№003Tracking
You don't have a data problem. You have a definitions problem.
Why "active user" means seven different things across your tools — and how to fix it in one afternoon.
02 May 2026
Now booking · Q4 · 2026
Build thegrowthengine.
I embed with founders for the time it takes — a 4-week audit, a 6-month engine build, a 12-month PPC programme. Whatever the engagement, the deliverable is a working system your team owns, not a deck.
Paid acquisition, conversion tracking, web, and the data integrity that ties them together — engineered, not guessed. One operator, end-to-end, until the system is yours.
Days
To first fixes live — not months of onboarding
3×
A client's entire business, tripled — by engineered demand
0→7 figs
A brand-new revenue channel, built from nothing
100%
Senior work on your account — no juniors, no handoffs
§ 01 — The practice
A founder-led studio
for growth
Most growth shops sell you a strategy. I build you a system.
CGE is a single-operator practice — I plug into your team for the engagement duration that fits the work. Six months to build a complete growth engine. Twelve months to compound a PPC programme. A few weeks to audit and prescribe. The shape varies; the principle doesn't.
No retainers padded with busywork. No twelve-person decks. No "alignment workshops." Just a working growth engine, hand-built, instrumented, and handed over.
No retainers
No decks
No theatre
Outcomes only
§ 02 — Services
Seven things
I build for you.
End-to-end growth engineering. Pick one. Pick a few. Pick the whole stack — the offerings reinforce each other and the team rate stays the same.
№01Custom builds
Web Development
Production-grade websites built to convert and ship fast. Marketing sites, app shells, landing pages.
01
Next.js / Astro builds
Component-first, fast, SEO-ready
02
Headless CMS integration
Sanity, Contentful, Notion-as-CMS
03
Landing page systems
Templated, A/B-ready, single-source content
04
Edge functions & APIs
Personalisation, geo, auth, paywalls
Engagement · 6–8 weeks per buildExplore
№02Performance media
PPC & Paid Acquisition
Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok campaigns instrumented end-to-end. Built on offline conversions, not vanity metrics.
01
Account architecture
Campaign hierarchy that scales past $100k/mo
02
Creative testing systems
Frameworks for shipping 20+ ads/week
03
Server-side conversion APIs
Recover signal lost to iOS / cookies
04
MMM-lite attribution
Geo-holdouts and incrementality measurement
Engagement · 12-month programmeExplore
№03Analytics infra
Data Tracking & Implementation
The plumbing — events, sources of truth, dashboards. Done once, properly, so every later decision has a foundation.
01
GTM server-side container
First-party tracking on your own subdomain
02
Amplitude · Mixpanel · GA4 setup
Event taxonomy + naming conventions
03
Warehouse pipelines
BigQuery / Snowflake / DuckDB landing
04
Identity resolution
Stitching anon → known user across devices
Engagement · 4–8 weeks per buildExplore
№04Internal tools
Business Software
The operational software a growing company needs but never has time to build — invoicing, admin, ops dashboards.
01
Custom CRMs & dashboards
Built on Retool / Internal / bespoke
02
Workflow automation
Zapier, n8n, custom backends
03
Stripe & billing systems
Subscriptions, metering, invoicing
04
Slack & ops integrations
Alerting, approvals, daily digests
Engagement · 2–6 months per toolExplore
№05CRO
Optimization & Conversion
Redesigning checkout flows, signup forms, and landing pages to turn more visitors into paying customers.
01
Conversion Rate Optimization
Funnel teardowns + structured experimentation
02
A/B Testing Implementation
LaunchDarkly · Optimizely · GrowthBook setup
03
User Onboarding Engineering
Product tours, checklists, welcome flows
04
Pricing page experiments
Tier framing, anchors, contract length tests
Engagement · 8–12 week sprintsExplore
№06Insight
Data & Analytics
Once tracking exists, someone has to read it. Funnel analysis, retention work, attribution, technical SEO.
01
Funnel & drop-off analysis
Mapping the user journey to the leak
02
Retention cohort work
D1/D7/D30, retention curves, root-cause
03
SEO technical audits
Page speed, schema, sitemaps, indexation
04
Quarterly insight reviews
What changed, why, what to ship next
Engagement · Quarterly engagementsExplore
№07Lifecycle
Marketing Automation
The systems that make your product feel attentive — triggered messages, personalisation, viral loops.
01
Behavior-triggered messaging
Email, SMS, push — based on real events
02
Personalisation engines
Dynamic content by industry, geo, referrer
03
Viral & referral systems
Invite mechanics, reward dashboards, tracking
04
Lifecycle email design
Onboarding, reactivation, win-back sequences
Engagement · 3–6 months per programmeExplore
§ 03 — Engagements
Timelines that
fit the work.
Five engagement shapes. Different services need different rhythms — an audit is weeks, a paid programme is a year. Pick the shape that matches your stage; I'll fit the work to it.
№01Diagnose
2 — 4weeks
Growth Audit
A surgical look at your funnel, stack, and team. You leave with a prioritised 12-month roadmap and a clear go / no-go on the work that follows.
01 / 05
№02Build
6months
Engine Build
Embedded delivery — web, tracking, paid, lifecycle, CRO — all hand-built. Bi-weekly demos, daily commits, and an operating manual at handover.
02 / 05
№03Compound
12months
PPC Programme
Ongoing paid-acquisition operatorship across Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Server-side tracking, creative testing systems, and quarterly reviews.
03 / 05
№04Optimize
8 — 12weeks
CRO Sprint
A focused experimentation programme against the highest-leverage flows in your funnel — onboarding, checkout, pricing. Win-rate measured, results documented.
04 / 05
№05Lead
∞fractional
Fractional CGE
One day a week, on retainer — strategy, senior hires, weekly accountability. For founders who want a CGE-shaped seat without the full-time hire.
05 / 05
Note on exclusivity: I take a small handful of concurrent engagements, not one client at a time — I'm a senior operator, not a freelancer. Capacity is checked before booking.Two Q4 slots open
§ 04 — Work
Selected work.
Luxury transport · Ireland & UK · 3-year engagement
Tripled the fleet
for a transport operator.
3×
Fleet size, over the engagement
Quote
Instant online estimator, built
1st-party
Conversion tracking, fixed
IE + UK
Regional markets beyond London
The problem
A luxury chauffeur operator serving Ireland and the UK — the regional markets outside London — wanted more bookings and a bigger fleet. But quoting was manual, paid spend wasn't tied to real demand, and the conversion tracking couldn't be trusted.
What we shipped
Over three years: built an instant quote estimator and online booking platform, rebuilt Google Ads around qualified, high-intent demand, and fixed conversion tracking end-to-end. The fleet tripled to meet the demand the system was generating.
Other recent work
See all №03Web + PPC · 5 yrs
B2B PPE & hygiene supply
0 → 7 figs
Online store built from scratch
№02PPC + Server-side · 2 yrs
Self-storage · Middle East
Lead quality
Region's largest provider
№01Paid social + Data · 2025
Restaurant group · Intl
Attributed
SevenRooms bookings → GA4
§ 05 — The stack
Tools I bring
to the table.
Tool-agnostic where possible, opinionated where it matters. If you already have a stack, I plug in. If you don't, I'll bring one.
Build
Next.js
Astro
TypeScript
Tailwind
Sanity
Vercel
Track
GTM Server
Amplitude
Mixpanel
GA4
Segment
BigQuery
Test
LaunchDarkly
Optimizely
GrowthBook
PostHog
Statsig
VWO
Reach
Google Ads
Meta
LinkedIn
TikTok
Reddit
Apple SA
Lifecycle
Customer.io
Braze
Iterable
Resend
Twilio
Loops
Ops
Retool
n8n
Zapier
Stripe
Linear
Slack
§ 06 — Thinking
Field notes.
A few operating principles and playbooks I write up when there's something worth saying.
Field note · 00506 Jul 2026
What is a fractional growth engineer?
How the role differs from a fractional CMO, an agency and a full-time hire — what it costs, when it fits, and the questions to ask anyone wearing the title.
Read the note
№004Operating
The best growth teams ship faster than they strategize.
Three observations from years of growth work — and what makes the high-leverage teams different.
17 May 2026
№002Paid
Server-side conversion APIs aren't optional any more.
iOS attrition, browser deprecations, and the work that recovers signal most accounts are quietly losing.
18 Apr 2026
§ 07 — About
Rob Louw.
Engineer by training. Operator by trade.
I trained as an engineer at the University of Cape Town, then spent the last eight years in marketing — most of it deep in performance: Google Ads, conversion tracking, and the data integrity that makes both worth trusting.
The work is real and current: the Middle East's largest self-storage provider, a medical practice in New York State, a B2B PPE supplier whose store I took from zero to seven figures over five years, a luxury chauffeur operator in Ireland & the UK whose fleet tripled over our three years together, and an upmarket international restaurant group whose SevenRooms bookings I wired into GA4. CGE is where I do that work — for a small number of clients at a time, and the deliverable is always a system your team can run without me.
Based in
Cape Town · South Africa
Working hours
GMT+2 · flexible to US & Asia
Specialism
PPC, tracking & data integrity
Background
Engineering · UCT
§ 09 — Engagement
Four ways
to work together.
Different services, different shapes. An audit is weeks. An engine build is months. A paid programme is a year. Pricing on request — exact numbers depend on scope.
№012 — 4 weeks
Growth Audit
Fixed fee
Best for: pre-engagement clarity sprint
- ▸Full funnel teardown
- ▸Stack & tracking audit
- ▸12-month prioritised roadmap
- ▸On-site working session
Most chosen
№026 months
Engine Build
Project
Best for: founders with PMF, ready to compound
- ▸Embedded, full-stack delivery
- ▸Web, tracking, paid, lifecycle, CRO
- ▸Bi-weekly demos, daily commits
- ▸Operating manual + team training
№0312 months
PPC Programme
Monthly + perf
Best for: scaling paid spend past $30k/mo
- ▸Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok
- ▸Server-side conversions
- ▸Weekly creative shipping
- ▸Quarterly incrementality tests
№04Ongoing
Fractional CGE
Day rate
Best for: post-engagement leverage
- ▸One day a week, on-site or async
- ▸Strategy + senior hires
- ▸Weekly accountability
- ▸Direct access to my network
§ 10 — FAQ
Questions
founders ask.
If yours isn't here, the fastest answer is a 20-minute call. Book one.
What is a fractional growth engineer?+
A senior operator who builds a company's growth systems hands-on — paid acquisition, conversion tracking, web, and the data behind them — on a part-time or project basis, then hands the working system to your team. Unlike a fractional CMO, who leads strategy and manages people, a fractional growth engineer ships: campaigns, tracking, integrations, stores, quote platforms.
Fractional growth engineer vs agency — why not just hire an agency?+
An agency gives you an account manager and a shared pod. A fractional growth engineer gives you one senior person who builds and owns the whole system — ads, tracking, web, data — with no handoffs and no markup on juniors. My longest client relationship is five years; that doesn't happen if the work doesn't compound.
Are you actually one person?+
Effectively, yes — CGE is me, Rob. I take a small number of concurrent engagements and run every part personally. For specialist work (design, copy, dev) I bring in trusted collaborators on a per-project basis. You'll always know exactly who you're working with.
How long are your engagements?+
It depends on the service. An audit is 2–4 weeks. A full engine build is six months. A PPC programme typically runs twelve. A CRO sprint is 8–12 weeks. Fractional CGE work is ongoing. Pick the shape that fits the work, not the other way round.
What if it's not working?+
Every engagement carries a no-fault out-clause at the first natural checkpoint — 30 days for sprints, 60 days for builds, 90 days for year-long programmes. Bad work billed in full is worse for both of us. I'd rather you walk.
Who do you work best with?+
Growth-stage businesses with real demand that needs building properly. Current and recent clients span self-storage, luxury transport, hospitality, medical and B2B ecommerce — across the US, UK & Ireland and the Middle East. If you want senior, hands-on help instead of a big agency, that's the fit.
Where are you based, and which hours?+
Cape Town, South Africa — GMT+2. I work flexibly across US and Asian hours and have run engagements across Europe, the Middle East and South Africa. Remote by default, on-site when it earns its travel.
Will you sign an NDA?+
Happily. Send yours over. I keep client identities confidential by default and only feature work publicly with written permission.
How do you handle handover?+
The handover is the deliverable. By the final fortnight of any build, your team will have written runbooks for every system, pair-programmed sessions on the live tooling, and a 60-day check-in scheduled. I don't walk away — I just stop charging.
Now booking · Two Q4 slots open
Let's build the
enginetogether.
Tell me about the company, the team, and what's stuck. I'll reply within 24 hours with whether I'm the right fit — and if not, who is.