The team you wish you'd hired six months ago.
We embed inside e-commerce and SaaS teams as contractors, consultants, or fractional operators, and get the unglamorous work done. Dashboards that hold up. Ad accounts that stop bleeding money. Systems that don't fall over.
A bench of operators, not a single freelancer. Not an agency of generalists either.
We are not five different vendors in a trenchcoat. We are the same people, every week, inside your ad accounts, your data, your Jira board, actually finishing what we start.— the operating principle behind every engagement
Operators first.
Consultants second.
We've run product, data, and operations inside e-commerce and SaaS companies, not just advised from the outside. Now we bring that hands-on experience to teams that need senior-level execution without a senior-level headcount. You get someone who has actually done the job, not someone who read about it.
Three functions. One team.
Product
We manage the product, not code it ourselves. Roadmaps, specs, and priorities, plus the ad platforms, APIs, and workflow systems it all depends on. If you need hands-on development, we can also stand up and manage a dedicated build team in India.
Data
We turn scattered numbers into dashboards your team actually opens, and analytics that are configured right the first time, so decisions get made on facts instead of guesses.
Operations
We handle the day-to-day that never makes it onto a roadmap: internal tools, ad account troubleshooting, QA, customer issues, and the fires that need someone senior on them fast.
Pick the level of involvement you need.
Senior product leadership without a full-time executive hire. Roadmap, prioritization, and accountability for the team you already have.
Embedded, ongoing part-time capacity. We show up in your tools, on your standups, and in your Slack, like a team member who happens to be part-time.
An advisory engagement. We diagnose what's broken, hand you a plan, and execute alongside your team as much or as little as you need.
Scoped, project-based work with a clear deliverable and a deadline. Good for a single build, a migration, or a fix that needs to happen and stay fixed.
Not sure which one fits? Tell us the problem, we'll tell you the engagement.
Common questions from US e-commerce and SaaS teams.
An e-commerce operator handles the hands-on product, data, and operations work that keeps an online business running: setting product priorities, configuring analytics like GA4, troubleshooting Meta and Google ad accounts, building dashboards, running QA, and resolving customer issues, without needing a full in-house team for each function.
No. We're product managers, not web developers. We manage the roadmap, requirements, and priorities, and configure the ad platforms, analytics, and workflow systems a product depends on. If you need code written, we can stand up and manage a dedicated development team in India on your behalf.
All work is billed hourly. Contractor and consultant engagements carry little to no minimum commitment. More embedded roles, like a fractional employee or fractional CPO, carry a minimum weekly or monthly hour commitment so the engagement can actually move the needle. See the Solutions page for a full breakdown.
Our primary focus is e-commerce and SaaS companies based in the United States. We also take on international engagements on a case-by-case basis.
A fractional CPO owns the product roadmap on an ongoing basis and is accountable for what the team ships. A consultant is brought in to diagnose a specific problem and hand over a plan, with execution support as needed, typically without ongoing accountability for the roadmap.
Have a problem that needs an operator?
Tell us what's broken, slow, or missing. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit.
Everything we run, function by function.
We work across three functions inside e-commerce and SaaS businesses. Most engagements touch more than one of them.
We manage the product. We don't code it ourselves.
We're product managers, not web developers. We set priorities, write specs, and run the roadmap end to end. We configure the ad platforms, analytics, and workflow systems your product depends on. If you need something actually built, we can stand up and manage a dedicated development team in India rather than hand you off to a freelancer marketplace and hope for the best.
Numbers your team can actually trust.
We turn scattered spreadsheets and half-configured tracking into dashboards people open every day. That means clean data pipelines, analytics set up correctly the first time, and KPI frameworks built around the decisions your team actually needs to make, not vanity metrics.
The day-to-day that keeps a business running.
Every growing company has a pile of work that isn't glamorous but can't wait: an ad account quietly losing money, a customer issue queue nobody owns, QA that keeps slipping. We take that pile and clear it, then put a system in place so it doesn't pile back up.
Four ways to work with us.
The right engagement depends on the problem, not the other way around.
Senior product leadership without a full-time executive hire. We own the roadmap, set priorities, and hold the existing team accountable to shipping against it.
Embedded, ongoing part-time capacity for teams that need consistent hands on a function without the overhead of a full-time hire. We show up in your tools, your standups, and your Slack.
An advisory engagement built around a diagnosis. We audit what's happening, hand you a clear plan with priorities attached, and execute alongside your team as much or as little as you need.
Scoped, project-based work with a clear deliverable and a deadline. You know what you're getting and when. Good for a single build, a platform migration, or a specific fix that needs to happen and stay fixed.
Not sure which one fits? Tell us the problem, we'll tell you the engagement.
What each engagement includes.
Ordered from the most involved to the least. Most engagements are a mix, this is the general shape of each.
| Fractional CPO |
Fractional Employee |
Consultant | Contractor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sets strategy & roadmap priorities | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Executes hands-on work | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Embedded daily in your tools & standups | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Ongoing, recurring engagement | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Accountable for team output & delivery | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Can coordinate a dedicated India build team | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Fixed scope with a defined deadline | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Best for a single, well-defined project | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
How we price.
Every engagement is billed hourly. The more embedded the role, the more we ask for a minimum hour commitment, so we can actually move the needle instead of context-switching between five different clients.
Not sure which function you need?
That's normal. Most of the problems we get called in for touch product, data, and operations at once.
Selected work.
A sample of the kind of problems we get called in for. Most of our work happens under NDA, so names and numbers below are illustrative. Specific client references are available on request.
Fixing broken ad tracking that was quietly killing performance
A brand's Meta ad performance had been declining for months. Campaigns were being paused and reworked based on numbers nobody could fully explain, but the creative was never the real problem.
Audited the full tracking chain from ad to landing page and found a batch of broken links pointing to outdated URLs, silently dropping a meaningful share of paid traffic before it ever reached the site.
Fixed the links and rebuilt the tracking. Reported performance jumped, not because the ads got better, but because they were finally being measured correctly.
Tracking down blank screens and failed payments before they cost more customers
Customers were intermittently hitting blank screens at checkout, and a share of payments were silently failing, with no clear pattern and no one owning the issue.
Reproduced the failures across browsers and devices, traced them to a conflict between a third-party script and the checkout flow, and worked with the dev team to isolate and fix it.
Blank screens and failed payments stopped, and a monitoring check went in place so the same failure mode gets caught automatically next time.
Using product-level data to decide what belongs on the PDP and PLP
A brand's product and listing pages were arranged by guesswork. Older products got the same real estate as the strongest sellers, and conversion was suffering for it.
Analyzed product-level performance data to identify the actual top performers, then rebuilt the PDP and PLP layouts to surface those products first.
Conversion improved on the pages that mattered most, and the brand had a repeatable, data-backed process for deciding what to feature next.
Unifying Amazon, GA4, Meta, Klaviyo, and Shopify into one dashboard
A brand's data was scattered across five different platforms: Amazon, Google Analytics, Meta, Klaviyo, and Shopify. Nobody had one place to see how the business was actually performing.
Built a single dashboard that pulled and reconciled data across every channel, so metrics could be compared and cross-referenced instead of living in five separate tabs.
Leadership got one source of truth for the business, and could finally see how channels influenced each other instead of looking at each in isolation.
Rebuilding a storefront's ad tracking from scratch
A DTC apparel brand's Meta and Google ad accounts were reporting numbers that didn't match Shopify. Nobody could tell which campaigns actually worked.
Audited the pixel and GA4 setup, rebuilt server-side tracking, and stood up a dashboard tying ad spend to actual revenue.
Leadership could finally see true ROAS by campaign, and cut spend on channels that were quietly losing money.
Standing up QA and support for a fast-growing marketplace
A marketplace seller platform was shipping features faster than it could test them, and customer issues were piling up in a shared inbox.
Built a QA process for releases, set up Jira workflows the team actually used, and triaged the customer issue backlog.
Release-related complaints dropped, and the team had a clear system for catching bugs before launch instead of after.
Turning three spreadsheets into one dashboard
A B2B SaaS company's leadership team was pulling numbers from three different tools before every board meeting.
Consolidated data sources, configured a single reporting pipeline, and built a live dashboard around the KPIs that actually mattered.
Board prep dropped from days to an afternoon, and the numbers finally agreed with each other.
Fractional product leadership for a seed-stage app
A seed-stage consumer app had engineers but no one setting priorities, and the roadmap changed every week.
Stepped in as fractional CPO, ran discovery with users, and built a prioritized roadmap the team could actually execute.
The team shipped its first stable release cadence and could tell investors what was coming next with confidence.
Sound like a problem you have?
Tell us what's going on and we'll tell you honestly whether we can help.
Research and analysis for e-commerce operators.
Deep dives on attribution, paid media, retention, tariffs, AI commerce, and marketplaces, written for people running e-commerce and SaaS businesses in the United States.
Half your customers are on iPhones. Apple made them almost invisible to your analytics.
It's been getting worse every year since 2023. Here's what's broken, what it's costing you, and how to fix it without a developer.
Read →Your CAC Math Is Broken
The paid social arbitrage window that built DTC is structurally closed. Here is what the new acquisition math actually looks like and what the brands pulling ahead are doing differently
Read →The Subscription Dilemma: Stay, Pause, or Cancel
Churn rates are at multi-year highs and the brands reversing the trend share one common finding: flexibility retained more customers than any win-back offer.
Read →Meta's Quietest Ad Update Might Be Its Biggest One Yet
Why Meta's new Pixel and Conversions API rollout could reshape performance marketing more than another AI creative tool.
Read →The 194-Day Window Every E-Commerce Operator Is Wasting
You have until November 10, 2026 before the tariff truce expires. Most brands are treating this as a resolution. The ones who survive the next escalation are treating it as a runway.
Read →Why your catalog is invisible to the $5 trillion AI shopping channel
Why the biggest shift in product discovery since Google Shopping is happening right now, and what your catalog needs to do about it before Q4.
Read →The IEEPA refund window is closing
The CAPE portal opened April 20. Phase 1 covers less than most DTC brands realize, the protest clock is running on your oldest entries, and some windows may already be closing.
Read →Meta is paying creators to sell your products
Meta's new affiliate system lets creators tag and sell your products directly in Reels. Here's what it means for your CAC and creator strategy.
Read →The Amazon pricing rule running your multi-channel strategy
A California antitrust case with a July 23 injunction hearing is about to change the rules every Amazon seller has been building around.
Read →Your SMS flows are leaving mobile revenue on the table
RCS has crossed into mainstream infrastructure. Klaviyo and Attentive have built support for it, and cart abandonment sits at 70%.
Read →AI is now your biggest returns problem
Shoppers are using AI to fake damage photos and claim refunds on intact products. Here is what your return workflow needs before it gets worse.
Read →Your live shopping strategy has a fulfillment problem
US livestream e-commerce hit $14.6B in 2025. Most brands are losing money on canceled orders and account health hits.
Read →The second purchase is where DTC economics work
CAC is up 60% in five years. Brands lose $29 on the first order. Everything depends on what happens after checkout.
Read →How failed payments are killing your subscriptions
Subscription brands lose $440B a year to failed payments, not cancellations. Here's the dunning infrastructure that recovers subscribers before they're gone.
Read →Your blog is bleeding traffic. Your product pages are probably fine.
The May 2026 core update is finishing its rollout this week. Here's what it's actually hitting, and how to stop misreading your analytics.
Read →Loyalty program running at a loss?
Two-thirds of retailers now offer loyalty programs. The brands quietly pulling ahead aren't running the same kind.
Read →Your PMax campaign is running a 2022 configuration on a platform Google has rebuilt three times since.
Google Shopping drives 85% of all e-commerce clicks on Google. Your setup from two years ago is still doing the bidding.
Read →Adding customers is expensive. Getting each one to spend more costs almost nothing.
The most under-managed number on your P&L has nothing to do with acquisition. It's what each customer spends per order.
Read →Amazon moved Prime Day to June. You have 11 days.
Prime Day 2026 is June 23-26, the earliest the event has run since 2021.
Read →Fix your PDPs before AI Commerce leaves you behind
AI traffic converts better than search, but most product pages are invisible to AI crawlers.
Read →TikTok Shop margin trap
82% of TikTok Shop sellers are losing money. Here's the margin math and operating model the profitable 18% actually use.
Read →Amazon ad costs just hit a new ceiling, four days before Prime Day
Sponsored Products CPCs are running above every 2026 benchmark sellers track. Bidding harder isn't the fix.
Read →In 9 days, every parcel you ship into Europe gets a customs bill it never had before
The EU's 150 euro de minimis exemption ends July 1.
Read →Retail media isn't fragmenting. It's consolidating into two companies
Amazon and Walmart will capture 89% of all new retail media dollars in 2026.
Read →A returns company just got valued at $1.25 billion. That should change how you think about your refund page
Post-purchase is becoming the most valuable real estate in e-commerce.
Read →Amazon is about to start paying itself first. You have 33 days to figure out what that costs you
On August 1, a quiet billing change becomes mandatory for a group of advertisers Amazon won't name.
Read →Your returns policy is a margin leak you haven't priced
Half your customers now use AI to write return claims.
Read →Shopify just gave you 56 days to replace the tool running your reorders
Stocky stops working August 31, 2026.
Read →Tell us what's broken.
Fill this out and we'll get back to you within one to two business days.
What happens next
We read what you send and ask clarifying questions if we need to.
We get on a short call to understand the problem, not just the request.
We tell you honestly whether we're a fit, and propose an engagement.
Prefer email?
theecommerceoperator@gmail.com