Fractional CMO Services for Companies Scaling Fast
Scaling a business breaks marketing systems.
​
What worked at $10m rarely works at $30m. What once felt productive starts to feel expensive. Channels multiply, agencies proliferate, dashboards get more complex, and decision making becomes slower, not clearer.
That is usually when growth stalls. Not because demand disappears, but because the organisation loses clarity on what is actually driving results.
That is where I come in.
I work with growth-stage businesses in Australia and internationally, particularly where customer journeys, media investment, and commercial decision making are genuinely complex.
As a Fractional CMO, I partner directly with founders, CEOs, and executive teams to fix the commercial engine behind marketing. Not just the activity, but the decisions, the structure, and the accountability that sit underneath growth.
This is not agency support.
This is senior marketing leadership, embedded and commercially focused, without the cost, risk, or inertia of a full-time hire.
What a Fractional CMO Actually Does
A Fractional CMO owns the intersection between growth, investment, and execution.
In practice, that means helping leadership teams make clearer, faster, and more commercially grounded decisions about how marketing supports the business.
This typically includes:
-
Deciding where to invest and where to stop
-
Aligning marketing activity to commercial outcomes
-
Designing teams, agency models, and operating rhythms that scale
-
Building measurement that supports decisions, not just reporting
-
Bringing clarity when growth starts to feel noisy, inefficient, or politically charged
What I do not do is act as an execution layer or a creative agency. I work above the channels, but close enough to reality that strategy actually turns into action.
Think of it as senior marketing leadership with sleeves rolled up.
How I Help Companies Scale Without Burning Cash
Scaling successfully is not about doing more marketing. It is about making better decisions, earlier.
Most companies do not suffer from a lack of ideas. They suffer from weak prioritisation, outdated decision frameworks, and too many disconnected inputs competing for attention. As a result, spend increases while confidence in what is actually working declines.
My role is to help leadership teams answer practical questions such as:
-
Where is incremental growth actually coming from?
-
What activity is genuinely driving demand versus what is being over-credited?
-
Which channels deserve more investment and which are past their peak?
-
Where is inefficiency being carried in the current team and partner model?
This work is grounded in practical analysis, triangulating available data with commercial experience to test trade-offs before money is spent. Tools and automation are used selectively to improve speed and clarity, but judgement always comes first.
This is not about building complex models for their own sake. It is about making clearer investment decisions with the information available.
In markets like Australia, scale often exposes an efficiency gap where marketing activity grows faster than decision quality. The fix is not more reporting or more tools. It is rebuilding the commercial decision system: what we measure, how we prioritise, who owns outcomes, and how technology supports the why, not just the build.
Where Marketing Breaks as Companies Grow
Marketing most often breaks during periods of growth because systems outgrow their original design.
Common failure points include:
​
-
Channel ownership fragmented across teams and agencies
-
CRM and customer data becoming inconsistent or unreliable
-
Agencies optimised for activity rather than outcomes
-
Reporting that explains what happened but not what to do next
-
Legacy attribution approaches treated as truth rather than directional signals
-
Siloed measurement that rewards channel performance instead of business impact
-
No single owner accountable for the system as a whole
​
Outdated attribution approaches, particularly last-click or heavily siloed channel reporting, create false confidence. Spend can appear efficient on paper while real incremental impact declines. Teams optimise their own metrics rather than the total system.
​
Another common failure point is loss of context.
​
As organisations scale, initiatives often move faster than understanding. Technology teams are asked to build without clarity on the commercial why. Marketing teams are pushed to execute without full visibility of customer insight or strategic intent. Leadership assumes alignment, but the system quietly fragments.
​
When teams do not understand why something exists, they optimise for delivery, not impact. Over time, this creates waste, rework, and frustration, even when everyone is working hard.
A core part of my role is reconnecting strategy, customer understanding, measurement, and execution so teams are aligned around the same commercial outcomes, not just the same timelines.
How SEAM Is Different
SEAM exists because most options in the market do not work at this stage of growth.
Agencies execute, but rarely own commercial outcomes.
Large consultancies diagnose, but move slowly and stay abstract.
Hiring a full-time CMO too early can lock in cost and direction before clarity exists.
I sit in the middle.
I am embedded, commercially accountable, and fast. I work with your existing team and partners, challenge assumptions, and design systems that scale with the business.
This is not theoretical marketing.
This is decision making under real constraints.
Who This Is For and Who It’s Not
This work is a strong fit for:
​
-
Growth-stage and scaling businesses
-
Travel and retail organisations with complex customer journeys
-
Multi-channel businesses with real media, CRM, and measurement complexity
-
PE-backed or investor-led companies needing sharper commercial control
-
Companies operating in regulated environments, including markets with strict privacy and direct marketing requirements such as the Australian Privacy Principles and the Spam Act, as well as comparable international regimes
-
Leadership teams who want clarity, not noise
​
This is not a fit for:
​
-
Early-stage startups still finding product market fit
-
Businesses looking for execution-only support
-
Teams wanting brand work without commercial accountability
-
Organisations unwilling to change structure, incentives, or decision making
​
Being clear on this upfront saves everyone time.
What You Actually Get
Depending on the engagement, Fractional CMO support typically includes:
​
-
A clear growth and investment strategy
-
Practical commercial and marketing analytics frameworks
-
Measurement and attribution redesign where required
-
CRM and customer data roadmap
-
Marketing team and agency operating model
-
Executive and board-level decision cadence
-
Hands-on leadership through critical growth phases​​
​
The objective is always the same.
Build a marketing system that scales without constant intervention.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from hiring a full-time CMO?
A Fractional CMO provides senior marketing leadership without the long-term cost or commitment of a full-time hire. This approach is particularly effective when a business needs clarity, system design, and momentum before locking in a permanent structure.
How quickly can you make an impact?
Typically within weeks. Most value comes from improving prioritisation, decision-making, and measurement early, rather than running long discovery or transformation programs.
Do you work with existing agencies and internal teams?
Yes. I work alongside internal teams and agencies, providing alignment, commercial accountability, and decision clarity rather than replacing execution partners.
How do you approach attribution and measurement?
Attribution is treated as a directional input, not a source of truth. I focus on triangulating multiple signals to connect marketing investment to business outcomes and replacing siloed reporting with decision-led frameworks.
How does technology and AI fit into your approach?
Technology and AI are used selectively to improve analysis, speed, and operational efficiency where they materially improve decisions. They support judgement and commercial thinking rather than replacing them.
Next Steps
If your business is scaling and marketing feels harder, noisier, or less certain than it should, a Fractional CMO engagement is often the fastest way to regain control.
You do not need more activity.
You need clearer decisions.
If you want to explore whether this is the right fit, get in touch.
About the Author
Dwayne Birtles is the Founder of SEAM and a Fractional CMO working with scaling travel and retail businesses globally. He partners directly with CEOs, founders, and boards to design commercially grounded marketing systems that support durable growth.
​
​