Fractional Head of eCommerce & CMOYour eCommerce
team of one.
One senior operator with AI leverage who moves faster and thinks more holistically than a team of five. Strategy and execution for brands doing $100K to $30M.
Book a Free Strategy Call →30 minutes. No pitch. Just a conversation about what you're building.
You've tried freelancers. You've tried agencies.
Nothing sticks.
You know you're leaving money on the table. Your site isn't converting the way it should. Your ads feel like guesswork. Your email is an afterthought.
You've hired freelancers who only know their one thing. You've tried agencies where every insight passes through four people before it reaches anyone who can act on it. By the time a recommendation makes it from the analyst to the account manager to the strategist to the buyer, it's lost all its edges.
The real problem? None of them see the whole picture. They don't understand how your ad spend connects to your landing pages connects to your email flows connects to your margins. The walls between strategy and execution were always artificial. The best work happens when they collapse entirely.
What happens when strategy and execution come from the same person.
Every number below comes from an engagement I ran. Ask me about any of them on the call.
One operator. AI-native. Faster than a team of five.
Most marketing teams are structured to protect roles, not produce results. The chain from account manager to strategist to media buyer to analyst didn't just slow things down. It diluted the thinking.
I work differently. The person making the strategic decision is the same person pulling the data, building the system, and measuring the result. No handoffs. No translation layer. No tickets submitted to a data team that comes back three weeks later with a deck that answers the wrong question.
AI didn't create the need for integrated thinkers. It just made the old model impossible to defend. I use AI agents and automation across every function I touch, from real-time ad performance monitoring to automated content pipelines to feed optimization. Work that used to require a media buyer, an analyst, and a morning standup now runs in the background.
AI-Powered Ad Monitoring
Automated agents pull performance data across all ad sets, flag anything with CPA above threshold, and draft kill/scale recommendations with actual reasoning.
Automated Content Pipelines
Dedicated landing pages for high-performing keywords, with targeted copy that matches search intent, built in seconds through direct CMS API integration.
Real-Time Feed Optimization
Product feed quality isn't a backend chore anymore. It's your primary storefront for AI commerce across Google Shopping, ChatGPT, and Meta.ai.
Answer Engine Optimization
No hype: AEO is the discipline great SEO always was, executed properly. Content restructured so ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite your brand. 400-500% citation lifts in 90 days.
One operator. Not a single point of failure.
The most common question I hear: what happens when one person isn't enough? Fair question. Three answers.
A bench, not a bureaucracy
I personally own strategy, execution, and the P&L. When a project needs more hands, I direct a vetted network of specialists I've worked with for years. Agency capacity without agency structure, and every deliverable still passes through me.
Built-in continuity
Everything I build lives in your accounts and is documented as I go: dashboards, automations, playbooks. Nothing is locked in my head. Agencies lose institutional knowledge every time the account team churns. You keep everything.
I ship software, not just strategy
When the same problem keeps showing up, it becomes a tool: AI agents that monitor ad performance daily, product feed automations, a Shopify app now in beta. One operator with AI leverage builds what used to take a dev team.
Everything your eCommerce operation needs. One person.
I don't hand you a roadmap and disappear. I step into your business and own the whole operation: in your Shopify admin, your Klaviyo account, your Google Ads dashboard, and your Amazon Seller Central, doing the work alongside your team.
eCommerce Management
- Strategic planning and roadmapping
- P&L ownership and KPI tracking
- Platform optimization (Shopify, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce)
- Vendor management and team coordination
- Technology stack selection and implementation
Growth Marketing
- Paid acquisition (Google, Meta, Amazon, programmatic)
- SEO strategy and implementation
- Email and SMS automation (Klaviyo, HubSpot)
- Retention and loyalty programs
- Affiliate and partnership programs
Conversion Optimization
- A/B and multivariate testing (VWO, GA4)
- Customer journey and funnel optimization
- PDP, checkout, and navigation redesigns
- Heatmap and behavioral analysis
- Landing page optimization
Marketplace Expansion
- Amazon Seller Central and Vendor Central
- PPC and DSP campaign management
- Listing optimization and A+ content
- Feed management and profitability analysis
- Walmart and Target marketplace strategy
Content + AI Visibility
- SEO-optimized product and category content
- Email and SMS campaign content
- Brand voice development
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO/GEO)
- AI/LLM visibility for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI
Analytics + Operations
- GA4 and GTM implementation
- PowerBI and Looker Studio dashboards
- Attribution modeling and reporting
- Process optimization
- Competitive intelligence
What I'm seeing in eCommerce right now.
All the DTC brands I work with are having massive year-over-year growth, mostly fueled by AI automations in workflows, product feeds, marketing, content generation, and ad platform scripts. One smaller Shopify site doing about $1M a year just posted double YoY growth on only 10% more ad spend than 2025.
Read on LinkedIn →I need beta testers for a new Shopify app I just launched. Free forever if you can give me solid feedback. Building tools is part of how I operate: when the same client problem keeps showing up, it becomes software.
Read on LinkedIn →True CRO experience is rare. I've had clients ask for CRO or even hire me for it alone, but not truly want it executed the correct way. Friction reduction is a finite game. The real work is matching what shoppers see to what they actually came for.
Read on LinkedIn →Just wrapped a CRO test with a fashion accessory client on Shopify Plus: conversion up about 20% on flagship products, profit per visitor up 24%, checkout completion from 43% to 63%. Nothing flashy. Just a lot of things that needed doing, done in the right order. Now every paid visitor is worth more.
Read on LinkedIn →GEO is just early SEO on replay: the shortcuts get penalized and the quality content sticks around. But all the FAQ-and-schema talk skips the thing that actually matters in commerce. An AI isn't recommending your product because of a clever headline, it's reading straight from your catalog. Mess up that feed and no TL;DR in the world saves you.
Read on LinkedIn →Is this right for you?
This is for you if...
- You're an eCommerce brand doing $100K to $30M in revenue
- You need senior-level leadership but aren't ready for a full-time executive
- You've tried freelancers or agencies and the results haven't stuck
- You know you're leaving money on the table but don't have the expertise to capture it
- You want one person who sees the whole picture and makes it all work together
Probably not the right fit if...
- You need a full-service agency with a team of 20
- You're pre-launch with no product or revenue yet
- You're looking for someone to just run your ads without touching anything else
- You're not ready to invest $9,000 a month in senior leadership
The outcome: one operator accountable for the whole picture. The results speak: doubled add-to-cart rates, 203% paid revenue growth, LTV:CAC moved from 2.5 to 5.9 in 5 months. Yours starts with a 30-minute call.
Questions founders actually ask.
What is a fractional head of eCommerce?
A senior operator who owns your eCommerce P&L part-time instead of full-time. Same leadership a VP brings, applied hands-on inside your Shopify admin, your Klaviyo account, and your ad platforms. I bring 15+ years of eCommerce leadership to brands doing $100K to $30M.
How is a fractional operator different from an agency?
Agencies split your account across four or five specialists and every insight passes through an account manager before anyone acts on it. With me, the person making the strategic decision is the same person pulling the data and building the system. That model has grown paid channel revenue 203% while cutting CPA 22%, and organic search revenue 520% for a 200K+ SKU retailer.
What happens when one person isn't enough?
I personally own strategy and execution, and when a project needs more hands I direct a vetted bench of specialists I have worked with for years. Every deliverable still passes through me. Everything I build is documented and lives in your accounts, so nothing depends on my availability or memory.
When should I hire a fractional head of eCommerce or CMO?
Three signals. You are doing $100K to $30M and growth has stalled or gotten expensive. You have cycled through freelancers or agencies and nothing sticks. You know the gaps but nobody on your team owns the full stack. If you are pre-launch with no revenue, you are not ready for me yet.
What is Answer Engine Optimization and do I need it?
AEO (also called GEO) makes ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews cite and recommend your brand when buyers ask questions. Buyers increasingly start research inside AI assistants instead of Google. I restructure content architecture, schema, and product feeds so AI engines can read, trust, and cite you. Clients have seen 400-500% LLM citation volume increases in 90 days.
What does a fractional head of eCommerce cost?
Engagements start at $9,000 a month. Compare that to a $200K+ full-time executive hire before benefits and equity, and you're getting the same seniority for less than half the cost. Scope flexes with what your business needs: some months lean strategy, some months heavy execution.
How does an engagement start?
Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute strategy call. No pitch. We talk through your business, your numbers, and where money is being left on the table.
Get a free AI visibility teardown.
Message me your store URL on LinkedIn and I'll send back what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI actually see when they read your store: what they cite, what they miss, and the three fixes I'd make first. No call, no deck, no obligation.
About Paul Rice
I'm Paul Rice. I've spent 15+ years scaling eCommerce brands from the inside, not as a consultant watching from the sidelines, but as the person in the platform doing the work.
I've held VP-level eCommerce and marketing roles at companies like Stauer and Apple Hospitality REIT, where I owned P&Ls, managed 8-figure budgets, and sent 300MM+ emails a year at Stauer alone.
Now I do it fractionally for growth-stage brands through Proven.Digital, as their fractional CMO and Head of eCommerce. Same experience, same execution, without the $200K+ salary. Based in Richmond, Virginia, working with brands nationwide. Connect on LinkedIn.
Proven.Digital at a glance: Proven.Digital is the practice of Paul Rice, a fractional Head of eCommerce and CMO based in Richmond, Virginia. Paul works with DTC and B2B brands doing $100K to $30M in annual revenue on Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, and Amazon. Engagements run ongoing fractional, monthly retainer, project-based, or white-label through agency partners. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute strategy call.
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Ready to scale strategically?
Ongoing fractional, monthly retainer, or project-based. No long-term contracts. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute strategy call: your business, your numbers, no sales pitch.
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