Fractional Marketplace Leadership for Consumer Brands Scaling on Amazon
I help brands identify the constraint limiting Amazon growth, redesign the operating system around it, and improve ranking, efficiency, and internal capability without adding unnecessary complexity.
Most brands respond to Amazon complexity by hiring more people, adding agencies, or increasing ad spend.
The problem is rarely effort.
The channel has simply outgrown the system managing it.
Over the past decade I've worked across private-label brands, 8-figure ecommerce businesses, and 250+ Amazon sellers — giving me broad visibility into how marketplace growth systems actually break.
Why Amazon Growth Stalls
I
Organic rank is the primary driver of sustainable Amazon revenue. When ranking plateaus — or depends entirely on paid traffic to hold — the channel stops compounding and starts costing. Most brands don't have a system for building and protecting rank. They have campaigns that temporarily simulate it.
II
Advertising on Amazon is most efficient when it reinforces organic momentum. When PPC is managed in isolation — optimised for ROAS rather than rank, or concentrated on branded terms — it creates the illusion of performance while the structural growth problem remains untouched. Spend rises. The constraint stays.
III
Without a documented operating model, channel performance depends on individuals rather than process. Decisions are reactive. Knowledge is fragmented. The same problems recur in slightly different forms. Growth becomes harder to repeat — not because the team is weak, but because there is no system for the team to run.
The Economic Reality
Many brands respond to Amazon growth by adding more people. A new marketplace manager. A new agency. Another specialist. But when the channel is structured correctly, the economics work differently.
When the system is aligned
Rankings improve. Advertising becomes more efficient. Teams execute faster. Growth compounds with less friction.
When it isn't
Every new hire simply adds complexity. Revenue per team member barely moves despite more spend, more attention, and more activity.
Most brands don't need more execution. They need a system that makes the team they already have more effective.
The Pattern Most Brands Hit
Amazon starts working. Sales grow. The catalog expands. The channel becomes meaningful. Then growth begins to stagnate — despite more spend, more attention, and more activity.
You may recognise some of the symptoms:
From the outside this looks like an execution problem. In reality, it is usually a systems problem.
The Real Diagnosis
Without a clear operating model, performance lives in people's heads. Knowledge becomes fragmented. Execution becomes reactive. Growth becomes harder to repeat.
And eventually the channel becomes dependent on one internal operator, one agency, one person who "knows how Amazon works."
That is not scale. That is fragility.
Amazon performance is not driven by isolated tactics. It is driven by the interaction between category discovery, conversion efficiency, demand capture, pricing and profitability, product competitiveness, inventory and delivery speed, and historical sales momentum.
When these elements are not aligned, growth stagnates no matter how much optimisation takes place. This is why so many brands find themselves trapped in the same loop:
More Spend → Temporary Lift → Stagnation
The tactics change. The constraint remains.
What I Do
I work with established consumer brands in a fractional leadership capacity to identify the binding constraint in the channel, design the operating system around it, and help the team execute the next stage of growth.
The goal is not to add another vendor to the business. The goal is to install the operating system that allows Amazon to scale with less dependency on vendors over time.
Not this
Instead
The Work
Every brand has a limiting factor. Sometimes it is obvious. Often it is not. What looks like a PPC problem may actually be a conversion issue, a pricing issue, an inventory issue, a ranking issue, a team structure issue, or a branded-demand dependency. The first step is identifying what is truly holding the channel back — not optimising everything, not chasing noise. Finding the constraint that matters most right now.
Once the constraint is clear, the next step is to redesign the operating model around that reality. Depending on the brand, that may include:
I work alongside internal teams to implement the operating framework in practice. This is where most brands start to feel the difference — because the channel stops depending on scattered knowledge and starts behaving like a managed system. Clearer prioritisation, stronger decision frameworks, better channel economics, more disciplined execution, and documented processes the team can actually run.
The end goal is not dependency. It is capability. By the time the engagement is working properly, the internal team should be operating with more clarity, better process, stronger commercial discipline, less firefighting, and more confidence in what to do next. That is what makes growth repeatable.
What This Changes
When the system is working properly, the results are structural — not a temporary lift from a campaign tweak. This is often what brands are trying to achieve when they think they need another $120K Amazon hire. What they really need first is the operating system that makes the team they already have more effective.
Rankings improve and hold
Advertising becomes more efficient
Growth stops relying on constant intervention
The team executes with more confidence
Revenue scales faster than headcount
Less dependency on agencies and individual operators
Is It Time?
Common Triggers
Ideal Profile
This work is highest-leverage for consumer brands already doing meaningful volume on Amazon but running into structural friction as the channel grows.
Where This Work Is Most Valuable
Most agencies manage execution. They rarely leave behind a documented operating system the internal team can actually run. Brands making the shift from agency-led to in-house often inherit a channel that's active but structurally unclear — with no clear framework for prioritisation, campaign logic, or decision-making. That's the gap this work closes.
When the majority of Amazon revenue flows through branded search, the channel isn't really growing — it's harvesting existing demand. Non-branded category discovery is where real channel economics improve. Brands in this position often don't recognise the structural nature of the problem until PPC costs have compounded for years without fixing it.
Revenue growing but contribution margin flat or shrinking is a structural problem, not an execution one. It usually means advertising is carrying too much of the channel, organic ranking is weak, or the product mix is misaligned with where Amazon rewards efficiency. These problems compound quietly — and become significantly harder to fix the longer they run.
About Doug Broun
I've spent the last decade working inside Amazon growth systems — building and scaling private-label brands, leading marketing inside 8-figure ecommerce businesses, and coaching 250+ Amazon sellers on advanced ranking and conversion strategy.
Working across private-label brands, 8-figure ecommerce businesses, and hundreds of seller accounts has given me unusually broad visibility into how Amazon growth actually breaks — and how it gets fixed.
The brands that scale successfully are not the ones doing the most tactics. They are the ones operating with clear systems, strong commercial discipline, and a deep understanding of what matters now. That is the work I focus on today.
Background
Working Together
That conversation covers how Amazon currently fits into the business, where the main friction points are, and whether a systems-led approach would create meaningful leverage.
If there is a clear fit, the next step is usually a structured diagnostic and roadmap for how the channel should be redesigned. If not, you still leave with a clearer view of where the constraints are and what they are likely costing the business.
If Amazon is becoming more important to the business — but also more complex, more expensive, or harder to grow — it's usually a good time to step back and look at the system.
One that makes the right decisions repeatable — and allows Amazon to scale without adding unnecessary complexity, headcount, or waste.
No pitch. No obligation. Just a clear conversation about where your channel is constrained.