Common Thread Collective

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at an e-commerce store.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Common Thread Collective?

We needed a social media management agency.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Common Thread Collective has been helping us with social media management, specifically with Facebook Ads; I provide the content to them, and they manage our channels. They rebuilt our social ad campaigns by prioritizing how much money we were spending and our receiving ROI.

What is the team composition?

We usually work with five members of their team, including a project manager that is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Common Thread Collective?

They were referred to in an e-commerce forum.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $300,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They’ve helped us scale our Facebook spend and grow our revenue by 15% over a year. In addition, their team has been able to maintain a marketing efficiency ratio that meets our goals. Overall, they’ve exceeded our expectations, and we’re 100% satisfied with their work so far.

How did Common Thread Collective perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great at project management; we talk about our budget every week, and they’ve done a good job maintaining that. In terms of communication, we use email and phone calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them? 

They have amazing Facebook industry knowledge and high-level experts who produce interesting content. Additionally, they have a custom tool that we can use to see benchmark data, which is very helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — we don’t have any complaints about their work.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you’re clear on your goals so they can get you where you need to be.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a partner at a venture capital fund that invests in e-commerce software and brands. I also own a loyalty platform for direct-to-consumer merchants.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Common Thread Collective?

I worked with Common Thread Collective for video ad production twice, once for a direct consumer brand that sold supplements and another for a solar panel marketplace.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Common Thread Collective created several videos for several advertising campaigns we were running. They handled every aspect of the production, from the initial scriptwriting and casting to the final video export. Common Thread Collective provided their cameras for the filming, and once the filming was completed, they edited everything together to form a video ad. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Brendyn (Senior Creative Strategist), a creative team member, and a producer. 

How did you come to work with Common Thread Collective?

I knew of Common Thread Collective because I used to own an agency in the industry. I’d always admired their work and staff, so when I needed work done myself, I decided to hire them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $35,000–$40,000 with Common Thread Collective. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Common Thread Collective from June 2019–March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

I am very satisfied with the work Common Thread Collective provided — they provide the best production value for the price. 

How did Common Thread Collective perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was okay; we usually communicated via email. We also had a few Zoom meetings and phone calls to discuss the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m really impressed that Common Thread Collective can produce really high-quality work that is a great fit for emerging brands that want to punch above their weight. Also, they take feedback well. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I didn’t notice anything for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As with any creative endeavor, I’d advise customers to come to the table with a clear picture of what they’re looking for in a partnership with Common Thread Collective.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of West Willow, and we are a direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Common Thread Collective?

We needed help in making our media buying more efficient across Facebook, Instagram, Google, and other platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Common Thread assists us in developing a media strategy. We’re a seasonal business, so it’s important to properly phase out our media spend across the year leading up to the holiday season. They work on Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads.

Common Thread’s growth team manages the strategy, creative content, and media buying across several channels. We have weekly check-ins where we go over performance and opportunities. They also present creative content, and I give them my feedback before publishing those in our accounts. 

After iOS 14’s rollout, we had to take a hard look at our strategy across media, spending, and our goals. They’ve pushed us to be more efficient in terms of our spend-to-revenue ratio. They are optimizing our spending for profit rather than customer creation, which is my goal.

What is the team composition?

I work with a media strategist, a media buyer, a creative, and a senior-level director.

How did you come to work with Common Thread Collective?

I found them through a Google search. I was searching about Facebook ads, and I read a compelling article on their blog.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $150,000–$200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Thanks to Common Thread’s work, we’ve seen an increase in sales, revenue, and profit. 

Making new ads every week requires a lot of creative bandwidth. Common Thread efficiently does that for us while using proper brand guidelines — that has been helpful to our team since it allows us to focus on other tasks across our business. 

How did Common Thread Collective perform from a project management standpoint?

Common Thread is well adept at project management. They provide consistent updates, and they have a proprietary tool that has all the information we need. Their tool has helped keep us on track with our ad spend, revenue, and forecast. 

We use Frame.io to manage their creative work, and that has been helpful in providing feedback in a consolidated way. 

I’m in daily contact with them about our performance. I feel like they’re an extension of my team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Common Thread uses data from their large portfolio of clients to create actionable insights while keeping everyone anonymous. They’ve got dozens of clients who have billions in revenue, and they’re able to get a good cross-section of the market. They’re able to have their finger on the pulse when it comes to what’s going on. 

Additionally, such insight is helpful when there are uncertainties in our data as it provides a good benchmark for our performance. Common Thread focuses on the smaller side of startups, and they have a good understanding of data — that’s a value that you can’t find anywhere else.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, we struggled to find the right team to manage our account on a day-to-day basis. It took some initiation from my end to get those things solved. Ultimately, they’ve resolved everything from a team perspective, and everything is going well now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you have your targets and priorities laid out. They can help you best if you know what you want to achieve. 

Going with them with a blank canvas is not going to work in your favor. However, if you tell them your goals and current situation, they will be able to help you. Lastly, make sure that your goals are realistic.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I worked for a natural personal care products company that sells direct-to-consumers (D2Cs) and through retail. When I was there, I was the director of user acquisition so I was responsible for growing online product sales, and I owned different marketing channels.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Common Thread Collective?

Historically, our business had been driven almost entirely through Facebook and other paid social and paid search advertising efforts. When I came, the company had just recently launched into retail so the company’s products were suddenly available in Target, Walmart, and other stores. 

Since we were facing a new business landscape where we were distributing online and in-store, we thought about how we could drive business growth through our paid marketing channels. As a result, we needed somebody who could help us scale our advertising channels from a buying and account strategy perspective. On top of that, we needed somebody to help with content creation and optimization of our creative advertising.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Common Thread Collective managed our paid advertising efforts on Facebook, Tiktok, and Pinterest. The team helped us with our advertising account structure and buying strategy. Additionally, they developed reporting and analysis regarding our paid marketing channels. Specifically, we monitored how we were performing, we checked how we were forecasting, and we checked whether we were hitting our goals.

They also developed creative strategies from a concept perspective and developed landing pages, too. Moreover, they created marketing and advertising campaigns to put our new products through.

What is the team composition?

My core team was composed of three people from Common Thread Collective, including a creative strategist. Another person was in charge of our overall strategy, and the other one was in charge of media buying and optimization. There were also more people working in the background in charge of developing creative ads for us.

How did you come to work with Common Thread Collective?

Since I worked in the retail world, I was new in the D2C industry and paid growth marketing. Due to that, I needed to educate myself and get really smart in that area.

When I saw Common Thread Collective’s content, thinking, and resources on their site, I reached out to them because I knew they were knowledgeable about what we needed. Overall, we went through a pretty long process of proposing and modifying the scope before starting the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with them from July–December 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The team hit the targets that our internal team had set. With their help, we were also able to hit our business goals.

How did Common Thread Collective perform from a project management standpoint?

Common Thread Collective was proactive; they offered suggestions without having to be asked. Additionally, they were comfortable working directly with me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed that they thought of our business growth from a true value perspective as opposed to just maximizing spending and return on specific channels. Overall, they really helped us think through the success that our business needed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their creative strategy and execution could still be further improved. On top of that, their creative operations process could still be smoother, faster, and better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be transparent about your business targets. I did that in our partnership, and it really helped us to be successful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at an e-commerce platform in the fashion industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Common Thread Collective?

We were trying to onboard a marketing company to assist us with our conversions and social media.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Common Thread Collective are currently helping us with SMS and email flows and retention. They’re also managing our Facebook and Google shopping campaigns, along with social media advertising through multiple platforms. To jumpstart the project, we gave them all the documentation to our Shopify store and access to Google Analytics so they could start digging and give us a better scope of the engagement.

What is the team composition?

We work closely with an email marketing specialist, an account manager, two buyers for paid advertising for Google, Facebook, and Instagram, and a creative account manager.

How did you come to work with Common Thread Collective?

They were referred to us by several local companies in our area. We chose them because they deployed a good project scope and communicated well with us — it was a no-brainer.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $350,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.