A fractional CMO who does the strategy and the work

A full-time marketing director costs £80k to £150k in salary before benefits, takes three months to hire, and another three to six months before they are genuinely contributing to results. A fractional CMO removes the recruitment risk, the notice period, and the fixed overhead — while providing senior expertise from the first week. For businesses that need strategic marketing leadership but are not yet ready to justify a permanent hire, a fractional CMO is the more commercially rational option.

The role covers: setting and owning marketing strategy, overseeing paid media and organic channel performance, managing or briefing agencies, reviewing and improving conversion rates, building the reporting framework that gives leadership real visibility, and mentoring any internal marketing team. In a CXC engagement, I am directly involved at the execution level too — in your ad accounts, in your analytics, in your team's day-to-day — not just the strategy calls.

Scope varies by engagement, but typically spans: marketing strategy and planning, paid media oversight across Google, Meta, and YouTube, SEO strategy, conversion rate optimisation, brand and positioning work, analytics and attribution, agency management, and team leadership. The starting point is always an independent marketing audit — so the scope is shaped by what your marketing actually needs, not a standard package.

After the discovery call and initial audit, you receive a clear scope document: the areas we will cover, the deliverables, the time commitment, and the engagement structure. Engagements run on a retainer or project basis depending on what makes sense for your situation. There are no hidden phases, no scope creep by default, and no lengthy onboarding process before useful work starts.

That depends entirely on the scope and stage of the engagement. Early-phase engagements — audit, strategy build, initial implementation — are more intensive. Ongoing retainer engagements typically run at 10 to 20 hours per week, structured around your business rhythm. The time commitment is agreed before we start and reviewed regularly.

Three things matter most. First, commercial accountability — will this person own the results, or just the strategy document? Second, hands-on experience — have they worked directly in the channels they are advising on, or is their experience at arm's length through managing agencies? Third, sector range — a fractional CMO who has only worked in one sector will bring one playbook. The problems your marketing faces are rarely unique; having seen them across multiple industries means faster, more confident diagnosis.

Ecommerce and DTC, B2B SaaS, Financial Services, Retail, Energy and Utilities, Pharmaceuticals, Charities, and Luxury and Fashion. Clients include Harrods, Nationwide, Aviva Investors, Bacardi, OVO Energy, Avis, Macmillan Cancer Support, Smith & Nephew, and 30+ others. That range of sectors is not incidental — it is the thing that makes cross-industry diagnosis possible.

I work alongside and above existing teams and agencies — not instead of them. For internal teams, that means setting direction, mentoring capability, and building the reporting structure so everyone is working toward the same commercial outcomes. For agencies, that means independent oversight — reviewing briefs, interrogating results, and holding performance to commercial standards rather than vanity metrics. If an agency relationship is not working, I will say so.

Against the commercial objectives agreed at the start of the engagement — revenue, pipeline, cost per acquisition, conversion rate, or whichever metrics connect most directly to the P&L. Not impressions, not engagement, not reach. The reporting framework is established early so progress is visible to leadership on a regular cadence, not just at quarterly review.

When marketing spend has outgrown the ability of the existing team to manage it strategically. When you are preparing for a growth phase — new funding, new market, new product — and need senior commercial thinking behind the marketing plan. When an agency relationship is not delivering and you need someone independent to fix it. Or when the board is asking questions about marketing ROI that no one in the business can confidently answer.

Engagements are scoped and priced after the discovery call and initial audit — because cost should reflect the work required, not a standard package. What I can say: the investment is a fraction of a full-time CMO salary, and the ROI benchmark I hold myself to is measurable improvement in commercial outcomes within 90 days. Book a discovery call to discuss what makes sense for your situation.

The first 30 days typically deliver quick wins — fixing what is visibly broken in channels, spend allocation, or tracking. The first 90 days deliver structural improvement — strategy grounded in data, channels optimised, conversion rates improving. Longer term, the goal is a marketing function that is commercially accountable and does not depend on any single person or agency to function. The 35% average conversion uplift across engagements reflects the pattern — but the specific outcomes depend on where your marketing stands at the start.

Agencies execute. They run campaigns, produce content, and manage platforms. They are incentivised to maintain retained spend, not to challenge whether the spend is working. A fractional CMO operates at a different level — owning strategy, setting direction, holding agencies to commercial standards, and being accountable for whether marketing produces revenue. There is no conflict of interest. No platform bias. No reason to protect the existing setup if it is not working.