What Is a Fractional CMO: Scope, Cost and When It Works
A fractional CMO is an experienced marketing leader who runs your marketing one to three days a week, on an ongoing basis, as part of your team. Not an agency, not a consultant: a head of marketing you share, with the authority that comes with the title.
What the fractional CMO owns
- The marketing strategy and the positioning behind it
- The budget, and the decision on what to stop funding
- The team: in-house marketers, agencies, and freelancers
- The number marketing is accountable for, usually qualified pipeline or contribution to revenue
- The reporting the board sees
How it differs from the alternatives
The three situations where it works
First, a company between three and sixty million in revenue where marketing is real but not big enough to justify a full-time CMO. Second, a founder still running marketing personally, where the constraint is decision-making rather than execution. Third, a company with an agency roster and no one senior enough to direct it, which is where most wasted marketing spend lives.
Where it does not work
- When the company wants hands-on execution: that is a marketing manager or an agency
- When there is no budget to deploy, because leadership without resources changes nothing
- When the real problem is the product or the price, which marketing cannot fix
- When the founder is not willing to hand over decisions with the title
What the first ninety days look like
Weeks one to three: diagnosis, meaning the funnel numbers, the spend, the team, and what customers actually say. Weeks four to eight: decisions, meaning what stops, what gets funded, and who owns what. Weeks nine to twelve: the operating cadence, with a reporting pack the board can read in five minutes.
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