Fractional CMO
A fractional CMO gives you senior marketing leadership for a fraction of a full-time salary. Most of them hand you a plan and leave the execution to whoever you can find. At Growthr the leadership comes with an embedded team that runs paid media, creative, analytics, and reporting, so the plan ships the same month it is written.
Book a Discovery Call →A fractional CMO owns the growth strategy, the channel mix, the budget, and the accountability for results, on a part-time or retained basis. The role fits companies that need CMO-level judgment before they can justify a CMO-level salary. Three things separate a useful one from an expensive advisor.
The job is a CAC, a ROAS, or a pipeline target, and a plan for hitting it. Strategy documents are a by-product. If the person cannot say which metric they are accountable for this quarter, they are a consultant, not a CMO.
Where the next dollar goes, which channels to test, when to scale, when to stop. That decision needs attribution underneath it, which is why Growthr builds measurement before spend goes up.
A plan without media buyers, creative, and an analyst behind it stalls. Growthr's fractional CMO leadership comes inside an embedded team that runs every channel, produces the creative, and instruments the funnel.
The embedded model puts the CMO and the team inside your Slack, your standups, and your tools. Decisions get made where the work happens.
We review your current acquisition, attribution, creative, and funnel, then write the growth plan with the numbers it is accountable to: target CAC or ROAS, budget by channel, and the measurement that has to exist first.
Attribution goes in before spend scales. Campaigns launch across the channels that fit your funnel, with weekly creative sprints and structured testing to find what converts.
Budgets scale only when down-funnel economics are proven. Reporting separates channels, creative, and audiences so the next decision is obvious, and the plan is revised as the data comes in.
The embedded retainer includes fractional CMO leadership and the full stack underneath it. No separate line items for the people who execute the plan.
Growth strategy, channel mix, budget allocation, and a named owner accountable for the number.
Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Apple Search Ads, AppLovin, programmatic, CTV, OOH, affiliate.
UGC-style video, static ads, and brand content, produced in-house and tested weekly on down-funnel performance.
Pixel and conversion setup, UTM architecture, CRM scoring, data pipelines, and custom dashboards built before spend scales.
What to publish and why, plus reporting that ties every channel back to real business outcomes.
The people who run all of the above sit in your Slack and your standups, on your tools, as one unit.
Embedded from launch to build the growth engine from scratch. Launched across Meta, Google, TikTok, and Reddit, tested 50+ creative variations, scaled spend 5x while cutting CAC 50%. The results powered a $15M Series A.
Built paid acquisition from zero, instrumented full-funnel tracking, rebuilt the landing page, and scaled spend from $5K a month to $50K+ a week at a sustained 126% ROAS. The growth infrastructure supported Trim's acquisition by OneMain Financial.
Consumer fintech growth ahead of Truebill's acquisition by Rocket Companies for $1.3B, the largest exit in Growthr's client history.
Growthr's embedded retainer is $10,000 per month plus a flat 10% of managed media spend, one rate across every channel with no brackets. Fractional CMO leadership is included in that; it is not sold by the hour or as a separate seat. The same retainer covers paid media on every channel, creative production and testing, content strategy, analytics and attribution, CRM scoring, data pipelines and custom dashboards, reporting, and the embedded team. Full detail on the pricing page.
Below roughly $20,000 a month in media spend, a CMO plus a team is usually the wrong shape. At that stage Clipper (pay only for verified views, no retainer) or the SEO and GEO ladder puts the budget to work without the overhead. Not sure which you are? The agency guide walks through the models.
A fractional CMO provides senior marketing leadership on a part-time or retained basis: they own the growth strategy, decide the channel mix and budget, set the targets the marketing function is accountable to, and report on results to the founders or the board. Companies use one when they need CMO-level judgment before they can justify a full-time CMO salary. At Growthr the fractional CMO leadership comes inside an embedded team that also executes: paid media, creative, analytics, and reporting.
Standalone fractional CMOs usually price by the day, the hour, or a monthly retainer, and the execution (media buying, creative, analytics) is billed separately or left to the client. Growthr prices the leadership and the execution together: $10,000 per month plus a flat 10% of managed media spend, one rate across every channel with no brackets. That includes the fractional CMO leadership, paid media on every channel, creative production, content strategy, analytics and attribution, custom dashboards, and the embedded team.
An in-house CMO gives you full-time ownership but is slow and expensive to hire, and still needs a team. A traditional agency executes at arm's length on a retainer, usually without owning the strategy. A standalone fractional CMO owns the strategy but not the execution. Growthr's embedded model combines the last two: fractional CMO leadership plus the team that runs every channel, inside your Slack, standups, and tools, accountable to the growth metrics.
Sean Garschi, Growthr's founder, leads growth strategy. Growthr was founded in 2021, is based in San Francisco, and works fully remote with clients anywhere. Fintech is the deepest vertical (Truebill, Trim, StellarFi, SaverLife campaigns with JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, and Wells Fargo), with further work in music, enterprise technology, gaming, and consumer subscription.
The embedded team plugs into it. Growthr joins the existing channels, standups, and tools, takes ownership of the parts you assign (often paid media, creative testing, and attribution), and the fractional CMO leadership works alongside your team lead rather than replacing them. The scope is set on the discovery call.
Book a discovery call. We'll review your acquisition, attribution, and funnel, and tell you whether an embedded team is the right shape for your stage.