What to Look for When Hiring a Marketing Agency or Fractional CMO
taralillymadev
April 16, 2026
Here’s a scenario I see constantly. A business is spending $8K, $10K, sometimes $15K a month on marketing across various vendors. An agency here, a freelancer there, an ad platform over there. And when you ask the CEO what’s working, the answer is some version of “I’m not really sure.”
That’s not a budget problem. That’s a leadership problem wearing a budget costume.
Most businesses don’t need to spend more on marketing. They need someone looking at what they’re already spending and asking whether it’s actually doing anything. That question sounds simple. In practice, almost nobody is asking it.
You can’t answer “what’s working?” with confidence. If you’re spending money on marketing and can’t point to specific outcomes tied to specific investments, that’s a red flag. It doesn’t mean nothing is working. It means nobody is measuring it in a way that’s useful.
Your vendors don’t talk to each other. If your agency, your freelancers, and your internal team are all doing their own thing without a shared strategy, you’re paying for parallel work that doesn’t compound. Marketing works when the pieces build on each other. Silos prevent that.
You keep adding, never subtracting. Every quarter brings a new channel, a new vendor, a new tool. But nothing gets cut. The budget grows incrementally, spread thinner each time, and nobody evaluates what should stop so the things that work can get more investment.
A well-spent marketing budget isn’t about picking the cheapest option or spending the least. It’s about intentional allocation. Every dollar has a job. Every channel has a reason for being in the mix. And there’s someone reviewing performance regularly and making adjustments based on what the data says, not what feels busy.
In practice, that means your marketing spend is tied to specific business goals, not just activity metrics. It means you can trace a line from what you’re investing in to the leads, pipeline, or revenue it’s generating. And it means someone has the authority and the expertise to say, “This isn’t working. Let’s reallocate.”
That person doesn’t have to be a full-time CMO. But it does have to be someone with enough strategic experience to make those calls and enough authority to act on them.
If you’re wondering whether your marketing budget is being spent well, don’t start by auditing every line item. Start with this: Can anyone in your organization explain, clearly, how your marketing spend connects to your business goals?
If the answer is no, the first investment worth making isn’t another agency or another tool. It’s a marketing leader who can look at everything you’re doing, tell you what’s working, what’s not, and where your money should actually go.
At Tara Lilly & Co., I help B2B service companies get clarity on their marketing spend and build a plan that ties every dollar to an outcome. If your budget feels scattered and you’re not sure what’s working, let’s have a conversation.
A common benchmark is 7-10% of revenue, but the number matters less than how it’s allocated. A focused $5,000 per month with clear strategy will outperform a scattered $15,000 every time.
If you can’t connect your marketing spend to a specific business outcome like leads, pipeline, or revenue, your budget is fragmented. Activity without measurement is the most common form of waste.
The issue often isn’t the agency’s execution. It’s that nobody is coordinating the agency’s work with the rest of your marketing and connecting it to business goals. A marketing leader solves that problem.
Start by asking every vendor and channel to report on metrics that connect to revenue, not vanity metrics like impressions or followers. If they can’t or won’t, that tells you something about the partnership.
Founder, Tara Lilly & Co. · Fractional Marketing Leader
Tara Lilly is the founder of Tara Lilly & Co. and a fractional CMO for B2B companies. She leads strategy and brings a senior team of specialists who use AI to execute. Before starting the company, she spent 15+ years leading marketing teams across credit unions, agencies, and startups, including work on Volvo Trucks North America.
