Hiring a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) can provide significant benefits for a B2B SaaS company. A seasoned marketing executive can bring strategic guidance, expertise, and bandwidth to drive growth. However, it’s important to measure the impact of this investment and ensure the fractional CMO delivers value.

A fractional CMO is an experienced marketing leader that works on a part-time, outsourced basis. This provides the strategy and expertise of a CMO without the cost of a full-time hire. Fractional CMOs typically work with clients on a retainer or project basis.

For B2B SaaS companies, a fractional CMO can provide crucial marketing leadership for 10-30 hours per week. This allows lean organizations to augment their team with executive experience in a capital-efficient way.

Before measuring the impact of a fractional CMO, B2B SaaS companies must first define success. What does success look like in 3, 6, or 12 months? Common goals include:

• Revenue growth: Increase new sales by a target percentage
• Market share growth: Gain share against key competitors
• Expanded market reach: Enter new customer segments or geographies
• Brand awareness lift: Increase important brand metrics
• Shortened sales cycle: Reduce time from lead to close

The specific goals will depend on the organization’s overall business objectives and current challenges. Agreeing on success metrics upfront will allow the fractional CMO to focus their efforts appropriately and simplify performance measurement.

While each company will have unique goals, there are several quantitative metrics that are commonly used to gauge fractional CMO impact:

Revenue Growth: The simplest way to track program success is to measure revenue growth before, during, and after the fractional CMO engagement. Compare monthly and quarterly growth rates to historical baselines. For more precision, track growth rates from marketing-generated leads specifically. This showcases the fractional CMO’s ability to drive pipeline and convey marketing’s contribution.

Cost Per Lead: Improving marketing efficiency is often an engagement goal. Chart the cost per lead month-over-month and aim for steady improvement. Work with the fractional CMO to optimize spending mix across channels to reduce CPL.

Pipeline Conversion Rates: While more leads are great, you want to ensure those leads convert to sales. Track lead-to-opportunity conversion rates. Then, monitor opportunity-to-win rates. High conversion signifies that marketing is delivering qualified, sales-ready leads.

New Client Logo Acquisition: For growth-stage SaaS companies, tracking logo acquisition shows if marketing is helping expand customer base. Plot new customer adds by month and segment out expansion versus net new logos. Are you acquiring net new logos faster with your fractional CMO on board?

Brand Awareness Lift: Increase in unaided brand awareness shows the fractional CMO’s impact on brand building. This can be measured via surveys pre and post-engagement. Branded search volume lift is another indicator.

Shortened Sales Cycle: Chart average sales cycle length by month and segment by lead source. A decrease shows the fractional CMO’s ability to engineer a more efficient funnel.

With clear goals established upfront, these metrics help quantify marketing’s impact on the business. They demonstrate the value delivered by the fractional CMO engagement.

Quantitative metrics demonstrate hard results, but qualitative measures are equally important for measuring fractional CMO success:

Stakeholder Sentiment: The true sign of success? Talk to internal stakeholders about their impression of the early returns from the fractional CMO engagement. Interview sales leaders, exec team members, and anyone working closely with marketing. Are they seeing positive impact from marketing programs? Do they feel enabled by marketing orsense a positive momentum shift? Strong qualitative feedback here shows the engagement is delivering value beyond the numbers.

Strategic Vision: A key part of the fractional CMO role is bringing strategic clarity to the organization. They should spearhead marketing strategies, planning processes, and cross-functional alignment. Within the first 90 days, evaluate the quality of the strategic vision they’ve established. Do their plans seem insightful and comprehensive? Will proposed tactics clearly help achieve established goals? How confident are you in their high-level strategic leadership?

Program Execution: Finally, evaluate how well the Fractional CMO executes against plans they’ve architected. Do they implement sophisticated programs efficiently and effectively? How are they optimizing and enhancing existing programs? Review program results, engagement levels, and stakeholder satisfaction across different initiatives. Strong execution demonstrates that the Fractional CMO can design impactful programs and successfully steer them from ideation to activation.

Talking to internal team members can help gauge effectiveness across all of these areas even early into an engagement. Strong qualitative feedback indicates your fractional investment is paying dividends.

To get the most value from a fractional CMO, B2B SaaS companies should:

• Establish clear goals and success metrics upfront
• Integrate them into strategy conversations to align priorities
• Give them input on budget decisions to optimize spending
• Have them present data-backed program recaps to showcase impact
• Solicit qualitative feedback from key sales and exec stakeholders
• Schedule regular check-ins to discuss progress and results
• Have an open dialogue around what’s working well and pain points
• Be ready to adjust engagement scope if certain areas demonstrate high impact

With careful goal-setting, measurement practices, and open communication channels, B2B SaaS companies can ensure their fractional CMO delivers maximum impact. Tracking quantitative performance data coupled with qualitative feedback provides a holistic view on value delivery. This ultimately helps justify the investment and build the internal case for an expanded engagement. With the right metrics framework, fractional marketing executives can become invaluable partners in driving transformative growth.

If your company needs a B2B SaaS fractional CMO, consider working with Peter Geisheker. Peter has been providing Fractional CMO services for over 20 years and has expertise in growth tactics and conversion optimization. View Peter’s SaaS fractional CMO case studies.