The whole point of these field notes is something short and snappy. A nugget you can take and use in your business. I wrote Simplify the Funnel because I wanted to help you simplify - so I’m simplifying this too. No production. Just me talking to you.
Today I want to talk about why the CMO market, whilst it seems to be growing fast, has a real problem for founders and CEOs.
Some of the stats I’ve seen show that the fractional CMO market has doubled in the last two years. There are now around 120,000 people carrying that title, up from 60,000 in 2022. The market itself is valued at over a billion dollars, and it’s forecast to nearly double again by 2031.
On the surface, that sounds like good news for founders. More supply means more people, more choice, and better access to senior marketing leadership - without it costing a full-time hire.
But in reality? I think what we’re seeing in this marketplace - and from working with companies who’ve had previous CMOs - is that those CMOs weren’t necessarily all they were cracked up to be.
I recently checked ten random fractional CMO profiles on LinkedIn. Only one out of ten had held a CMO title or any kind of marketing leadership within the last five to ten years.
The other nine had renamed themselves into this market. Some had come out of fairly senior executive roles in companies that had nothing to do with marketing. A couple had some experience as graphic designers or web designers, and now they’re marketing themselves as CMOs.
That’s not the same as the twenty years of experience I’ve had agency-side before I decided to stop running an agency and focus on CMO work. There’s a real credibility gap in this space.
And here’s why that matters. When you as a founder or CEO are looking for a fractional CMO, that decision carries real weight. You’re handing someone strategic authority over your marketing function. You’re trusting them to make decisions about budget, positioning, team structure, and channel investment.
Done well, it accelerates growth. Done badly, it burns months of budget and leaves the business further down the drain than before.
You know what I see in the first 90 days of most fractional CMO contracts? Things like: we’re going to spend the first three months getting your messaging right, getting your offers sorted, looking at your brand positioning - and maybe considering a rebrand.
All of that may well be relevant at some point. But the reason a founder or CEO brings a CMO on board is to connect revenue directly to marketing activity. It has to be about the numbers from day one.
The question worth asking before you hire anyone in this space is very simple. Have you actually held a CMO role? Have you had experience running campaigns like this, and what were the results?
If the answer is no, or it’s evasive, or the experience just isn’t there - move to the next person. The market is expanding quickly, which is great because it gives you choice. But when you’re sifting the wheat from the chaff, it gets hard to find someone who genuinely has the experience and expertise.
The easiest way to protect yourself is to look at their profile. How long have they been in the game? Were they transitioning from a corporate position - maybe a redundancy or a golden handshake - and now they’re branding themselves as a CMO? Were they head of distribution or operations before this? It matters.
The fractional model works when the person carrying the title has genuinely done the job. When they haven’t, you’re paying executive rates for a very expensive experiment.
If you want to know more about the role I play as a performance-based fractional CMO, head over to anthodges.com. Subscribe to CMO Field Notes wherever you’re listening - Substack, Apple, Spotify. Drop a comment and let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear them.
I’m Ant Hodges. Let’s simplify.
