Fractional CMO and part-time marketing director

A fractional CMO is a senior marketing lead you share with other companies. They set your marketing priorities, decide where the budget goes, direct the agencies and freelancers doing the work and report to you on what it is producing. You get that judgement for a fixed number of days a month instead of carrying a full-time marketing director’s salary.

I take this role for UK companies that have outgrown founder-led marketing but are not ready for a permanent senior hire. The arrangement is ongoing, with an agreed number of days each month and a written agenda for each of them.

What changes when someone owns your marketing

In many growing companies, marketing has no owner. The founder approves spend between sales calls, an agency runs the ads, a freelancer writes the blog and someone in operations posts on LinkedIn when they can. Each supplier reports on the figure that flatters it, so nobody can say what a new customer costs or which part of the spend produced them.

A fractional CMO changes who holds the decisions. One person agrees the targets with you, judges every channel against the same customer acquisition cost, briefs the suppliers and tells you plainly what is and is not working. You stop refereeing between suppliers and go back to running the company, with a short monthly report that says what the money produced.

Who it suits, and who it does not

The role fits:

• Companies with a proven offer and steady revenue whose marketing is spread across two or more suppliers, with nobody senior directing them.
• Founders spending a meaningful amount each month on marketing who cannot tell which part of it pays back.
• Businesses about to hire their first in-house marketer, who want someone to define the role, help choose the person and then manage them through the first months.
• Companies whose marketing director has left and who need the priorities held steady, part time, while they recruit.

It is the wrong arrangement for a business still working out who buys from it; at that stage a fixed project costs less and settles more. If you want a single plan that your own people will carry out, a one-off digital marketing strategy is the better fit. If the only gap is someone to run your paid channels against a cost target, that is performance marketing, not leadership. And if your budget is small enough for one person to do all the hands-on work, you need that person more than a manager for them.

What the role covers

How the engagement runs

1. A free 30-minute scoping call. What you sell, who does your marketing now and what is not working. I tell you whether a fractional role makes sense or a smaller piece of work would do.
2. Month one: diagnosis. I get access to analytics, ad accounts, the CRM and supplier reports, and talk to everyone who touches marketing, including whoever handles sales. Where the figures allow, I compare what a customer is worth over time with what it costs to win one, the same sum my LTV and CAC calculator works through. You receive a written view of where customers come from and what each source costs.
3. A 90-day plan. Targets, budget by channel and month, and a named owner for every action.
4. A monthly rhythm. Agreed working days, supplier calls, a written report and a decisions log, so nothing agreed in a meeting gets lost.
5. A quarterly review. We reset the targets and decide whether the arrangement should continue, change in size or end, including whether you are ready for a permanent hire.

What a fractional CMO is not

It is not a strategy document. A strategy project ends when the plan is handed over; a fractional role exists to carry the plan out, change it when the numbers say so and answer for the result.

It is not an interim marketing director. An interim usually works full time for a fixed period to cover a gap, whereas a fractional lead works a set number of days each month on an open-ended basis.

It is not an agency under another name. I have no team to keep busy, so I have no reason to recommend more spend or more services than your figures support.

Where the hands-on work goes

A fractional CMO directs; most of the doing stays with specialists. Your existing agencies and staff carry on, with clearer briefs and targets. Where there is a gap, I either do the work myself through services such as SEO or Google Ads management, or find a specialist and manage them.

If I do some of the work myself, I report it separately and judge it against the same targets as any other supplier. Marking my own homework is the very conflict this role is meant to remove, so I flag it openly whenever it arises.

Problems I see most often when nobody leads marketing

• Each supplier reports a different number of conversions, because each platform counts the ones it can claim.
• The budget is last year’s figure plus a little, rather than a figure worked out from what a customer is worth.
• Leads go to sales with no record of what happened next, so marketing cannot tell which ones became customers.
• Email lists were gathered without the consent PECR requires for marketing to individual subscribers, and the soft opt-in for existing customers does not cover them, which limits what can lawfully be sent.
• Suppliers work without a written marketing brief, so each one guesses at the audience, the offer and the tone.
• Ad, analytics and website accounts sit in a former supplier’s or employee’s name, and nobody can find the logins.

What you receive

• A diagnosis report at the end of the first month.
• A 90-day plan with targets, budget by channel and month in pounds, and owners for each action.
• A monthly report with a one-page summary, plus a running log of decisions.
• Written briefs and targets for every supplier.
• A quarterly review with recommendations on budget, suppliers and hiring.
• A record of every marketing account, who has access and who owns it, kept in your company’s name.

Cost and commitment

Fractional work is priced by the number of days each month, agreed in advance, with an initial term long enough to see the first plan through. The fee, the initial term and the notice period are set out in a written quote, in GBP, after the first call, and agreed in writing before any work starts. When you compare that with a permanent hire, add employer’s National Insurance, pension contributions and recruitment fees to the salary; a fair comparison is rarely salary against fee alone.