Twelve questions that tell you whether a fractional CMO builds or just advises

Why the usual interview misses

The standard "questions to ask a fractional CMO" lists are about strategy, culture and communication. All fine. None of them catch the thing that actually goes wrong: you hire a senior person expecting them to fix growth, and it turns out they direct other people to fix growth. If you don't have those other people, you've bought a plan and no hands.

So the questions below are weighted toward finding out whether this person does work, whether they'll be honest with you, and what you'll be left with when they're gone. Ask me these too. I've put my own answers at the end so you can compare.

The twelve questions

1. Show me the last ad account you personally ran in the past 90 days. Not oversaw. Ran. If the answer is a pause, you're talking to an adviser, which is fine as long as you know it.
2. How would you connect our ad spend to contribution margin? You want to hear "MER against a break-even derived from your margin," or something equivalent. If you hear "ROAS" as the top-line metric, keep going.
3. What will my team be able to do after you leave that they can't do today? The only good answer is specific: run the creative testing loop, read the dashboard, launch and grade a campaign, hire the next person.
4. How do you plan to make yourself unnecessary? Nobody sells against their own retainer easily. The ones who have a real answer are the ones you want.
5. What's the last thing you told a CEO they were wrong about, and what happened? You're hiring judgment. Judgment without spine is decoration.
6. Walk me through your first 30 days here, specifically. Vague equals inexperienced. You should hear an audit, a scorecard, a 90-day list of bets, and a first set of tests.
7. Which of our channels would you turn off first, and how would you know you were right? Tests the incrementality instinct and whether they'll spend your money carefully.
8. What do you not do? Everyone has a gap. Someone who claims brand, performance, creative, lifecycle, data and PR at senior level is describing a department, not a person.
9. Who else are you working with right now, and how many days a week are we getting? Fractional means shared. You want a number, and you want it to add up across their clients.
10. What happens to the systems, logins and documentation when we part ways? Should be: they're yours, in your accounts, in your name, from day one.
11. How do you use AI in the work? Not as a buzzword. Specifically: creative production, reporting, testing, research. If the answer is "we're exploring it," they're behind.
12. What would make you turn this engagement down? A good operator has a list. Under a certain revenue, thin margins, a founder who wants a button-pusher.

Red flags I'd act on

A percentage-of-spend fee structure for a "leader" role. Case studies with no numbers or no names. A first-30-days plan that's all discovery and no tests. Any reluctance to be measured on the blended number. A team appearing behind them that you didn't know you were hiring.

Green flags

They ask about your contribution margin before they ask about your ad spend. They have opinions you disagree with. They name what they won't do. They can show you a dashboard they built and explain what a client did with it on a Tuesday.

My own answers, for the record

I ran Meta accounts for clients this month. I connect spend to contribution margin through MER against a break-even derived from your margin, and that scorecard is the first thing I build. My clients' teams end up running the creative loop, the launch tooling and the reporting. I make myself unnecessary by building systems your company owns and teaching your team to run them, which is why I don't have a minimum term. I turn down brands under about $3M, brands with unfixed unit economics, and anyone who wants a button-pusher. Everything lives in your accounts from day one.

Questions people ask