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Climax Solutions
Strategy & Advisory

Fractional CMO / Marketing Retainer

A senior marketing leader who sets the strategy, owns the numbers, and steers your team — for a fraction of a full-time salary.

StrategyBuilt by one team

Most growing brands don't need another freelancer. They need someone senior making the calls — choosing the right channels, killing the wrong ones, and holding the whole effort to a number. A Fractional CMO gives you that judgement on retainer: the strategy, the oversight, and the accountability of a head of marketing, without the six-figure hire or the long ramp.

What's included

What you get

A growth strategy and quarterly roadmap tied to revenue, not vanity metrics

Monthly strategy sessions plus async access for decisions between calls

Channel and budget allocation — where every dollar goes and why

Oversight of your in-house team, freelancers, and agencies so the work stays aligned

A live dashboard tracking pipeline, CAC, conversion, and the metrics that matter to you

Hiring and vendor guidance — who to bring on, when, and what to pay them

How we work

Our approach

No mystery, no busywork — a clear sequence that gets you a result you can measure.

01

Diagnose before we prescribe

We start with a hard look at what you have: positioning, funnel, spend, analytics, and the last 12 months of results. You get a written diagnosis — what's working, what's leaking money, and the three moves that will shift the numbers fastest. No recommendations until we understand the picture.

02

Set the strategy and the targets

From the diagnosis we build a quarterly roadmap with clear owners and one number per channel. You'll know what we're investing in, what we expect it to return, and how we'll know if it's working — all in plain language, not a 40-slide deck nobody reads.

03

Steer the execution

We don't disappear after the strategy. We run the cadence: weekly priorities, monthly reviews, and direct oversight of whoever does the work — your team, your freelancers, or us. When a channel underperforms, we catch it early and reallocate before the budget burns.

04

Report on what moved

Every month you get a straight account of the numbers: what changed, why, and what we're doing next. You see the same dashboard we do. The relationship earns its place by the results it produces, reviewed openly each quarter.

FAQ

Questions, answered

How is this different from hiring a full-time CMO?
You get the same seniority and decision-making for a fraction of the cost and none of the recruitment risk. A full-time CMO in this market runs well into six figures plus equity and benefits, and takes months to hire and onboard. We're embedded within a week or two, and you can scale the engagement up or down as your needs change.
What do we need to provide to get started?
Access and honesty. We need your analytics, ad accounts, and CRM, the last year of marketing numbers if you have them, and a clear picture of your revenue goals. From there the diagnosis takes one to two weeks. The more candid you are about what's worked and what hasn't, the faster we get to the moves that matter.
How do you measure whether the retainer is working?
Against the numbers we agree at the start — usually a mix of pipeline, customer acquisition cost, conversion rate, and revenue contribution by channel. You see progress on a live dashboard, not a quarterly surprise. We review the engagement openly every quarter, and if a channel isn't earning its budget, we say so and change course.
Is there a minimum commitment, and how is pricing structured?
Retainers are a flat monthly fee scoped to the hours of senior attention you need — we right-size it after the diagnosis. Strategy needs time to compound, so we typically work in quarterly terms: one quarter to diagnose, set direction, and get early signal, then a rolling monthly arrangement. We'd rather keep you because the results are clear than lock you into a contract you've outgrown.
Let's build

Ready to talk about fractional cmo / marketing retainer?

Start a project or request a proposal. We'll reply within one working day with a clear, honest read on how we'd help.