Do I Need a Fractional CMO? A Scaleup Readiness Guide (With a 2-Minute Diagnostic Quiz)
- Laura Derbyshire
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Why are so many founders asking, "Do I need a Fractional CMO"?
At a certain point in a scaleup’s journey, marketing stops being a channel problem and starts becoming a leadership problem.
Leads might be coming in, but conversion feels patchy. Campaigns are running, but no one is fully accountable for the strategy behind them. The founder is still too close to the detail, while the team is busy executing without a clear sense of direction.
This is usually the moment founders start Googling questions like:
“Do I need a fractional CMO?”
“When should I hire a marketing leader?”
“Is a full-time CMO too early?”
The problem is that most online answers are generic. They explain what a fractional CMO is, but not whether you actually need one.
That’s why we built a short diagnostic quiz for scaleups, to help leadership teams benchmark their marketing readiness and decide what to do next.
The real question isn’t “fractional vs full-time”
Most scaleups lose momentum because they don’t have enough senior thinking applied to:
Strategy and prioritisation
Positioning and differentiation
Aligning marketing with commercial goals
Knowing what not to do
A fractional CMO only makes sense when there’s a genuine leadership gap, not just an execution gap. So before you think about hiring, you need clarity on where the cracks actually are.
That’s what the quiz is designed to surface.
What the quiz is really testing (and why it matters)
The quiz questions map to nine common pressure points we see in scaleups from early traction to serious growth.
Here’s what each area tells you.
1. Your biggest marketing challenge right now
If your answer centres on unclear strategy, weak conversion, or fuzzy positioning, that’s usually a sign the problem isn’t effort; it’s direction. Strategy is missing or fragmented.
2. Whether you have senior marketing leadership
A junior team without senior leadership often means good activity but poor outcomes. A fractional CMO fills that leadership gap without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.
3. Confidence in brand positioning
Strong positioning is a growth multiplier. Weak positioning forces marketing to work harder and costs more. If competitors feel clearer than you, that’s a leadership issue, not a creative one.
4. Your approach to customer acquisition
Running ads without strong returns or relying on disconnected tactics often signals a lack of a joined-up strategy across channels.
5. How well you track and optimise performance
Data without interpretation is just noise. If KPIs exist but don’t drive decisions, senior oversight is missing.
6. Willingness to test and evolve channels
Scaleups that don’t test stagnate. Scaleups that test without learning burn money. Strategic experimentation needs leadership.
7. Whether marketing is holding back growth
When founders feel marketing is the bottleneck, it’s often because no one owns the end-to-end growth narrative.
8. Depth of team experience
Junior capability without strategic guidance creates dependency on agencies, tools, or short-term fixes.
9. Hesitation around hiring a full-time CMO
This is the clearest signal. If you know you need senior input but can’t yet justify a full-time role, fractional leadership is often the right bridge.
What your results usually mean
Most scaleups fall into one of three broad outcomes.
1 : Early-stage readiness
You need clarity before leadership. Strategy, positioning, and fundamentals come first.
2 : Leadership gap
You have momentum, but it’s fragile. This is where a fractional CMO adds the most value by aligning teams, setting direction, and unlocking growth without over-hiring.
3 : Scale-ready foundation
You may not need a fractional CMO long-term, but short-term senior input can accelerate performance, prepare for investment, or support a transition to a full-time hire.
The quiz provides your score and three practical next steps (not a sales pitch).
When in your growth journey does a Fractional CMO make sense?
There’s no single “right” revenue number for hiring a fractional CMO, but there are clear patterns in when it adds the most value.
£1m–£3m revenue | Early scale
At this stage, founders are often still closely involved in marketing. The biggest risk isn’t lack of activity - it’s lack of focus. A fractional CMO can help here if the business needs clarity on positioning, ICP, and go-to-market before scaling spend.
£3m–£10m revenue | Scale-up transition
This is the sweet spot. Marketing is no longer experimental, but it isn’t yet fully systemised. Common symptoms:
Founder still acting as CMO
Junior or mid-level team without senior direction
Agencies executing without a unifying strategy
This is where fractional leadership delivers the highest ROI.
£10m–£30m+ revenue | Complexity and momentum
At this stage, the question isn’t whether you need senior marketing leadership - it’s how much and in what form.
A fractional CMO is often used to:
Reset strategy after a plateau
Prepare for international growth
Support a transition to a full-time CMO
The quiz helps identify which of these applies.
Does a Fractional CMO add value from an investor perspective?
From an investor perspective, a fractional CMO isn’t a “nice to have” — it’s often a risk-management move.
In due diligence, we regularly see questions like:
Who owns the growth strategy?
How repeatable is customer acquisition?
Is brand doing real work, or just looking good?
Can this scale without the founder in the weeds?
A fractional CMO can:
Professionalise marketing leadership ahead of a raise
Align growth strategy with investor expectations
Create clarity without committing to a full-time hire too early
Used well, it signals maturity and a commitment to strategic thinking and clarity in a company's growth.
Why we built the Fractional CMO Diagnostic at OSER
At OSER, we work with scaleup founders, CEOs and leadership teams who need clarity.
Fractional CMO support only works when it’s grounded in strategy, positioning and commercial reality. Otherwise, it becomes another layer of activity.
This quiz reflects how we actually assess readiness in real client conversations.
FAQs
What does a fractional CMO do for a scaleup?
A fractional CMO provides senior marketing leadership on a part-time basis, focusing on strategy, positioning, team alignment and growth priorities.
When should a scaleup hire a fractional CMO?
Typically, when growth stalls, marketing lacks direction, or the founder is acting as the de facto CMO.
Is a fractional CMO better than hiring an agency?
They solve different problems. Agencies execute. Fractional CMOs lead, prioritise and align.
How long do scaleups usually work with a fractional CMO?
Often 3–12 months, depending on growth stage, investment plans and team maturity.
