Fractional head of marketing
Senior marketing leadership for founder-led businesses that need direction now and are not ready to hire a full-time CMO. A decade of it, at Meta and TikTok.
When you actually need one
There is a specific point where this makes sense. The business works and marketing is happening, but no one senior owns the whole picture: which channels, which message, who you are for, and whether any of it is working. The calls get made by whoever is loudest, or by an agency paid to keep itself busy.
Hiring a full-time head of marketing is the wrong move here. It is expensive, slow to fill, and too big a bet on a problem you have not scoped yet. The usual alternative is worse: no senior voice at all and spend going out against numbers nobody watches until it surfaces a year later as flat revenue.
A fractional head of marketing fills the gap. You get senior ownership at a fraction of the cost, accountable for the strategy and the numbers. It fits founder-led businesses roughly $1M to $10M in revenue. Below that, we build up to it: a diagnostic, a paid media build, or a growth roadmap to get a plan in place and start growing.
Is this the right call for you?
Worth talking to us
You are spending on marketing but cannot say what is working. Ads are running, content is going out, maybe an agency is involved, but nobody can tell you which dollar earns its keep, or what to cut. That gap is invisible until it is expensive.
You have outgrown doing it yourself. You have been the marketer by default, and it worked for a while. As the business grows it works less well, and a full-time director feels like a big, early bet you are not ready to make.
You have an agency or freelancers, but nobody steering them. You have people doing the doing. What you do not have is one person accountable for the strategy, the message, and the measurement, someone whose incentive is your growth, not their next invoice.
You know AI is changing how customers find you, and do not know where you stand or what to do about it. People ask ChatGPT and Google's AI who is best in your category before they ever call. If you cannot say whether your name comes up, that is a strategy gap, not a tech one.
Probably not us
You need hands on the keyboard, not direction. Sometimes the honest answer is that the plan is fine and you just need the ads built. That is a Paid Media Build (a one-time engagement, not this seat), and we will say so on the intro call rather than sell you a retainer you do not need.
You are pre-revenue or pre-product. Before there is a business to grow, there is little for this role to own. At that stage your money goes further on building the thing than on marketing leadership.
You want someone in-house, full time. This is senior leadership on a defined cadence, not a full-time employee. If the job genuinely requires someone in your building every day, you are hiring, and you should.
What to look for in a fractional head of marketing
Four things worth checking, whoever you end up hiring.
They have owned the number, not just weighed in on it
Ask whether they have actually been accountable for real revenue and spend at a scale larger than yours, on the hook for the outcome, not offering opinions from the sidelines.
They diagnose before they prescribe
Anyone can sell you more ads. The value is someone who finds the real constraint first, and is willing to tell you when the answer is not more spend.
They leave you able to run it without them
Look for a strategy written down, a way to measure it, and a team or agency that works, not a dependency. Someone who becomes load-bearing has failed at the job.
They tell you when you do not need them
The most useful answer on a first call is sometimes "not yet." Someone who never reaches that conclusion is selling a retainer, not solving your problem.
Who you would actually be working with
A decade working in advertising and performance marketing, most of it inside Meta and TikTok. She has managed budgets up to $5M a month at that scale, and just as often built lean startup budgets from nothing, which is the harder discipline. She knows how the biggest accounts in the world are run, and how to point that same rigor at a five-figure budget. She has worked across the creator economy too, on LTK and other platforms, so she knows where organic, paid, and influence actually meet.
She went independent to run that playbook for smaller businesses directly: a diagnostic first, then a paid media build or a 30/60/90 growth roadmap, with the option to stay on and keep the whole thing honest as fractional head of marketing. The results travel with the method. With one client she cut cost per lead by 97 percent, by reworking targeting and campaign structure and running a disciplined test-and-learn program.
She operates at the strategic and diagnostic layer on purpose. She is not the person who logs in and runs your ads day to day. That is a Paid Media Build, or your own team. She is the person who decides what is worth doing, makes sure it is measured, and tells you the truth about what is working. She takes the fractional seat with founder-led businesses roughly $1M to $10M in revenue; the earlier steps fit smaller budgets.
Revenue range is for the fractional seat. Smaller than that, the on-ramps fit: a free Snapshot, a Marketing Diagnostics, or a Paid Media Build.
Every step leads to the seat
Different jobs, one direction. Most clients start on the left and move right as the picture gets clearer.
Before any of it, the AI Visibility Snapshot. Free, and the fastest way to see how we think. →Not ready for the seat?
Start with the free AI Visibility Snapshot, or a Marketing Diagnostics, the lower-commitment way in. An honest read on what is working, what is not, and what to fix first, with a prioritized list you can act on with or without us.
What you get
Which channels, which message, who you are for
Real choices made explicitly and put on paper: what we are doing, what it costs, what it rules out. Not a deck that shows up once a month; a plan your team can act on.
Know which dollar earns its keep
Tracking and reporting built so spend is finally accountable. You can see what is working and what to cut, without taking anyone's word for it. This is the piece that keeps paying after the plan is set.
Someone to give you the straight answer
For you, a marketing counterpart who will tell you the truth about spend, channels, and what is actually driving revenue. For your team or agency, someone senior steering, so the work ladders up to a strategy instead of drifting.
Built to make you self-sufficient
The goal is a team or agency that runs without us: oversight, not dependency. Every engagement is aimed at leaving you able to hold the standard yourself, which is the opposite of how most retainers are priced.
How we work
Intro call
Thirty minutes on what is not working. If we are not the right people, we say so.
Scoped proposal
One question, one shape of engagement, one price.
Implementation
We set the direction and work alongside your team or agency, in your tools, until it is running.
Handoff
A 30/60/90 with named owners, and a team that runs it without us.
Questions
How fast can you start?
A diagnostic or snapshot, usually inside two weeks. The retainer starts once there is a plan in place to oversee.
Do you run the ads yourself?
No. The seat is oversight and optimization, not hands-on execution. If the ads need to be built, that is a Paid Media Build: a one-time engagement to stand them up and hand them over, after which the retainer keeps them honest.
Do I have to start with the retainer?
No. Most clients start with a free Snapshot, a Marketing Diagnostics, or a Paid Media Build, and move to the seat once there is a plan worth protecting.
Will you work with our existing agency or freelancers?
Always. Part of the job is making the people already doing the work accountable to one strategy and one set of numbers.
What are the terms?
Retainers are month to month after an initial term, with 30 days' notice. Fixed-fee work is half on signature, half on delivery. Never hourly.
What size business is the retainer for?
The fractional seat is built for founder-led businesses roughly $1M to $10M in revenue, where the founder is great at the craft and marketing is not their job. Smaller than that, start with the free Snapshot, a Marketing Diagnostics, or a Paid Media Build. The seat can come later.