What's the difference between a fractional CMO and a fractional CGO?

A fractional CMO focuses on marketing strategy, brand positioning, demand generation, and marketing team leadership. A fractional CGO (Chief Growth Officer) focuses on revenue operations, growth infrastructure, churn systems, billing automation, pricing optimization, and building growth tooling. CMOs orchestrate campaigns; CGOs ship systems.

When should I hire a fractional CGO instead of a fractional CMO?

Hire a fractional CGO when your problems are operational: revenue is leaking through churn, billing is manual and error-prone, pricing hasn't been optimized, or you need SEO infrastructure at scale. If you need someone to build systems rather than strategies, you need a CGO.

Can I hire both a fractional CMO and CGO?

Yes, the roles complement each other. The CMO handles brand, messaging, and demand generation strategy while the CGO handles revenue systems, automation, and infrastructure. Many growth-stage companies benefit from both — the CMO creates demand, the CGO captures and retains it.

What results can I expect from a fractional CGO engagement?

Typical outcomes include: churn reduction (50%+ in some cases), billing automation saving hundreds of hours annually, pricing optimization adding 20-30% to revenue, and SEO infrastructure indexing hundreds of thousands of pages. Every initiative ties to measurable P&L impact.

Fractional CMO Alternative

When you need a growth operator who ships systems, not a strategist who delivers slide decks

Fractional CMO

Marketing Strategy

Brand positioning & messaging
Demand generation strategy
Marketing team leadership
Campaign orchestration
Agency & vendor management

Fractional CGO

Revenue Operations + Growth Infrastructure

Churn recovery systems
Billing automation & CPQ
Pricing optimization
SEO infrastructure at scale
Revenue data pipelines

When You Need a Fractional CMO

A fractional CMO is the right choice when your challenges are strategic and marketing-focused.

Brand Positioning

You need to define your market position, messaging architecture, and competitive differentiation from scratch.

Demand Generation Strategy

You're building a marketing function and need someone to design the lead gen playbook and channel mix.

Marketing Team Leadership

You have marketers but no leader — someone needs to set direction, manage performance, and hire the right people.

Campaign Orchestration

You're launching products, entering new markets, or running integrated campaigns that need strategic oversight.

When You Need a Fractional CGO Instead

A fractional CGO is the right choice when your challenges are operational and require someone who builds systems.

Revenue Leakage & Churn

Customers are churning and you don't know why. You need automated workflows monitoring health signals, billing anomalies, and usage drops.

Billing Automation

Your team is spending 10+ hours per week on manual billing, creating errors and delaying contracts. You need quote-to-cash automation.

Pricing Optimization

You're leaving 20-30% on the table through pricing but don't have the methodology to quantify the gap and close it.

SEO Infrastructure

You need programmatic pages at scale, technical SEO foundations, and organic traffic that compounds — not just content strategy.

Growth Systems & Tooling

You're paying six figures for SaaS tools that could be replaced with custom builds, or you need internal systems that don't exist yet.

Try our free growth diagnostics

Why Not Both?

The roles complement each other. The best growth comes from both working together.

CMO Brings

Brand narrative & positioning
Market messaging
Demand generation strategy
Marketing team leadership
Agency orchestration

Together

Go-to-market strategy
Growth metrics & analytics
Customer acquisition cost optimization

CGO Brings

Revenue system architecture
Billing & churn automation
Pricing infrastructure
SEO at scale
Custom growth tooling

The Build vs. Buy Difference

CMOs orchestrate. CGOs ship. Here's how the approaches differ in practice.

Area	CMO Approach	CGO Approach
Campaigns	Orchestrates agencies and vendors to execute campaigns	Builds internal automation that runs campaigns without vendors
Tools	Recommends and selects best-in-class SaaS tools	Builds or replaces SaaS tools when the ROI is there
Data	Requests dashboards and reports from analytics team	Creates data pipelines and real-time visibility systems
Automation	Specs requirements for engineering to build	Ships the automation directly, often over a weekend
SEO	Develops content strategy and editorial calendar	Builds technical infrastructure for 500K+ programmatic pages

Proof Points

What happens when you focus on operational impact instead of marketing strategy

$1.43M

Churn Recovered

Annual revenue saved through automated churn intervention systems

540 hrs

Time Saved Annually

Through billing automation that eliminated manual quote-to-cash work

500K+

Pages Indexed

Programmatic SEO infrastructure generating compounding organic traffic

50%

Churn Reduction

Revenue that was walking out the door — caught before it left

Who I'm Best For

I work with technical founders and growth-stage companies who need execution, not more advice.

Technical founders who need execution

You don't need another strategy deck. You need someone who ships systems and can show you the P&L impact.

Series A-B companies with revenue operations gaps

You have product-market fit but revenue is leaking through churn, manual processes, and pricing blind spots.

Teams who've tried fractional CMOs without results

You got the strategy but nothing got built. You need an operator, not an advisor.

Companies ready to build vs. stack more SaaS

You're paying six figures for tools that could be replaced with focused builds that fit your exact needs.

Limited availability for Q2 2026 engagements