Fractional CMO · Part-time senior marketing lead · $2M to $20M businesses
A fractional CMO who puts every marketing decision in writing.
A fractional CMO is a senior marketer who leads your marketing part-time, without the cost of a full-time executive. Ours is an ongoing role for businesses doing $2M to $20M with no senior marketer: a senior operator who fixes the measurement first, sets the plan with the PROFIT framework, directs the channels and suppliers, and writes down every decision and the reason for it.
30 min · No pitch · Senior operator on the call
Engagement intake, currently open
$2M to $20M
Revenue range of the businesses we take on
$3.6B
Revenue influenced since 2016
Yours
The playbook and decision log, kept if we part ways
Context
Why businesses between $2M and $20M go looking for a fractional CMO.
Somewhere past a couple of million in revenue, marketing outgrows the owner's spare hours. There is an agency on Google, someone on Meta, maybe a coordinator in-house, and nobody senior deciding how the budget should be split or whether any of it is working. A full-time CMO is hard to justify at that size. Running without one costs money in a quieter way.
A fractional CMO fills that seat part-time. The job is the same as a full-time CMO's: own the plan, set the budget split, hold suppliers to numbers, and report to the owner or the board in revenue and margin. The difference is the hours, and that you get someone who has already worked through the same problems in other businesses.
Ours starts where most marketing problems start, with the numbers. If the ad platforms, the CRM and the bank disagree, every decision a CMO makes rests on guesswork. So the first job is measurement you can trust. After that the role runs on the PROFIT framework, with decisions and their reasoning written down where you can check them.
Deliverables
What the fractional CMO role covers.
01
A measurement baseline first: what each channel costs, what it returns, and where the reports disagree with the CRM or the bank.
02
A marketing plan built on the six pillars of the PROFIT framework (pull, record, optimise, funnel, increase, turn), with the budget split it implies.
03
Direction of your agencies, freelancers and in-house team against agreed numbers, with our own operators running Google Ads, Meta and search where that is part of the scope.
04
Reporting to the owner or board in revenue and margin, not impressions and clicks.
05
A written decision log: each significant call, the reasoning behind it, and what we expect to happen, kept where you can audit it later.
06
A handover plan for the day you hire a full-time marketer, built on the playbook and decision log so the role starts with its history.
Side by side
How a fractional CMO differs from a marketing agency.
A marketing agency
- Paid to run its own channels
- Reports on its own work
- Commercial reason to keep or grow its scope
- Answers to an account manager
- Strategy as a quarterly slide deck
A fractional CMO from Profit Geeks
- Paid to get the whole marketing budget right
- Reports on every channel, ours included
- Will cut a channel or a supplier that does not pay
- Answers to you and to the numbers
- Decisions written down as they are made
Who this is for
- Australian business doing $2M to $20M in revenue without a senior marketer
- Spending across several channels and suppliers, with nobody senior owning the result
- Owner or board that wants marketing reported in revenue and margin
- Not ready for a full-time CMO, or not yet sure the role is full-time
Who it isn't
- Needs hands-on content production more than leadership
- Above about $20M with a marketing team that needs a full-time leader every day
- Wants decisions made without anyone checking the numbers first
- Looking for a brand or creative director to run a campaign
Proof, in numbers
What measurement-first work has produced.
Published results from Profit Geeks engagements, with the method and sources in each case study. They were not sold as fractional CMO engagements, and they are not a forecast for your business.
$4.8M → $9.1M
Home services revenue, with no increase in ad budget
$1.42M
Recovered ad spend for a DTC brand, year one
8 to 18%
Typical attributable revenue recovered, year one
23% → <5%
How far Meta's revenue usually sits from the CRM's, before and after a rebuild
What you actually buy
We fix the measurement, then we run the account. It starts with a free call.
Which of these sounds like your week?
- Meta says one number, Google says another, the CRM says a third, and the bank says something else again.
- The leads come in and most of them are rubbish.
- Traffic is fine. Not enough of them buy.
- You cannot spend more without losing margin.
- Something is wrong and you cannot say what.
All five are the same job. We fix the measurement first, then the same senior operators run the spend against it. The free call is where we work out which part you need first.
00 · Free
Run your own numbers
Six calculators and an attribution reference. Work out your break-even ROAS, your CAC payback, and whether the spend is structurally profitable, before you talk to anyone. The calculators need no signup.
01 · Free · 30 minutes
The profit audit call
A senior operator looks at your real spend, revenue and attribution gap on a call. You leave with a written fix list you keep, whether or not we ever work together. No deck, no follow-up sales sequence. We reply within one business day with three times to choose from.
02 · Optional · Two weeks
The two-week diagnostic
Read-only. We change nothing in your accounts. Every tag, event and consent rule mapped and written up: 20 to 35 pages, every issue rated P0 to P3 with an engineering-day estimate, and a 90-minute walk-through on day twelve. Yours to hand to us, your own team, or your existing agency. About a third of clients run this first, then decide.
03 · The engagement · Ongoing
The rebuild, then we run it
The first twelve weeks rebuild the measurement server-side so the reports reconcile to the bank, and work the funnel where the leak actually is. From there the same senior operators keep running Google Ads, Meta and search, with budget, bids and creative decided weekly against contribution margin and the reasoning written down. If your measurement is already sound, management starts straight away.
What it costs
Four things set the number
- The size of your stack
- How many ad platforms are live
- The state of your CRM integration
- How many service lines and locations you run
Two things do not
- Your industry
- How much you spend on ads
Revenue only matters because a bigger business is usually a bigger scope. We do not price off a percentage of it. We charge for the work, not for what you look like you can afford.
How it is billedThe rebuild is fixed scope, paid in instalments. Ongoing management is a fixed fee for the agreed scope. Both are quoted in one written proposal after the call. No hourly billing and no percentage of ad spend.
Included at no extra costThe written playbook and decision log, yours to keep whether we run the account or your team takes it in-house.
Where to go next
The rest of the work, by service and by city.
Most engagements pull from more than one of these. If you're not sure where you fit, the free profit audit is the right starting point. We'll tell you on the call.
Related services
Other locations
Sydney
Melbourne
Brisbane
Perth
Adelaide
National
Proof, with the working shown
We'd rather show you the maths than the buzzwords.
“Profit Geeks rebuilt our whole sales engine, and not just the ad accounts. They went after the systems sitting behind them too. Sales are up 140% and we've pushed past $25M. Honestly the bit I didn't see coming was the operation running leaner than it did back when we were half the size.”
“We were quietly bleeding about a thousand dollars a week and had no idea why. They found the leaks, sorted out the measurement and the offer, and now we'll do more than $10K in a single day. Same product. Completely different business.”
“We went from scraping together two installs a week to running four crews and fifteen-plus jobs a week, north of $10M turnover. The clever bit was they tied the scaling to what we could actually deliver, so growth never broke the operation. Booked jobs, not vanity leads.”
“After iOS, our Meta numbers stopped matching the bank, and we'd basically been writing the gap off as “just tracking.” Profit Geeks rebuilt our measurement server-side and reconciled it straight back to the P&L. Turned out about $1.42M of ad spend in year one had been working all along. They're the first team that showed me the maths instead of a dashboard.”
“We didn’t spend a dollar more on ads. What they did was fix how we counted a booked job versus a platform “conversion,” cut the wasted spend, and by week twelve our blended ROAS had more than tripled. Revenue went from $4.8M to $9.1M. Same senior bloke on every call too. No juniors, no relay race.”
Reasonable questions
What you're probably thinking.
01
We've been burned by an agency before.
Most of our intake has. The difference is structural. A senior operator runs your account, not a junior hidden behind a dashboard, and you leave the first call with written findings you own even if we never work together. No relay race, no account manager translating between you and the people doing the work.
02
How do I know it'll actually work for my business?
You don't yet, and neither do we until we've seen your numbers. That's why the first step is a diagnostic, not a contract. We've documented this in DTC and home services (the case studies show the full working) and run the same playbook in professional services. If the maths isn't there for you, we'll tell you on the call.
03
What if there's nothing worth fixing?
Then you've spent thirty minutes and walked away with a second opinion that cost you nothing. We'd rather say no than take on an engagement we can't earn, so we turn away intake that isn't a fit. There's no pitch and no follow-up sales sequence.
04
What does it cost, and what am I signing up for?
A fixed fee for the measurement rebuild, then a fixed fee for ongoing management, both quoted in writing after the call. No per-channel markup and no percentage of your ad spend. The same senior operators handle measurement, media and margin, and scaling is tied to your contribution margin, so spend only climbs when the numbers say it's working.
Frequently asked
What operators ask before booking the call.
What is a fractional CMO?
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works for your business part-time and on an ongoing basis, rather than as a full-time employee. They do what a CMO does: own the marketing plan and the budget split, direct agencies and staff, and report results to the owner or board. You get the experience without a full-time executive salary, and the role can grow or shrink with the business.
How much does a fractional CMO cost?
It depends on the scope, so be cautious about any figure quoted before someone has seen your numbers. We do not publish a price. The role is priced as a fixed fee for the scope we agree, set out in a written proposal after the free audit call, and it is never a percentage of your ad spend. If the role includes running paid media, our cost guide shows what Australian agencies charge to manage the spend, which is a useful comparison.
What agencies charge to manage ad spendWhat is the difference between a fractional CMO and a marketing agency?
An agency is paid to run its channels. A fractional CMO is paid to decide what the whole budget should do, including whether each agency is earning its fee. If you have suppliers but nobody senior choosing between them, you need the second. Where it is part of the scope, our operators can also run Google Ads, Meta and search, and the fractional CMO reports on that work as plainly as on any other supplier's.
Consultant, agency or fractional CMO comparedShould we hire a fractional CMO or a full-time CMO?
Hire full-time when there is a full-time job: a team to lead every day, a budget that needs constant attention, and a plan that is already working. Before that point, a fractional CMO can get the measurement right and the plan running for less cost and less risk. When you are ready to hire, the playbook and decision log hand the role over with its history rather than a blank page.
Who does a fractional CMO report to?
Usually the CEO or owner, and the board where there is one, the same as a full-time CMO. The role leads marketing and sits alongside the other senior roles rather than below them. In a business of this size that means a regular session with the owner where decisions are made and written down.
What happens in the first weeks?
Measurement before anything else. We read the ad accounts, analytics and CRM, find where the numbers disagree, and agree which ones the business will run on. Then the plan: where the next dollar should go, what to stop, and which supplier owns what. Nothing gets scaled until the numbers behind it hold up.
The PROFIT frameworkDo you need to be in our office?
Some of the time helps. We work from our Sydney HQ and our Hamilton office in Brisbane, run the role on regular calls and shared documents, and come on site when a session needs the room. Sydney and Brisbane clients get on-site time at no extra charge, and travel to other cities is agreed in the proposal.
What happens after you book
Three steps. No mystery.
Step 01 · Within 1 business day
30-minute audit call
A senior operator on the call. We look at your real numbers, spend, revenue, attribution gap, and tell you on the call whether the rebuild is worth doing for you and where it would start. No pitch deck.
Step 02 · Within 1 week
Written proposal
Fixed scope, fixed number, written up. The proposal names deliverables, timeline, the people involved, and the price. No hourly billing, no retainer drift.
Step 03 · Within 2 weeks
Engagement starts
Senior operators from day one. The measurement rebuild starts, we take over day-to-day buying on the channels we can measure, and the first working session lands. Inside two weeks of the call.
Next step
Find out whether you need a CMO or just better numbers.
Book the free 30-minute profit audit. A senior operator will look at what you spend, what it returns and who decides, then tell you in writing whether a fractional CMO is the right fit or a narrower fix would do. The findings are yours either way.