How do you attach an image to a mask path on text?

[Jack24443636o995]

Working on creating a text heavy video with lots of little effects. I have created a mask path for the word "COGS" to follow. I've imported a png of wheels that I'd like to attach to the bottom of the word that follow the path along with it, but I'm stumped on how to do it. I've tried copying the mask and pasting it in the wheel's position. It copied the path, but not only is it much smaller, there's no path option to have it follow it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Mylenium]

Pre-compose the text befor doing anything with paths. Masks and paths are realtive to the layer, not the comp. Of course you'll run into all sorts of issues if things don't match.

Mylenium

[thepixelsmith]

Only text layers have a built in command to follow a path, doing that with any other layer will be a series of steps.

You may want to look into the trace path command in AE: https://youtu.be/NXTsPnTukTs?si=6ds0LhyGl_ljpmVc