Fractional CMO in Austin
Austin has more venture-backed companies competing for the same attention than almost any market its size, and marketing efficiency has become the primary survival variable.
What marketing here actually requires.
Serving Downtown Austin, the Domain, East Austin, Southwest Parkway, and the Northwest tech corridor
Austin’s economy concentrates in software and SaaS, semiconductors and hardware, consumer brands, and a substantial creative and music-adjacent sector. The venture funding environment has shifted decisively from growth-at-any-cost to demonstrable efficiency, which has stranded a lot of companies whose entire acquisition strategy was built on cheap capital. Boards now want payback periods, honest cohort data, and defensible CAC — and many growth teams were never built to produce that.
The pattern I see most often in Austin: Austin’s specific problem is a generation of growth teams optimized for a funding environment that no longer exists. Spend was rewarded over efficiency, attribution was generous, and nobody modeled payback period seriously. Rebuilding the measurement foundation honestly is uncomfortable and necessary — you cannot fix acquisition economics you are still measuring optimistically.
Austin sectors I work in.
B2B SaaS & Software
Venture-backed companies under pressure to prove efficient, repeatable growth.
Semiconductors & Hardware
Long-cycle technical sales requiring authority content and account-based strategy.
Consumer & CPG Brands
DTC companies where contribution margin after acquisition determines viability.
Professional & Creative Services
Firms selling to a sophisticated, marketing-aware local buyer base.
What I run for Austin companies.
The same nine disciplines, sequenced against what your market and your stage actually demand. I direct the strategy; your team and agencies execute the daily tactics.
- Weekly 45-minute leadership sync with the CEO and marketing execution team
- Quarterly marketing sprints with defined KPI targets — CAC, ROAS, MQLs, reach
- Asynchronous creative and strategy reviews by recorded video walkthrough
- Shared live dashboards so performance is visible without waiting for a report
Fractional CMO in Austin — common questions
My packages are consistent nationwide: $5,000 to $7,500 for a one-time Growth Audit, $7,000 to $10,000 per month for the Core Marketing CMO retainer, and $12,000-plus per month for Scale-Up marketing leadership. A full-time CMO in the Austin Metro market typically costs $300,000 or more in salary, bonus, and equity before benefits.
I own the marketing strategy and the number attached to it. That means setting the budget and forecast, directing your in-house team and outside agencies, rebuilding attribution so you can see what genuinely works, and sitting in leadership meetings as the person accountable for pipeline — rather than delivering a strategy deck and leaving.
That is one of the most common Austin engagements. It requires rebuilding attribution and cohort reporting from the ground up, which usually reveals that historical CAC was understated. That is a difficult first board meeting and the necessary starting point for any real improvement.
In the current funding environment, most Austin companies at $3M to $30M cannot justify $300,000-plus in cash and equity for a full-time CMO. Fractional gives you the strategic layer at roughly a quarter of the cost, and often clarifies exactly what the eventual full-time hire should own.
Also serving companies in
Ready to talk about growth in Austin?
A free 30-minute call. We’ll cover where growth has plateaued, what you’re currently spending, and whether a fractional CMO is genuinely the right answer for your company. If it isn’t, I’ll tell you that.
Free 30-minute call · No pitch deck · Direct answer either way