Taylor and Andrew Debate Cost Controls (We Ran the Numbers) artwork

Taylor and Andrew Debate Cost Controls (We Ran the Numbers)

Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth

August 6, 2026

Taylor and Andrew Faris sit down to debate something every performance marketer has an opinion about but almost nobody has actually tested: do Meta cost controls deliver to the bid you set?CTC reviewed $1.
Speakers: Andrew Faris, Taylor

Topics: Business

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Hey, everyone, just a reminder to get your tickets for our in-person seven-figure growth workshop that's happening on September the 2nd at CTC's offices in sunny Coast of Mesa, California.
You're going to hear a keynote from our CEO, Taylor, to kick it off, and then you're going to join a cohort of about 10 other brands rotating through workshop sessions where we're going to be talking about forecasting, paid media, creative production, hiring and AI tooling, all of the building blocks to get your seven-figure brand to the next level. Luke Austin and Tony Chop have both been on this podcast regularly, are also going to be there in person, so come meet them as well. So to grab tickets, just go to commentthreadco.com and hit the banner up top. We would love to see you there. All right, on with the show.
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**Andrew Faris** (1:27)
You want to start there or do you want to yell at me?

**Taylor** (1:30)
No, no, no. We could start with that because I think-

**SPEAKER_1** (1:33)
We can start with what?

**Taylor** (1:34)
Yell at me or date? Research because I think this is a good one for the two of us. That's why I even think it's a good place for us to, we have been waiting to publish this, but I think you've probably, I'd say, taken over as the cost cap maxi lord.
I think so.

**Andrew Faris** (1:53)
I think so.

**Taylor** (1:54)
I think I've backed off of it so much because I just hate the argument so much now.

**Andrew Faris** (1:58)
I'm getting there.

**Taylor** (1:59)
You've picked up the flag and I think.

**Andrew Faris** (2:00)
The reason why is that I'm so close to accounts that I see, it just still makes me so crazy to look at somebody's business and look at the dollars being lit on fire. It just breaks me. I don't actually care about what is the best media buying method. That's not what I care about. What I care about is how to grow your business without lighting money on fire.
I think it's just a big thing. The actual position I hate the most is this doesn't matter. Unless there's a data-driven reason to say it doesn't matter. Then it's fine.
But this doesn't matter. Go make more creative is just like, I don't understand why we can't care about both. Anyway, you're right. I do think I've become that to some degree.

**Taylor** (2:41)
I'd be curious, what do you think the industry disposition is now? I feel like the Overton window moved a lot.
Most people conceded eventually to the idea that this is it.

**Andrew Faris** (2:53)
Manual bids?

**Taylor** (2:53)
Yeah.

**Andrew Faris** (2:55)
I actually don't know if I think that. I still see some pretty loud voices. I think the auto bidders stopped arguing about it at some point.

**Taylor** (3:03)
Okay.
Well, so what I want to say is that one of the things I try to do, despite maybe my more dogmatic public presentation, is that I just really want the idea to work. I don't actually care about the merits of the idea. I don't want to run people's ad accounts if it's a bad strategy to do that, right?

**Andrew Faris** (3:21)
Exactly.

**Taylor** (3:23)
So the way we got to this was not to begin with dogma, it was to begin with what would be the best way to protect their money.

**Andrew Faris** (3:30)
That's exactly my point, is that that's the reason I care about it too, is like, yeah.

**Taylor** (3:36)
So with that, I think that one of the experiences, one of the things we've been struggling with, because we've been working really hard to try and, we call it the canon, like, operationalize a defined set of ideology further than we've ever gone before.

**Andrew Faris** (3:48)
Yeah.

**Taylor** (3:48)
And you get into really hard questions about setting bids.

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