Hire a Fractional Head of Marketing
Fractional Head of Marketing. Plan and Delivery.
A fractional Head of Marketing runs the plan hands-on one to three days a week: channels, campaigns, the team, and the number. Fractionus matches you with vetted marketing leaders who do the work as well as direct it.
A fractional Head of Marketing gives you hands-on ownership of the marketing plan and the team one to three days a week, without the cost or commitment of a permanent hire. Fractionus connects you with vetted fractional heads of marketing who take ownership from day one, and who have already solved the problem in front of you at businesses like yours.
- A plan with a number attached: Channels chosen, budget allocated, and a target the plan is actually capable of hitting.
- Execution as well as direction: Someone in the detail of the campaigns rather than only reviewing them.
- A team that knows what good is: Agencies, freelancers, and juniors briefed and held to a standard.
- Flexible engagement: Brief us once, meet a vetted shortlist in days, and scale up or down as the business changes.
What is a fractional Head of Marketing?
A fractional Head of Marketing owns marketing on a part time basis, usually one to three days a week: the plan and the budget behind it, channel mix, campaign execution, the website and the content on it, agency and freelancer management, and the reporting that says whether any of it worked. The role is deliberately hands-on, which is what separates it from the seat above.
The adjacent roles differ by altitude. A fractional CMO owns positioning, budget strategy, and the board conversation, and is usually less involved in the campaigns themselves. A fractional CGO owns growth across the full funnel rather than marketing specifically. A fractional performance marketing manager owns paid acquisition alone, in more depth. Every marketing role sits side by side on our fractional marketing hub.
What they focus on
- The plan: what gets done this quarter, and what deliberately does not
- Channel mix and budget allocation, revisited on evidence rather than habit
- Campaign execution, including writing the brief and checking the work
- The website and the content on it, because that is where most of it lands
- Agencies and freelancers: briefed, measured, and replaced when necessary
- Reporting that answers what worked rather than what happened
When to hire a fractional Head of Marketing
The trigger is usually a business doing marketing activity without anyone owning the marketing outcome.
- Marketing is happening without an owner. A founder, an agency, and a junior all making decisions, with no plan connecting them.
- A CMO would be over-hiring. The strategy is not the hard part. The hard part is that nobody senior is running the work week to week.
Fractional Head of Marketing, a fractional CMO, or a marketing agency?
Three options get weighed here, and the right one depends on what is actually missing.
- A fractional Head of Marketing owns the plan and runs it. Choose this when execution needs senior ownership rather than more strategy.
- A fractional CMO owns positioning, budget strategy, and the executive conversation. Choose this when the argument is about direction rather than delivery.
- A marketing agency brings channel execution and capacity. Choose this to run a channel, and note that an agency will not tell you to spend less with them.
What a fractional Head of Marketing engagement looks like
Most companies start at 1-2 days per week with a heavier first block to build the plan and audit what is running, then adjust once the rhythms hold. Common formats are retained days, sprint blocks, or outcome-based scopes, charged as a day rate or a monthly retainer. A part time Head of Marketing engagement is structured exactly the same way.
Current fractional Head of Marketing day rates are set out in our fractional executive rates guide.
90-day deliverables typically include
- A marketing plan with a budget, a target, and the things you are not doing
- Channel performance audited, with the losing channels named
- The website and key pages fixed where they are costing conversions
- Agencies and freelancers on clear briefs and measurable expectations
- A reporting rhythm the leadership team can read in five minutes
- A content or campaign calendar that survives contact with the quarter
Hire a Fractional Head of Marketing
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Why fractional Head of Marketing demand is rising
Companies are buying senior leadership the way they buy other infrastructure: at the level they need, when they need it. Fractional Head of Marketing arrangements let you try senior talent before committing to a permanent hire, and bring pattern recognition from leaders who have solved the same problems across several businesses. Marketing is also the function where the level of the hire matters most, and fractional is the only model that lets you correct that decision cheaply if you got it wrong. Industry reporting and platform data show sharp growth in fractional executive roles since 2022. Our fractional executive cost guide breaks down what the shift means for budgets.
How Fractionus places fractional Heads of Marketing
- Brief us once. Your stage, situation, team, and what has to be true in 90 days.
- Shortlist in days. Meet 2-3 vetted fractional heads of marketing matched to your situation.
- You choose. Interview, check fit, and select your leader.
- We handle everything else. Contracts, billing, onboarding, and smooth scale-up or scale-down.
What your fractional Head of Marketing will deliver, and how to measure it
- Pipeline or revenue attributed to marketing, on a stated model
- Cost per acquisition by channel, trended rather than snapshotted
- Website conversion rate on the pages that carry the traffic
- Content and campaign output against the plan
- Agency spend against agency-attributed return
- Share of pipeline from channels that keep working when spend stops
Fractional leaders from top brands
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I hire a fractional Head of Marketing?
Fractionus places fractional Heads of Marketing directly. You brief us once on your stage, your situation, and what has to be true in ninety days, and we come back with a shortlist of two or three vetted marketing leaders matched to that brief, usually within days.
The alternatives are your own network, executive search firms, and general freelance marketplaces. A network introduction is free and fast when it works, but the sample is small and rarely matched to your stage. Search firms are built for permanent placements and priced for them. Marketplaces carry volume without vetting at this level, which moves the filtering work back onto you. The category is enormous at the junior end and thin at the level that can both set a plan and execute it.
What is the best platform for hiring a fractional Head of Marketing?
Judge a platform on three things: whether it vets people before it introduces them, whether it understands the difference between a Head of Marketing and the roles either side of it, and whether it handles contracting, billing, and scale-down without you managing any of it.
Fractionus is built for exactly that. Every leader is vetted before they reach a shortlist, matching is done against your situation rather than keyword overlap, and the commercial side runs through us so the engagement can flex as the business changes. It also means we will say when the honest answer is a specialist on one channel rather than a generalist across four.
How much does a fractional Head of Marketing cost?
Fractional Heads of Marketing are engaged by the day or on a monthly retainer, so cost scales with seniority and days per week rather than a salary band plus benefits, equity, and recruitment fees. Most engagements run one to three days a week, with a heavier first month while the picture is being built. The plan and audit are front loaded, and the ongoing rhythm is often two days a week.
Current day rates by role are set out in our fractional executive rates guide. The comparison worth making is not against a permanent salary in isolation, but against the cost of the problem staying unsolved, and against the cost of a full time hire who turns out to be the wrong one.
How do I start a search for a fractional Head of Marketing?
Start with the outcome rather than the title. Write down what has to be true in ninety days, what is breaking now, who the person would work with, and how many days a week you can genuinely give them. Bring your current channel spend, your last two quarters of results, and whatever plan exists today.
Then brief us once. We will tell you straight if the answer is a different level, a different role, or that the problem is better solved without a hire at all. If a fractional Head of Marketing is the right call, you will meet a matched shortlist in days rather than weeks.
What should I look for when hiring a fractional Head of Marketing?
Look for evidence of running things. The best marketing leaders can describe a channel they switched off, a campaign that failed and what they learned, and a plan they cut in half. Ask what they would stop doing in your first month.
Beyond the specifics, look for someone who has operated at your stage rather than only at a much larger one, who is comfortable being accountable for outcomes on limited days, and who is willing to tell you when you are wrong. Fractional leadership only works when the person has enough standing to be listened to and enough independence to disagree.
How do I vet a fractional Head of Marketing before hiring?
Ask for two or three situations that resemble yours and go deep on one of them: what they inherited, what they changed first, what they deliberately chose not to do, and what the numbers looked like when they left. Answers that stay vague at that depth are the clearest signal you will get. For a Head of Marketing, ask them to critique your website and your last campaign on the call, because specificity is the signal.
Then take references from people who reported to them, not only from the person who hired them, and consider a short paid piece of scoped work before a large engagement. Every Fractionus leader is vetted before they reach your shortlist, but the judgement on fit stays yours.
What is the difference between a fractional Head of Marketing and a fractional CMO?
A Head of Marketing runs the plan hands-on: channels, campaigns, content, and the team. A fractional CMO owns positioning, budget strategy, and the board conversation, and is usually not in the campaigns.
If the strategy is broadly settled and execution is the gap, the Head of Marketing is the right level and the cheaper one. If nobody agrees what the strategy is, the CMO is. Part time, outsourced, virtual, and contract Head of Marketing arrangements all describe the same fractional model. Our fractional marketing hub compares every level side by side.
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