FRACTIONAL CMO
Fractional CMO: marketing leadership for businesses with existing teams.
Fractional CMO services: senior marketing leadership without a full-time hire.
I join your business as a part-time marketing leader: setting priorities, directing your team or agency, supervising channels and the website, and reporting progress in a weekly rhythm.
Is this the right support?
Who owns your marketing decisions?
Marketing leadership for businesses with existing teams. Marketing happens, but nobody senior owns priorities, the team lacks direction, or agency work goes unchallenged. The typical trigger is a team of roughly 20–200 where the founder is still the marketing bottleneck.
Nobody senior owns marketing priorities.
Every channel lobbies for budget and the loudest voice wins, not the best opportunity.
I review who decides what today, where decisions stall, and what a leadership cadence would change.
Your team or agency works hard but drifts without direction.
Activity looks busy while the numbers that matter barely move.
I examine current plans, reporting, and feedback loops to see where direction is missing.
The founder is the bottleneck for every marketing decision.
Decisions wait, quality depends on one person's calendar, and growth pauses when they are busy.
I map which decisions genuinely need you and which a marketing leader can own with agreed guardrails.
WHAT WE'LL WORK ON
Four work areas, each connected to your situation
Quarterly strategy and priorities
Without a strategy owner, tactics multiply and priorities blur.
Set quarterly objectives, channel bets, and what you will explicitly not do.
Output: A one-page strategy with KPIs, owners, and review dates.
Decision: Where leadership attention goes this quarter.
Team and agency leadership
Good people underperform without clear direction and feedback.
Brief work, review output, run weekly check-ins with your team and agency.
Output: Clear briefs, documented feedback, and a steady delivery rhythm.
Decision: What stays in-house, what the agency owns, and what to hire.
Channel and budget supervision
Unsupervised spend drifts toward comfortable channels, not effective ones.
Review channel performance and budget allocation against the strategy.
Output: A supervision note with reallocation recommendations each month.
Decision: Where the next budget goes — and what gets cut.
Measurement and reporting cadence
Leadership without reporting is opinion.
Define the KPI set, build the monthly review, and report progress plainly.
Output: A monthly review covering KPIs, decisions, and next priorities.
Decision: Whether the strategy holds or needs to change.
THE TOOLKIT
Tools I work with
A practical stack for research, execution, measurement, and better decisions.
Explore the wider toolkit
Measurement
CRM
Web & ecommerce
Development
AI research & development
Illustrative example
What the first 90 days of a fractional CMO mandate typically cover. Each row is a phase with its deliverable, who is involved, and what unlocks next.
| Issue | Action | Owner | Dependency | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No shared view of what marketing should achieve | Set quarterly objectives, KPIs, and channel bets | Fractional CMO + founder | None — strategy comes before staffing and spend | One-page strategy signed off by week three |
| Team and agency working without clear briefs | Establish briefs, weekly check-ins, and feedback rhythm | Fractional CMO + team/agency | Depends on agreed strategy so briefs point somewhere | Delivery rhythm running by week six |
| No regular forum for marketing decisions | Start the monthly review: KPIs, decisions, next priorities | Fractional CMO + founder | Needs six weeks of rhythm to have something real to review | First monthly review with reallocation decisions |
Strategy precedes staffing and spend decisions: hiring or increasing budgets before agreeing direction repeats the drift you hired leadership to end.
PROJECT EVIDENCE
Go Fluent Academy
Starting situation: Strong programs, but inconsistent positioning across channels and a website that did not reflect the value of the offer.
Documented work: Led positioning and messaging decisions, restructured the website around buyer questions, and set up analytics to close feedback loops.
Relevance: This example documents positioning, website and analytics decisions. It does not establish team size, budgets supervised or a sustained CMO mandate.
Explore the project ↗PARTNERSHIP PROCESS
How we work together
1. Understand the business
We review goals, team, agency setup, and where leadership is missing.
A shared view of the mandate and constraints.
2. Agree the mandate
Together we define days, cadence, decision rights, and KPIs.
A proposal with mandate, rhythm, and review points.
3. Lead and supervise
I run the weekly rhythm, direct the team and agency, and supervise channels and budget.
Briefs, reviews, and monthly progress reports.
4. Review and reprioritize
Each quarter we judge the strategy against results and reset priorities.
A renewed quarterly plan and mandate review.
SCOPE AND INVESTMENT
What shapes the quote
What shapes the quote
- Dedicated days per month
- Hands-on execution vs advisory mandate
- Team and agency size to lead
- Channel mix under supervision
- State of data, CRM and reporting
Your part
- Access to team, agency, accounts, and reporting
- A founder or director for priority decisions
- Agreed decision rights for the mandate
Scope boundaries
The partnership is ongoing by design: leadership, rhythm, and quarterly strategy for as long as it serves the business.
A short diagnostic first is sensible when the mandate is unclear. It defines what leadership should own.
One-off deliverables — a strategy document or an agency selection — can precede the mandate but do not replace leadership.
Advertising spend, specialist production, and third-party tools are scoped separately.
FAQ
What does a fractional CMO actually do?+
They own marketing decisions for part of the week: setting priorities, guiding your team and specialists, supervising execution, and reporting progress to leadership — without a full-time hire.
How much does a fractional CMO cost?+
Scope sets the price: dedicated days per month, how hands-on the mandate is, the size of the team or agency to lead, the channels in scope, and the state of your data and CRM. Ad spend, tools and specialist production are separate. You get a scoped quote after the discovery call.
Can a fractional CMO work with our existing agency?+
Yes, that is a common setup. I write the briefs, review the agency's output against the strategy and decide with you what stays with them, what moves in-house and what stops.
How is a fractional CMO different from an agency?+
An agency executes a brief. A fractional CMO writes the brief, sets priorities across channels, challenges agency output, and answers for the whole system.
How is this different from marketing consulting?+
Consulting delivers agreed work areas. A fractional CMO holds an ongoing leadership seat: directing people, running cadence, and owning priorities quarter after quarter.
What time commitment does this involve?+
We agree dedicated days and a meeting cadence in the proposal, sized to your team and goals.
Who will I manage day to day?+
Your marketers, agency, and freelancers on marketing matters. Hiring, contracts, and employment decisions stay with you.
We already have a marketing manager. Does this still fit?+
Often yes. Your manager gains a senior sparring partner and clear priorities instead of carrying strategy alone.
How is success measured?+
We agree KPIs that fit the mandate — qualified inquiries, pipeline movement, or channel milestones, and review them monthly.
When should we hire a fractional CMO instead of an agency?+
When you need a senior owner of priorities across an existing team or agency: someone who writes the brief, challenges output, and answers for the whole system quarter after quarter. If you need pure execution of an already-clear brief, an agency or freelancer is the cheaper fit.
What does a fractional CMO need from us in the first month?+
Access to the team, agency, accounts, and reporting, plus a founder or director who decides priorities with me. We agree dedicated days, decision rights, and KPIs in the proposal before the mandate starts.
Let's explore whether I'm the right fit.
Discuss your team, your goals, and what a leadership mandate could look like.