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A PE firm should evaluate a marketing partner on four things: pipeline results in comparable deals, operating partner references, reporting that ties spend to pipeline and revenue, and contract terms that keep accounts, data, and exit rights with the portfolio company. Score every candidate on one weighted sheet. Reject anyone who reports vanity metrics or owns your ad accounts.
Key facts
- Typical buyout deals now need about 10% to 12% average annual EBITDA growth to reach a 2.5X return over five years, up from about 5% in earlier years, according to Bain & Company’s 2026 Global Private Equity Report.
- Buyout holding periods at exit now hover around seven years, up from five to six years between 2010 and 2021 (Bain & Company).
- 39% of CMOs plan to cut back on agency budgets in 2025, per the Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey of 402 marketing leaders.
- Over my career I have managed $50M+ in annual ad spend and scaled programs deploying up to $1M per week. The red flags below are the ones I have seen cost real money.
Why the choice of marketing partner matters more in a PE hold
When a deal needs double-digit EBITDA growth every year, marketing cannot be a line item that “builds awareness.” It has to produce qualified pipeline the sales team closes, at a cost the board can see.
Longer holds raise the stakes too. A partner who burns the first year on rebranding and reports clicks costs you a meaningful share of the hold. A wrong pick also costs a second time: you lose the months it takes to discover the problem, and the months it takes to replace them.
Operating partners usually pick from three kinds of firms: an agency (executes campaigns), a consultancy (diagnoses and recommends), or a fractional CMO firm (leads the function and directs execution). This post does not rank those models against each other. That comparison lives in fractional CMO vs. full-time CMO vs. agency. The checklist below works for any of the three.
Try two senior CMOs before you hire them
30 minutes with both of us. No hard sell. Written plan in 3 business days.
The questions to ask every candidate
Ask these in the first meeting. Strong partners answer with specifics and numbers. Weak ones answer with process diagrams.
- “Show me pipeline results from a company with a similar deal size, sales cycle, and buyer.” Not traffic, not leads. Qualified pipeline and closed revenue, before and after.
- “What would you measure in the first 90 days, and what number would tell us you are failing?” A partner who cannot name a failure threshold does not plan to be held to one.
- “Who exactly will work on this account, and what have they personally run?” Many firms sell with senior people and staff with junior ones. Get names.
- “How do you define a qualified lead, and who agrees to that definition?” The answer should involve the sales leader. If marketing defines it alone, expect a fight in month four.
- “How will your reporting map to our board deck?” You want pipeline created, pipeline influenced, cost per qualified opportunity, and customer acquisition cost on the same cadence as your board meetings.
- “What happens to our accounts, data, and creative if we end the relationship?” The only good answer is “they are yours, and you already have admin access.”
- “Which of your recommendations would reduce your own fees?” Good partners will cut wasted spend even when it shrinks their scope. Ask for an example.
- “How do you work with other vendors already in place?” Portfolio companies rarely start from zero. The partner must fit with the existing agency, the CRM admin, and the sales team.
The evidence to request before you sign
Talk is cheap in a pitch. Ask for documents.
- Before-and-after pipeline data from comparable engagements. Redacted is fine. You want the starting baseline, the end state, and the time it took. Ask what changed besides marketing (new sales hires, price changes) so you can judge what the partner actually caused.
- Two references from operating partners or PE-backed CEOs. Not just happy marketing managers. Ask the reference: “Did they hit the numbers they promised? What did they get wrong? Would you hire them for the next deal?”
- A sample board-level report. If they only have a 40-slide monthly deck full of impressions, that is what you will get.
- A sample 90-day plan for a similar company. It should name the metrics, the owners, and the decisions to be made at day 30, 60, and 90.
- A copy of their standard contract. Read the termination, ownership, and data clauses before you fall in love with the strategy.
Red flags that should end the conversation
| Red flag | Why it hurts a PE deal | What to ask for instead |
|---|---|---|
| Reports vanity metrics (impressions, followers, clicks, MQL counts with no sales acceptance) | Nothing in the report connects to revenue or EBITDA, so the board cannot judge ROI | Pipeline created, sales-accepted opportunities, cost per opportunity, CAC |
| Long lock-in contract (12 months or more with no exit) | Removes your ability to correct course inside the hold | A 90-day initial term, then termination with 30 days’ notice |
| Partner owns the ad accounts, website hosting, or domain | You lose spend history and data on exit, and a buyer’s diligence team will flag it | All accounts in the portfolio company’s name, partner added as a user |
| No pipeline reporting, or no CRM access | Marketing and sales argue from different numbers | Reporting built in the company’s CRM, visible to the operating partner |
| Media markup hidden in the invoice | You cannot see true cost per result | Media billed at cost or directly to the company’s card, fees shown separately |
| Same pitch for every client | The plan was not built for your buyer, deal size, or sales cycle | A diagnosis of this company before any plan |
| Senior people in the pitch, juniors on the work | Strategy quality drops after signing | Named team in the contract |
Also watch for a partner who pushes one channel before seeing the data. That firm is selling what it does.
A scoring sheet for comparing marketing partners
Score each candidate 1 to 5 on each line. Multiply by the weight. Add it up. Have the operating partner and the portfolio company CEO score separately, then compare. Big gaps in scoring tell you where to dig.
| Criterion | Weight | What a 5 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline results in comparable deals | 25% | Documented before-and-after pipeline and revenue in companies with similar deal size and sales cycle |
| Operating partner and CEO references | 15% | Two or more PE-side references who say they would hire the firm again |
| Reporting and measurement | 15% | Board-ready report on pipeline, cost per opportunity, and CAC, built in your CRM |
| Strategic judgment | 15% | Diagnoses before prescribing; can explain which channels they would cut and why |
| Senior team on the account | 10% | Named senior people doing the work, written into the contract |
| Contract terms and ownership | 10% | Company owns all accounts and data; short initial term; clean termination |
| Fit with existing team and vendors | 5% | Clear plan for working with the sales leader, CRM admin, and any current agency |
| Cost relative to expected pipeline | 5% | Fee and media budget tied to a pipeline target the partner will commit to |
A partner below 3.5 overall should not get the account. A partner below 3 on pipeline results or contract terms should not get the account no matter what the total says.
Note that cost carries a low weight on purpose. A cheap partner who produces no pipeline is the most expensive choice on the list. If you want to understand what drives fees in the fractional model specifically, see how fractional CMOs charge.
Contract terms PE firms should insist on
Put these in writing before the engagement starts. Each one protects value at exit.
- Account ownership. Every ad account (Google, LinkedIn, Meta), analytics property, tag manager, CRM, marketing automation tool, domain, and website host is registered to the portfolio company. The partner gets user access, never ownership.
- Data access. The company and the operating partner can see raw campaign and CRM data at any time, not only through the partner’s reports. Contact lists, audiences, and conversion data stay with the company.
- Work product ownership. Creative, copy, landing pages, playbooks, and documentation become company property on payment. Buyers in diligence look for documented, transferable revenue systems.
- Termination. A defined initial term (90 days is reasonable), then termination for convenience on 30 days’ notice. Add a transition clause: the partner hands over logins, files, and a written status summary within a set number of days.
- Reporting cadence aligned to board meetings. Monthly operating reports, plus a board-ready summary delivered before each board meeting, with the same metric definitions every time.
- Named team. Name the senior lead in the contract, with the right to approve any replacement.
- Media transparency. Media spend billed at cost or paid directly by the company. Fees shown on their own line.
- Change of control. The contract survives a sale or assigns cleanly to a buyer, and nothing in it blocks an add-on integration.
Gartner found that 22% of CMOs said GenAI has reduced their reliance on external agencies for creativity and strategy building. Vendor mixes are changing fast, so contracts that allow a clean switch matter more than ever.
Frequently asked questions
Should the PE firm or the portfolio company CEO choose the marketing partner?
Both should score candidates, but the portfolio company CEO should own the final choice and the relationship. The operating partner sets the standards: the scoring sheet, the contract terms, and the reporting format. That keeps accountability with management while protecting the investment thesis.
Can one marketing partner serve several companies in the same portfolio?
Yes, and it can make reporting consistent across the portfolio. Score the partner separately for each company, though. A firm that is strong in B2B SaaS may be weak in industrial distribution, and the deal size and buyer can differ a lot between holdings.
How long should we give a new marketing partner before judging results?
Set leading indicators for the first 90 days (tracking fixed, qualified lead definition agreed, first campaigns live, early pipeline) and pipeline targets after that. If the partner cannot show movement in leading indicators by day 90, use the termination clause. Waiting a full year in a seven-year hold is expensive.
What should we do if the current agency owns the company’s ad accounts?
Ask the agency in writing to transfer ownership or add the company as the account owner with full admin rights. Do it before you give notice, while the relationship is still cooperative. If they refuse, plan for a fresh account and save every report you can, since spend history may not transfer.
Do we need a marketing leader if we hire a good agency?
Usually yes. An agency executes; someone inside the company has to set strategy, hold the agency to pipeline targets, and align marketing with sales. If no one in the portfolio company can do that, add marketing leadership before you add more agency scope. See how a fractional CMO works with your agency.
What is the single biggest mistake operating partners make in this choice?
Picking on the strength of the pitch instead of the evidence. The best presentation rarely comes from the firm with the best pipeline results. Ask for the data and the references first, and let the scoring sheet decide.
Where The Geisheker Group fits
Our view is simple. A portfolio company needs marketing leadership that directs agencies, not another agency. My partner and I serve as fractional CMOs who set the plan, hold vendors to pipeline targets, and report to the CEO and the board in the terms they use. Fractional CMO Leadership starts at $10,000 per month with a 90-day minimum sprint.
If you are choosing a marketing partner for a portfolio company now, book a 30-minute growth plan session with Michael Pecora and me on Google Meet. You get a written growth plan within 3 business days, with no hard sell. We take 10 companies a month.
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