DTC & E-commerce Brands
For Shopify and direct-to-consumer businesses focused on turning more visitors into customers—and customers into repeat buyers.
Independent growth strategy consulting and fractional marketing leadership for DTC, e-commerce, B2B and consumer brands. We help your leadership team evaluate opportunities, set priorities, and turn the right moves into an actionable plan.
No pressure, no obligation. A conversation about your business and what's next.
Career figures reflect prior agency, consulting and collaborative media work—not Leopard Owl client engagements.
The right strategy depends on how you sell, who buys, and what's slowing momentum. We tailor the work to your business model—not a generic marketing playbook.
For Shopify and direct-to-consumer businesses focused on turning more visitors into customers—and customers into repeat buyers.
For established companies looking to sharpen positioning, increase qualified demand, and make their marketing more commercially effective.
For brands navigating audience growth, changing consumer behavior, new channels, or the next phase of market expansion.
Growth often breaks down between teams, channels, and customer touchpoints. Our job is to connect the dots, find the friction, and prioritize what can have the greatest impact.
Shopify storefronts, product journeys, checkout friction, average order value, offers and conversion opportunities.
Search visibility, content gaps, high-intent demand, competitor coverage and opportunities for sustainable discovery.
Channel mix, paid media efficiency, lead quality, acquisition friction and where spending could work harder.
Email and SMS opportunities, repeat-purchase journeys, customer experience, loyalty and lifetime value.
Messaging, differentiation, creative direction, go-to-market choices and the competitive landscape.
Measurement, KPI design, funnel analysis, team priorities and operational systems that keep strategy moving.
The scope is tailored to your situation. We focus on the areas most likely to matter—not six workstreams for every engagement.
Explore growth strategy consulting, marketing diagnostics, and fractional executive advisory tailored to your needs. Each engagement is scoped in writing before paid work begins, and all start with a free introductory call.
Get a focused assessment of your growth opportunities before committing to a larger plan.
Best for: Businesses that want a credible outside perspective and clarity on what to tackle first.
Explore the growth marketing audit Discuss the Diagnostic →Develop a prioritized 90-day growth roadmap grounded in your goals, resources and market.
Best for: Teams ready to commit to a defined strategy and move from ideas to execution.
Explore growth strategy consulting Discuss the Blueprint →Access experienced marketing and growth leadership on a fractional advisory basis, scoped to your team.
Best for: Operators and leaders who have a team but want experienced strategic guidance.
Explore fractional marketing leadership Discuss Advisory →How we work: Leopard Owl is an independent strategic consultancy, not a high-volume production agency. Execution, specialist services or AI workflow implementation can be separately scoped when appropriate. The exact deliverables depend on the agreed engagement.
The point of a Growth Strategy Blueprint is not another presentation. It is to answer: What should we do, why does it matter, who owns it, and how will we know it worked?
This is a worked-through hypothetical DTC scenario, not a client case study. You don’t need to supply data to view it; real findings require your business context and access.
Talk through your priorities →We separate what the business knows from what still needs validation. A useful blueprint makes the next decision clearer.
A hypothesis isn't a finding. Recommendations follow the evidence, not the other way around.
Example sequence—subject to validation. Rank initiatives by potential impact, confidence, effort, and dependencies.
Each priority should have an accountable owner, a measurable hypothesis, and a defined review point.
Choose one primary outcome, supporting diagnostic metrics, and guardrails before testing.
Metrics and ownership change with the engagement. No results are implied here.
Experience spanning director-level digital media leadership, VP-scope marketing responsibilities, brand positioning, commercial growth, and the teams and partners that turn strategy into action. Results below come from previous roles, not Leopard Owl client work.
Growth work spanning search visibility, website improvements and conversion optimization, connected to broader commercial goals.
Using content strategy, audience behavior and performance testing to turn reach into more meaningful website visits.
Selected outcomes reflect the founder’s previous employment, not Leopard Owl client engagements. Client names and confidential details are not disclosed without permission. Historical results are not guarantees of future performance.
Simple, collaborative and scoped around what your business actually needs. No long sales maze or unnecessary services.
Spend 15 minutes discussing your business, challenges and goals. We assess fit—not diagnose everything for free.
Agree on the engagement, access needs, deliverables, timing and fees in writing before work begins.
Review your market, customer journey, channels and data you choose to share.
Turn observations into recommendations, clear choices and a usable action plan.
Equip your team to execute, with ongoing advisory available when appropriate.
I'm Jake Bugella. For more than a decade, I've worked across growth strategy, brand development, audience building and marketing leadership—connecting creative decisions with commercial goals and measurable performance.
My previous experience includes serving as Director of YouTube, leading marketing for a B2B product business with VP-level responsibilities, and supporting 100+ clients through prior agency and consulting work, including Goldmine Social. Video content I helped lead, direct, optimize or produce in previous roles has collectively received 200M+ views. These are founder career figures, not Leopard Owl client results.
That work spans B2B and consumer products, media and creators, fashion and lifestyle, hospitality, health and fitness, and regulated consumer brands. I've worked across digital and offline channels—from creative direction, messaging and paid media to SEO, lifecycle marketing, websites, analytics and sales enablement.
Today, in a Digital Marketing Manager role at a multi-location consumer brand, I oversee a broad, cross-functional remit spanning paid media, websites and e-commerce, SEO, email and lifecycle marketing, marketplace and delivery partners, agency direction, analytics, and launch coordination. The work connects channel strategy with leadership priorities and execution.
Leopard Owl brings that experience directly to clients: evidence-led recommendations, brand and growth strategy, and senior-level guidance that works alongside your team.
Talk About Your Business →Practical perspectives on strategy, commercial performance, and the decisions behind growth. Less noise, more useful judgment.
Before increasing acquisition spend, check whether the current buying journey is converting the demand you already have.
Read the insightEvidence-led recommendations, clear priorities, and accountable follow-through help leadership teams turn strategy into action.
Read the insightA calendar of tasks can create motion without progress. Here is what needs to come before the roadmap.
Read the insightUseful answers to the questions we expect from business owners and marketing leaders evaluating outside growth support.
Yes. Relevant work may include conversion and customer-journey reviews, SEO, acquisition efficiency, offer positioning, retention and analytics. We decide together which areas need attention based on your goals and the data available.
That's often the first question worth exploring. Depending on the business, opportunities may exist in conversion rate, repeat purchases, organic discovery, messaging or channel efficiency. We don't promise that any specific lever will produce results before assessing it.
No. The core offering is independent strategy and executive advisory. We work alongside internal teams and existing agencies, rather than automatically taking over daily content posting, advertising accounts or design production. Selected implementation may be scoped separately.
The Diagnostic delivers findings and priorities; the Blueprint provides an action roadmap for the next 90 days of business execution; advisory offers ongoing senior-level strategic guidance. The 90 days describe the action plan, not the delivery time. We confirm the actual deliverables and turnaround in your proposal.
Our core work is assessment, planning and strategic leadership. Your team or existing vendors can carry out execution. Where appropriate, specific implementation or specialist support can be quoted separately rather than assumed to be included.
No. The initial call helps determine whether a Diagnostic, Blueprint or direct advisory relationship is the best fit. We won't recommend an extra step just to create another purchase.
Pricing depends on the depth of research, complexity of the business, access required and level of ongoing involvement. We'll discuss fit first and provide a clear proposal and scope before you agree to paid work.
Timing depends on the scope, complexity and access to relevant information. We agree on a realistic delivery timeline before any paid work begins. The “90 days” in the Blueprint refers to the execution horizon, not a 90-day wait for your plan.
Not for the introductory conversation. Early observations can use publicly available information. Deeper analysis benefits from appropriate, permissioned access; we only request what's relevant to the agreed scope.
No responsible growth advisor can guarantee a specific commercial outcome. Results depend on the market, resources, offer, timing and execution. We provide rigorous analysis, prioritized direction and accountable strategic guidance.
Tell us what's working, what's stuck and what you're trying to achieve. Start with a free 15-minute introductory call.