The stage nobody plans for
Somewhere between €1M and €10M, ecommerce gets harder.
The ads that worked stop scaling. CAC creeps up. Email revenue flattens. The agency reports look fine and the bank account disagrees. The founder still approves every creative, because nobody else owns the whole picture.
That is not a channel problem. It is an ownership problem.
What an ecommerce CMO actually owns
- Positioning and offer. What you sell, to whom, and why it wins
- Growth strategy across paid, organic, retention and marketplaces
- Measurement that matches the P&L: contribution margin after ads, MER, payback
- Retention and lifecycle priorities
- Creative systems, so winning ads are not a lucky accident
- Direction for your team, freelancers and agencies
What I do not own: daily media buying, store builds, theme work. Those are different jobs. I will help you hire or brief them well.
Why fractional, why now
A full time CMO is a big bet at this stage. Expensive, slow to hire, slow to judge. Many brands hire one before the role is shaped, then lose a year finding out.
A fractional CMO gives you senior ownership a few days a week. You see how I think within weeks, not quarters. If you outgrow fractional, I help you hire the full time leader. The longer comparison: fractional vs full time CMO.
For Shopify brands specifically
Most of my work is with brands on Shopify. The store is rarely the problem. The issues sit around it: too many apps nobody measures, discount habits that train customers to wait, three dashboards that disagree, and a retention program that never got a real owner.
I work on the business that runs on the store. If you need a developer or theme work, I will say so and point you to the right kind of partner.
How the first 90 days work
Days 1 to 30. Diagnose. Funnel, product pages, retention, creative throughput, measurement, team and vendors. Output: three to five ranked constraints.
Days 31 to 60. Prioritize. One or two levers, resourced properly. Margin burning work paused.
Days 61 to 90. Prove. Weekly reporting on contribution margin and payback. Double down, adjust or kill.
The full version: a 90 day ecommerce marketing plan.
How I keep it lean
I run a small team of AI agents for research, reporting and first drafts. The senior hours you pay for go into decisions, not into building spreadsheets. How that works in practice: AI CMO.