Evolve
For scale-ups and high-growth businesses

Fractional CMO

Senior marketing leadership on the days you need it. We take ownership of strategy, team and pipeline — and hold ourselves to the same commercial numbers your board holds you to.

Book a discovery call All services
1-3 days
A named senior marketing leader in your business every week
90 days
From diagnosis to measurable movement in qualified pipeline
40-60%
Of the fully loaded cost of a permanent CMO, with no recruitment fee
The situation

If your leadership needs more than a marketing manager, but less than a permanent CMO

You have a team, a budget and a calendar full of activity. What you do not have is one person who can connect all of it to revenue and defend it in a board meeting. A fractional CMO answers the question of strategic ownership first, providing senior leadership against the same problems as a full-time bet, but with a far shorter path to impact and no long-term risk.

What a fractional CMO engagement gives you

  • 01A named senior marketing leader, one to three days a week
  • 02A 90-day commercial plan tied to pipeline and revenue KPIs
  • 03Ownership of the marketing team, agencies and budget
  • 04A clear positioning and messaging platform sales can use
  • 05Board-ready reporting on what marketing is actually returning
  • 06A hiring and structure plan for when you go permanent

The first six months

  1. 01

    Diagnose

    Two weeks inside the numbers: where revenue comes from, what the funnel converts, and where budget leaks.

  2. 02

    Prioritise

    A short, commercially grounded plan with named owners and KPIs — not a strategy document nobody reads.

  3. 03

    Lead

    We run the operating rhythm, brief the agencies, sharpen the proposition and rebuild the reporting.

  4. 04

    Hand over

    A permanent hire brought in, briefed and set up to run the machine we have built.

The stage most scale-ups get stuck at

You have a marketing team, a budget and activity. What you do not have is a leader who can connect all of it to revenue. Campaigns are running, but nobody can say which ones are working. The board asks for a marketing plan and gets a channel calendar.

Hiring a full-time CMO at that point is expensive and risky: the wrong hire costs a year and a six-figure package. A fractional CMO gives you the same seniority against the same problems, at a fraction of the cost, with a much shorter path to impact.

Leadership team in a working session

How we work as your fractional marketing director

We start with a two-week commercial diagnosis: where revenue comes from today, which segments are worth chasing, what the funnel actually converts, and where budget is being wasted. That produces a prioritised plan, not a strategy document nobody reads.

From there we lead. We run the marketing team's operating rhythm, brief and manage agencies, sharpen the proposition, and rebuild the reporting so every pound of spend maps to pipeline. You get one accountable person, not a rotating cast of consultants.

Most engagements run six to twelve months. The exit is designed in from day one: a permanent hire brought in, briefed and set up to run the machine we have built.

Collaborative marketing team working through a plan

Who this is for

Series A to Series C businesses where marketing needs to scale faster than headcount allows. PE- and VC-backed companies under pressure to show commercial return on marketing spend. Founder-led businesses where the founder is still, informally, the CMO.

It also works well as interim cover — a marketing director on maternity leave, an unexpected departure, or the gap between a resignation and a permanent replacement starting.

Business leaders reviewing growth performance

What good looks like six months in

One plan
A single commercial marketing plan the board has signed off and the team is executing
Clear KPIs
Pipeline, win rate and cost per opportunity reported monthly and understood by everyone
Sharper spend
Budget reallocated away from activity that never touched revenue
A ready team
An in-house team, structure and hiring plan built to carry it on without us

Frequently asked questions

Still deciding whether this is the right move? Tell us where you are and we'll give you a straight answer.

Ask us directly
What is a fractional CMO?+

A fractional CMO is an experienced marketing leader who works with your business part-time — typically one to three days a week — owning marketing strategy, team performance and commercial outcomes without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.

How much does a fractional CMO cost in the UK?+

Most UK fractional CMO engagements run between £4,000 and £12,000 per month depending on days committed and scope. That is typically 40-60% of the fully loaded cost of a permanent CMO, with no recruitment fee and no notice-period risk.

Fractional CMO vs agency vs permanent hire — which is right?+

A permanent CMO makes sense once marketing is a large, stable function with a clear plan. An agency is right when you need execution against a defined brief. A fractional CMO fits the stage in between: you need senior strategic ownership and someone accountable for pipeline, but not yet a six-figure permanent leader.

How quickly can a fractional CMO have impact?+

Expect a diagnosis and a prioritised plan inside the first 30 days, first commercial changes live within 60, and measurable pipeline movement by the end of the first quarter. We work to a KPI framework agreed at the outset.

Do you work with the existing marketing team?+

Yes. Most of our engagements involve leading, coaching and restructuring an in-house team rather than replacing it — including hiring plans, agency management and setting the operating rhythm the team runs on after we step back.

Where to next

Go-to-market strategy

Take a product, segment or geography to market with a plan built to create pipeline.

Proposition development

Sharpen positioning, packaging and pricing into an offer buyers choose quickly.

All services

Brand, digital, go-to-market and sales enablement under one commercial roof.

Talk to us about fractional CMO support

Tell us where marketing is stuck and what the board expects this year. We will tell you honestly whether a fractional CMO is the right answer — and what the first 90 days would look like.

Get in touch