+38%
average pipeline growth across our fractional CMO engagements in the first year
Fractional marketing leadership
Senior marketing leadership, built into your team.
A fractional CMO from Marcutive gives you the strategy, accountability, and senior decision-making of a full-time marketing executive, embedded in your operation without the overhead of a permanent hire.
Is this right for you
Built for companies at a specific inflection point.
This engagement works best when there is a genuine need for senior marketing leadership but not the right conditions for a full-time hire. Here is what that usually looks like.
01
You have outgrown founder-led marketing but are not ready to commit to a full-time CMO salary and the long hiring process that comes with it.
02
You have budget, channels, and contractors in motion but nobody is accountable for the overall strategy and its connection to revenue pipeline.
03
You have tried hiring a head of marketing and found them either too junior to lead, too narrow to cover the full operation, or too slow to make an impact at the pace you need.
The gap this closes
Most companies try to solve the wrong problem first.
They hire someone junior and wait for them to grow into the role. Or they brief an agency and hope strategy comes with the retainer. Neither approach closes the accountability gap at the top of the marketing function.
STRATEGY GAP
No owner, no direction
Someone coordinates the activity. Nobody owns the outcome. Campaign decisions get made on instinct or habit rather than data and competitive context.
ACCOUNTABILITY GAP
Five vendors, no integrator
Paid media, SEO, content, and CRM all have separate owners. When results underperform, each vendor points to another. The budget gets defended, not challenged.
VISIBILITY GAP
Reporting without meaning
Impressions, clicks, sessions, and open rates are all tracked. But nobody can tell the board what the marketing function is contributing to pipeline in revenue and time.
Scope of engagement
What you get when we step in.
This is what a fractional CMO engagement with Marcutive covers. Each item below is a real, standing commitment, not a list of things we might do.
01
Quarterly marketing strategy and budget ownership
Full accountability for the marketing plan, its priorities, and how budget is allocated across channels and initiatives each quarter.
02
Weekly leadership cadence with your team
A recurring rhythm of direction, review, and decision-making embedded into your existing operations, not bolted on top of them.
03
Channel and vendor oversight
Briefing, managing, and holding accountable every agency, contractor, and platform in your marketing stack, with one owner across all of them.
04
Board-level reporting and pipeline contribution analysis
Monthly and quarterly reporting that connects marketing activity to revenue pipeline in language that matters to founders and investors, not just marketers.
05
Demand generation framework tailored to your sales motion
A structured approach to building pipeline that is appropriate to your sales cycle, market, and stage of growth rather than copied from a generic playbook.
06
Hiring support and team design
If you need to recruit into the marketing function, we scope the roles, contribute to the process, and make sure new hires are set up to succeed within the system.
The engagement model
How we go from audit to operating cadence.
Every engagement follows the same four-phase model. The timeline compresses or extends depending on the complexity of what we walk into.
01. DIAGNOSE
Read the data first
The first two weeks are a forensic audit of your current marketing operation: channels, spend, CRM data, pipeline contribution, team structure, and competitive context. No assumptions.
02. ALIGN
Strategy before action
We bring back a clear picture of what is working, what is not, and where the highest-value changes are. We agree on the plan together before anything moves or gets spent.
03. LEAD
Embedded, not advisory
We run the weekly cadence, manage the vendors, own the budget decisions, and attend the conversations that matter. This is operational leadership, not a consulting report.
04. COMPOUND
Sharper every quarter
As the system matures, the data tells us where to reinvest and what to cut. The goal is a marketing operation that improves structurally over time, not just quarter to quarter.
31%
average reduction in cost per acquisition after we restructure the channel mix
4.2x
return on marketing spend across the portfolio of active engagements
12+
sectors served, from SaaS and professional services to private wealth and scale-ups
"They did not pitch us a campaign. They handed us a machine."
Operations Director, Northrop & Vale
Common questions
Before you book a call.
Fractional CMO retainers typically run between two and five thousand pounds per month depending on the scope, the number of committed days, and the complexity of the operation we are stepping into. We price each engagement based on your specific situation after an initial conversation, not from a rate card.
Most engagements run on two to four committed days per month of direct involvement, plus availability for urgent decisions and async review between sessions. The exact commitment is agreed upfront and reflected in the retainer so there are no surprises on either side.
A full-time hire at this level costs seventy to one hundred thousand pounds per year in salary alone, plus benefits, pension, and the risk that they are not the right person twelve months in. A fractional arrangement gives you the same strategic seniority at a fraction of the cost, with the flexibility to scale the engagement up or down as your situation changes. You also get someone who has run this process across multiple businesses, not just yours.
Agencies execute against a brief. A fractional CMO writes the brief, owns the strategy, manages the agencies, and is accountable for the commercial outcome. We sit on your side of the table, not across it. If an agency is underperforming, we are the ones who challenge them, not the ones who defend the retainer.
Most engagements start with a minimum three-month commitment to allow time for the diagnostic phase, strategic alignment, and the first full operating cadence. Many clients continue for twelve months or more as the compounding effect of a well-run marketing system becomes clear in the data. There is no lock-in beyond the agreed minimum.
Start the conversation
Let's see if this is the right fit.
We take on a small number of fractional CMO clients at a time. Book a strategy call and we will tell you honestly whether our model is right for your situation, and if not, what would be.