretty naive, um, and, and really don't know like how to scale an agency at scale and how to hire people well, and we've grown a ton.

[00:34:51] And so just being under great leaders like Luke and, and Taylor, and just being around a team like that, that, that's been around in the space for ten plus years and, and so we're really excited to learn a ton and just level up as, as people and, and lead a, lead a team and, and do a lot of cool things. So I would say that we're really excited about that as well.

[00:35:07] Luke: Cool. Well, we're stoked to have you guys. Awesome. Thanks for the time. Thanks everyone for joining us. We'll catch you on the next episode.