01
Month 1: the read and the plan
A full audit of acquisition, conversion, retention and tracking, and a plan in priority order. The reporting system goes in underneath it.
Do you need a fractional CMO?
Do you need a fractional CMO? Seven signs it’s time.
If you’re spending on marketing and nobody can tell you which part is paying for itself, you probably need someone senior to own it. Here’s how to tell, and when you don’t need one yet.
Written by Monica Hacker, fractional CMO for CPG, ecommerce, beauty and wellness, and healthcare brands.
The signs
Seven signs your growth needs an owner.
1
Spend is up and profit isn’t
Revenue grows with the budget, but margin doesn’t. You’re buying growth instead of building it.
2
Every channel reports a win
Meta says it’s working, Google says it’s working, the agency report is green, and revenue is flat. Nobody is reconciling the claims.
3
You have a team and an agency, and nobody owns the number
Everyone owns a piece. Nobody answers for the total, so decisions default to whoever spoke last.
4
The founder is still the CMO
You approve the creative, set the budget and read the dashboards at midnight. It worked at the start. Now it’s the bottleneck.
5
You can’t say what a customer costs or is worth
Without cost to acquire and lifetime value by channel, every budget decision is a guess.
6
Repeat purchase is an afterthought
All the energy goes to the first order. The customers you already paid for aren’t coming back, and nobody’s job is to fix that.
7
You’ve tried to fill the seat and it didn’t stick
A senior hire left, or a junior one was asked to do a CMO’s job. Either way the gap is still there.
Why growth stalls
Why marketing stops producing profitable growth.
It’s rarely one broken channel. It’s the space between them. Paid media optimizes for clicks, the site optimizes for nothing in particular, retention runs on a calendar, and tracking can’t connect any of it to revenue. Each piece looks fine on its own.
Fixing it takes someone who looks across all of it at once: where customers come from, what they cost, where they drop before buying, and whether they come back. Then a plan in priority order, and the authority to make the pieces work as one.
When you don’t need one
You probably don’t need a fractional CMO yet if…
You’re still finding the product people want. Marketing leadership amplifies what works, and there’s nothing to amplify yet.
You only need hands. If the strategy is clear and proven, a strong specialist or agency will get you further for less. My fractional CMO vs agency guide walks through that choice.
You need a CMO every day. If the team is large and the role belongs on the executive team full time, hire full time.
If you go ahead
What the first 90 days look like with me.
02
Month 2: fix the biggest leaks
The two or three changes with the most revenue behind them, plus the first tests. Agencies and the team get clear priorities.
03
Month 3: scale what works, then review
We double down on what’s paying for itself and review together. If it isn’t working, we change the scope or stop.
How do I know if my company needs a fractional CMO?
If you have people or agencies doing the work and nobody senior owns the result, you’re the profile. The seven signs above are the usual symptoms.
What does a fractional CMO do in the first 90 days?
With me: month one is the audit and the plan, month two fixes the biggest leaks and starts testing, month three scales what works and ends with a review.
Is it too early for a fractional CMO?
If you haven’t found a product people buy repeatedly, yes. Leadership amplifies what works. Before that, focus on the product and a few scrappy tests.
What’s the lowest risk way to start?
A Growth Audit. $2,500, delivered in 5 days. You get a prioritized read on what’s working and what to fix first, whether or not we work together after.
Not sure if it’s time?
Start with a Growth Audit. A prioritized read on your acquisition, conversion, retention and tracking, delivered in 5 days, before you commit to a retainer.
Book a call →Thirty minutes. Bring your numbers, or just bring the problem. You'll leave knowing what I'd fix first.
