What Does a SaaS Fractional CMO Do? –A Day In The Life Of A SaaS CMO

Growing a B2B SaaS company is one of the most exciting—and complex—journeys you can take as a founder or executive. Between juggling product development, managing sales pipelines, and figuring out how to break into a competitive market, it’s easy to feel like there’s just not enough time, resources, or expertise to go around.

At some point, you realize: you need solid marketing leadership to get to the next level.

You need someone who can align strategy with execution, build scalable campaigns, and drive real revenue growth. But for many early-stage or growth-stage SaaS companies, hiring a full-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) just isn’t practical. That’s where a fractional CMO comes in.

A fractional SaaS CMO combines strategic marketing expertise with the flexibility to scale with your needs. But what does their day-to-day look like? How do they help your company grow without being a full-time presence in the office?

Let’s pull back the curtain and explore a day in the life of a fractional SaaS CMO.

The Responsibilities of a SaaS Fractional CMO

Fractional CMOs are full-accountability marketing leaders who don’t just provide advice—they roll up their sleeves and get things done. Here’s how they typically spend their time:

1. Strategic Planning and Alignment

Fractional CMOs start by ensuring all marketing efforts align with company goals.

For example, for a new feature launch targeting enterprise customers, they refine messaging, identify target personas, and create a go-to-market plan involving outbound campaigns, website updates, and ABM strategies.

This step ensures every marketing activity—from paid ads to content creation—is aligned with the larger objective of capturing high-value enterprise accounts.

2. Leading the Marketing Team

They keep the marketing team aligned, productive, and growing by setting priorities, addressing blockers, and providing coaching.

If a content team is stalled, the CMO clarifies goals, provides a content calendar, and delegates tasks to get projects moving.

This kind of leadership helps marketing teams become more self-sufficient over time, and reduce reliance on external guidance.

3. Driving Demand Generation

A core responsibility of a fractional CMO is ensuring marketing directly contributes to the sales pipeline. This means overseeing demand generation efforts like lead nurturing, performance marketing, and ABM campaigns.

For example, when paid ads underperform, they analyze data, test new ad copy, and optimize landing pages for better results.

4. Building Brand Authority

A SaaS company’s brand is its reputation—and a fractional CMO makes sure your brand stands out in a competitive market. From crafting thought leadership content to planning PR campaigns, they help position your company as a leader in your space.

A fractional CMO, for example, identifies a gap in your competitors’ thought leadership and proposes a webinar series targeting decision-makers in your ideal customer profile. They then work with the content team to create supporting blogs, social media posts, and email campaigns that build buzz before and after the event.

This multi-channel approach ensures your brand becomes a go-to resource for your audience.

5. Collaborating Across Departments

Marketing doesn’t exist in a silo. 

A fractional CMO bridges the gap between marketing, sales, and product teams, ensuring everyone is working toward the same goals.

If sales struggles with lead quality, they adjust lead scoring, refine messaging, and ensure a seamless marketing-to-sales handoff.

6. Managing Vendors and Partners

From agencies to freelancers, fractional CMOs oversee all external marketing partners to ensure their efforts align with your strategy.

Let’s say your SaaS company works with an agency for PPC campaigns. The fractional CMO reviews weekly performance reports, provides feedback on ad copy, and ensures the agency is optimizing for high-intent keywords that attract the right audience.

With Kalungi, you get even more flexibility. Alongside our fractional CMO services, we offer the option to add a full agency team—from content creators to performance marketing specialists. This integrated approach means you can eliminate the hassle of managing multiple vendors while gaining a cohesive, fully aligned marketing function.

This hands-on management, whether of external partners or Kalungi’s agency team, ensures every effort drives growth and delivers measurable results.

7. Refining Strategy Based on Data

Data is the backbone of modern marketing, and fractional CMOs rely on it to refine strategies and optimize performance.

For example, if your fractional CMO notices a high drop-off rate between demo requests and booked calls, they’ll work with the sales and marketing teams to optimize the follow-up process, test new nurture email sequences, and experiment with shorter forms on the demo page.

These data-driven adjustments ensure that your marketing efforts continually improve over time.

Read more about it on our blog Fractional CMO Responsibilities for B2B SaaS Companies: What to Expect.

The Day-to-Day of a Kalungi Fractional SaaS CMO

The scope of a fractional CMO’s responsibilities can range from 10 to 40 hours per week, depending on your company’s size and growth stage (pre-MVP, post-PMF, or scaling), marketing team maturity and capabilities, and complexity of campaigns and target audience.

One of the biggest advantages of working with a fractional CMO is the ability to scale their involvement as your business evolves. 

Early on, they might take a hands-on approach, but as your marketing team grows stronger, they transition to a more strategic role, reducing the hours needed.

Here’s a breakdown of how their time is typically spent:

1. Weekly Team meeting (including prep and follow up) - 3 hours
2. Reporting to the CEO (1-1, based on Core KPIs) - 1 hour
3. Updating and acting on Marketing Dashboard and Performance - 1 hour
4. 1-1s with the team members (planning, coaching, follow up) - 6 hours
5. Managing vendors, subcontractors, agencies - 3 hours
6. Individual work on strategy, competition, positioning, partnerships, hiring - 4 hours
7. Working as part of the company executive team (meetings, 1-1s, alignment) - 4 hours

The quality of the people on the marketing team will improve over time and help reduce the investment needed as the engagement progresses.

You may be interested in our blog Interviewing CMOs for Your B2B SaaS Startup? Here are 10 Questions to Ask.

Looking to Hire a Fractional CMO for Your B2B SaaS Company?

If you’re wondering whether your SaaS company needs a fractional CMO, consider this:

• Are you struggling to find product-market fit or scale demand generation?
• Do you need marketing leadership but aren’t ready for a full-time hire?
• Are you looking for a data-driven, strategic approach to growing your SaaS revenue?

Kalungi goes beyond the typical fractional CMO model. 

Along with experienced marketing leadership, you have the option to integrate our full-agency team of content creators, performance marketing specialists, and designers. This unified approach ensures that every campaign is fully aligned, saving you the time and hassle of managing multiple vendors.

Whether you’re pre-MVP, post-PMF, or scaling beyond $10M ARR, Kalungi’s fractional CMOs help you build a marketing engine that drives predictable growth.

Ready to scale your SaaS company with expert marketing leadership? Contact us today to explore how Kalungi’s fractional CMOs can make a difference.