Where I've worked
Companies reach for a fractional CMO when they can no longer tell whether marketing is paying its way. More activity does not answer that; the number does. Senior marketing leadership, part-time, accountable for the CLV:CAC ratio and the plan to move it, and a discipline that holds once the engagement ends.
Fractional or full-time, most begin with the work in front of them: the ICPs, the messaging, the channel mix, the campaign calendar. That is starting in the middle. It tunes the acquisition engine without first asking the one question that says whether the engine is worth tuning at all, what a customer costs to win against what they return over their life.
A leader who starts from that number leads differently. The strategy is anchored to the capital outcome, the board can watch the ratio move, and every choice, which segment, which channel, which message, serves a figure finance already trusts. A leader who starts from activity is working in the dark, and defending a budget line the moment the numbers are questioned.
Which is why one lasts and the other does not. When the raise, the board review or the diligence arrives, the work that cannot be tied to return is the first line cut. A marketing leader who cannot speak the language of capital is a temporary one. This practice starts with the number, so the leadership is evidenced before it asks to be trusted with more.
See the diagnostic →Founder-led and PE-backed businesses, roughly £5M to £50M in revenue, at a growth or transition moment: a raise, a new market, a stalled engine, or a marketing function that has outgrown its current leadership.
Read the six below. If two or three land, marketing has outgrown the setup carrying it. That is the moment to bring in leadership.
Marketing runs on tactics. The board sees activity, not a strategy.
You spend on acquisition without knowing what a customer returns.
Growth has stalled, and the next stage needs a plan you do not have in-house.
You have a team and agencies, but no senior owner pointing them the same way.
A raise, a sale or a board is about to test your marketing, and it will not hold.
You need CMO-level judgement, not a CMO-level salary or a permanent hire.
A senior operator inside the business, accountable for the plan and the results it produces. Here is the mandate.
Decide where marketing will win, and hold it to the numbers, not to opinion or the loudest channel.
Answer for the CLV:CAC ratio, CAC payback and the burn beneath them, and carry the plan to move each one.
Lead the in-house team, the budget and the agencies, so effort and spend point the same way.
Put process, hiring and skills in place, so the function is stronger when the engagement ends than when it began.
Speak marketing in the language finance allocates against, with evidence a diligence team will accept.
Sharpen the message where the market is not landing, so the demand you pay for actually converts.
Inside your business a day or two a week, in your meetings and answerable to your board. Not a report handed over from arm's length.
The mandate starts where the diagnostic ends, on a finance-grade read of your customer economics. The plan acts on fact from week one.
A monthly cadence, scaled up or down as the work demands. You buy the leadership you need, not a fixed headcount.
You keep the strategy, the capability and the team you build. No retainer engineered to be hard to leave.
Start with the diagnostic for a finance-grade read on where you stand, or book a conversation to talk through a mandate. Either way, you lead from evidence.