What: A tactical walkthrough of a CMO’s first 90 days
Who: Founders, teams, or decision-makers hiring fractional leadership
Why: Sets expectations, timelines, and early outcomes clearly
How: Week-by-week outline with core milestones, tools, and deliverables
In This Article
Share On:
A week-by-week breakdown of what your marketing function can expect when a fractional CMO steps in, from audit to alignment to acceleration.
Unlike consultants who offer recommendations and walk away, a fractional CMO is embedded in your business. They take ownership of strategy, align execution, and build the systems your team needs to scale, all while working within a defined timeline.
But without clarity on what to expect, teams can feel uncertain, and momentum may stall.
This blog breaks down a typical 90-day marketing engagement with a fractional CMO. Whether you’re evaluating this model or about to start working with one, the following plan outlines what happens week by week, from audits and alignment to quick wins and scalable campaigns.
Week 1–2: Listening, Auditing, and Alignment
The first two weeks are about understanding, not acting. A strong fractional CMO starts by listening to stakeholders, auditing existing assets, and aligning expectations. This phase lays the foundation for everything that follows.
1. Internal Stakeholder Syncs The CMO meets with founders, team leads, and anyone influencing marketing. These conversations reveal goals, pain points, and past efforts. It also helps the CMO assess team strengths and bandwidth.
2. Funnel and Channel Audit Before building new strategies, the CMO audits your funnel: website performance, ad accounts, email flows, lead quality, and analytics. They identify bottlenecks, gaps, and opportunities.
3. Campaign Review and Asset Inventory Ongoing and past campaigns are assessed for performance and alignment. Content libraries, brand assets, and paid creatives are reviewed for reusability or required updates.
4. Audience and Messaging Review The CMO checks whether your messaging matches your audience. They study buyer personas, tone, and value proposition across platforms.
5. Alignment on Goals and Reporting This is where expectations are clarified. The CMO sets the framework for what will be tracked, how often, and which metrics will signal progress. Weekly or biweekly update formats are also agreed upon.
By the end of Week 2, the CMO knows your current state, your goals, and your operational readiness, and your team knows what’s coming next.
With insights gathered from audits and stakeholder conversations, the fractional CMO now shifts into strategy mode. The goal during this phase is to define a clear direction, prioritise initiatives, and align the team around measurable outcomes.
1. Defining or Refining Positioning and Messaging The CMO sharpens your unique value proposition, ensuring that your messaging speaks directly to the right segments. This becomes the foundation for upcoming campaigns and content.
2. Building a 3–6 Month Roadmap Based on your business model and growth goals, the CMO creates a clear marketing roadmap. This includes strategic themes, key projects, and performance expectations. It’s realistic, focused, and aligned with available resources.
3. Prioritising Growth Levers Not all channels deliver equally at every stage. The CMO identifies the top opportunities based on current traction and growth stage, whether that’s lifecycle marketing, paid media, content, or conversion optimisation.
4. Establishing Success Metrics The CMO defines success in terms that are specific, measurable, and tied to business outcomes. Each priority in the roadmap includes metrics such as CAC, MQL velocity, campaign ROI, or channel-level KPIs.
5. Aligning Execution Rhythm Marketing is a team sport. The CMO sets up a working cadence with internal team members, agency partners, or freelancers, defining roles, timelines, and workflows for faster execution.
By the end of Week 4, the strategy is no longer abstract. It’s documented, shared, and ready for execution.
With a clear roadmap in place, the fractional CMO now moves into the execution phase, launching priority initiatives, enabling the team, and creating systems for sustainable delivery. This is where strategy starts translating into measurable activity.
1. Launching Quick Wins The CMO prioritises low-effort, high-impact actions that build momentum early. This might include relaunching paused campaigns, improving lead forms, refining CTAs, or fixing conversion gaps on key landing pages.
2. Establishing Marketing Rituals and Operating Rhythm The CMO introduces consistent workflows: weekly standups, campaign sprint planning, reporting loops, and feedback systems. These rituals drive predictability and performance across the team.
3. Rescoping Roles and Responsibilities If execution gaps were identified, the CMO helps realign responsibilities. Some functions may be outsourced, others restructured internally. Every team member gains clarity on what they own and what success looks like.
4. Training and Upskilling Where needed, the CMO runs working sessions or templates for junior marketers, onboarding freelancers, or agency partners. They transfer frameworks and expectations rather than micromanaging every task.
5. Rebuilding or Fixing Underperforming Funnels Based on early audits, the CMO begins hands-on improvements in content workflows, email automation, ad funnel structure, or lead handoff to sales. Every change is made with a performance objective in mind.
By the end of Week 8, the team is not just aligned, it’s executing faster, with more clarity and accountability.
With key systems in place and early results coming in, the focus now shifts from building to scaling. The fractional CMO ensures that what’s working is expanded, while refining anything that’s lagging behind expectations.
1. Doubling Down on High-Performing Campaigns Channels or campaigns showing early traction, whether it’s paid, content, partnerships, or email, are scaled with additional investment, refined targeting, or extended distribution.
2. Expanding Content or Channel Cadence The CMO works with the team to scale content production, improve frequency, or launch supporting campaigns. Performance dictates pace, not guesswork.
3. Launching Real-Time Dashboards If not already implemented, the CMO now formalises campaign tracking dashboards, lead generation scorecards, and channel performance reports. These are used for weekly or biweekly check-ins and leadership reporting.
4. Reviewing KPIs and Adjusting the Plan At this stage, initial KPIs are assessed for actual vs. expected performance. Adjustments are made to optimise CAC, increase MQL quality, or rebalance budget allocation.
5. Planning Next Sprint or Leadership Handoff The CMO may either begin planning for the next 90-day cycle or prepare a structured handover, especially in cases where internal leadership or hiring is expected to take over. Documentation, process maps, and performance logs are compiled.
By the end of Week 12, your marketing function is operating with strategic direction, performance rhythm, and clarity on what’s next. The CMO’s impact is visible and scalable.
The 90-Day Fractional CMO Plan at a Glance
Timeframe
Focus Area
Key Activities
Week 1–2
Listening and Auditing
Stakeholder syncs, performance audits, messaging review, and expectations alignment
Week 3–4
Strategy and Prioritisation
Roadmap creation, goal setting, growth lever mapping, execution rhythm planning
Week 5–8
Execution and Enablement
Launching quick wins, team rituals, rescoping roles, and campaign optimisation
Week 9–12
Scaling and Performance Optimisation
Doubling down on what works, dashboards, KPI reviews, sprint planning or handover
Use Case Snapshots: How the 90-Day Plan Drives Early Results
Fractional CMOs are most effective when they have the space to lead and the clarity to act. These real examples show how early momentum and systems transformation happen within the first 90 days.
Example 1: Aligning Cross-Functional Teams by Week 4
A fintech startup had siloed teams across marketing, product, and sales. The messaging was inconsistent, and campaigns lacked coordination.
What the CMO did: Held structured stakeholder sessions, audited performance gaps, and rebuilt the GTM framework. Introduced weekly syncs across departments.
Outcome by Day 30: All future campaigns were planned with shared ownership. Lead quality and sales alignment improved by mid-quarter.
Example 2: Rebuilding an Underperforming Paid Funnel by Week 8
A B2C services brand was spending heavily on paid media but seeing poor conversions and high CAC.
What the CMO did: Audited the landing page flow, implemented clearer CTAs, redesigned creatives with better positioning, and shifted spend to better-performing channels.
Outcome by Day 60: Cost per lead dropped by 35 percent. ROAS improved, and the internal team learned how to test messaging in cycles.
Example 3: Preparing for Leadership Transition After 90 Days
A SaaS company brought in a fractional CMO to stabilise the function after a failed leadership hire.
What the CMO did: Created a marketing roadmap, clarified team roles, built dashboards, and introduced sprint planning. Coached the internal content lead to take over as interim manager.
Outcome by Day 90: Performance improved across key metrics, and internal leadership was ready for a handover without loss of momentum.
Hiring a fractional CMO is not about outsourcing strategy. It’s about embedding experienced leadership that can clarify your priorities, energise your team, and drive execution with purpose, all in a defined timeframe.
The first 90 days are critical. It’s when foundational systems are built, direction is set, and early wins begin to compound.
What separates high-performing engagements from average ones is not just what gets done, but how structured, measured, and scalable that work becomes.
If you want marketing leadership that brings both vision and velocity, a structured 90-day plan is where it begins.
FAQs
1. What should I expect in the first 30 days of a fractional CMO engagement?
In the first month, the CMO focuses on stakeholder alignment, marketing audits, and creating a strategic roadmap. You’ll also see early team rituals and success metrics taking shape.
2. How soon can we expect results from a fractional CMO?
Initial quick wins often appear within the first 30 to 45 days. Larger outcomes like funnel performance and campaign ROI typically show measurable progress between 60 and 90 days.
3. Will the CMO work with our existing team?
Yes. Fractional CMOs are most effective when working with your in-house talent, freelancers, or agencies. They bring structure, clarity, and leadership that enhance team performance.
4. What tools or systems are introduced in the first quarter?
This can include campaign planning templates, growth dashboards, OKR frameworks, team check-ins, and marketing scorecards, all designed to improve consistency and track performance.
5. Is the 90-day plan fixed or customisable?
The structure is proven, but priorities and execution are always tailored to your company’s growth stage, team size, and current challenges.
6. What happens after the first 90 days?
Depending on your needs, the CMO can continue in a leadership role, transition to advisory support, or help onboard a permanent marketing lead, with full handover documentation and systems.
7. How does upGrowth support onboarding for fractional CMOs?
We use a structured onboarding process that includes business immersion, toolkit deployment, and goal tracking. Each engagement starts with a clearly mapped 90-day plan and weekly syncs.
Amol has helped catalyse business growth with his strategic & data-driven methodologies. With a decade of experience in the field of marketing, he has donned multiple hats, from channel optimization, data analytics and creative brand positioning to growth engineering and sales.
Growth Strategy and Planning
Inbound Growth
Growth Hacking
Fractional CMO
Search Engine Optimization
Paid and Performance Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Demand Generation
AI-Driven Growth Strategy
AI-Native Workflow Automation
Generative Engine Optimization
Generative AI Content Creation
AI Automation
Growth Tools
Offers
Leave a Reply