At some point, every growing B2B company faces the same question how should we actually do marketing? Not what campaigns to run or which channels to use, but something more fundamental. Who is going to own this function, and how should we structure it?
The three most common models are hiring an in-house team, working with a marketing agency, or bringing in a fractional marketing leader. Each has real strengths. Each has real limitations. And the right answer depends entirely on where your company is and what it actually needs right now.
The in-house model
Building an internal marketing team means hiring people who work exclusively for your company, typically starting with a marketing manager or head of marketing and expanding from there.
The right choice depends on your growth stage, your budget, and how much strategic oversight you actually need. Understanding how fractional marketing leadership works in practice can help clarify which model fits. It is also worth factoring in whether demand generation needs to run alongside strategic direction. We unpack the financial side in more detail in the real cost of not having a marketing leader.
The biggest advantage is ownership. An in-house team lives and breathes your business. They understand the product, the customers, the internal dynamics. They can move quickly when priorities shift.
The challenge is cost. According to the Alternatives/Marketing Institute of Ireland Salary Survey, a senior marketing manager in Ireland earns between €80,000 and €110,000, while a marketing director can command €100,000 to €170,000. And one person rarely covers strategy, content, digital, analytics, and execution. So one hire often becomes two, then three.
For companies with the budget and volume of work to justify it, an in-house team is the ideal long-term solution. But for many growing businesses, it's a big commitment to make before you've figured out what works.
**In-house works best when** you have a clear marketing strategy in place, enough budget for at least two to three roles, and the operational maturity to support a team.
**In-house is risky when** you're still figuring out your positioning, you don't yet know which channels will drive results, or you're asking one person to cover everything from strategy to execution.
The agency model
Marketing agencies are the go-to option for many growing companies. You engage a specialist team on a contract basis to deliver specific work, whether that's running paid advertising, producing content, building a website, or managing social media.
The strength of the agency model is access to specialist skills without hiring. Need a brand designer, a PPC expert, and a content writer? An agency can provide all three. They also bring experience from working across multiple clients and industries, which can be valuable when you're not sure what good looks like.
But agencies have structural limitations that cause friction in B2B companies. They typically work against a brief, which means someone in your business needs to provide direction. If nobody internally has the experience to write that brief, the agency ends up working in a vacuum, producing deliverables that may look polished but don't connect to commercial goals.
According to Gartner's CMO Spend Survey, B2B marketing budgets have decreased from 11% to 6.4% of revenue since 2020. With tighter budgets comes increased scrutiny on what marketing actually delivers. And the most common complaint about agencies is that they report on activity metrics rather than pipeline and revenue.
**Agencies work best when** you have a clear strategy and someone internally who can brief, manage, and hold the agency accountable for results.
**Agencies are risky when** you don't have marketing leadership in-house, you're relying on the agency to set strategy, or you're measuring success by deliverables rather than outcomes.
The fractional model
A fractional Chief Marketing Officer sits between the other two options. You get a senior marketing leader who works with your business on a flexible basis, bringing strategic direction and hands-on execution without the full-time salary.
The fractional CMO owns the marketing function in the same way a full-time hire would. They sit in leadership meetings, develop strategy, oversee execution (whether that's done by an agency, a small internal team, or both), and are accountable for results. The difference is flexibility. The time commitment is tailored to what the business actually needs, whether that's one day a week or more during intensive periods.
This model has grown significantly over the past few years. LinkedIn reported that mentions of "fractional leadership" roles increased from around 2,000 in 2022 to over 110,000 by early 2024, with marketing being one of the fastest-growing categories.
**Fractional works best when** you need senior marketing expertise but aren't ready for a full-time CMO, you want someone accountable for strategy and results, or you're building marketing for the first time and need someone to set the direction.
**Fractional is risky when** the company isn't willing to give the fractional leader genuine authority to make decisions.
How to decide
The key question isn't which model is best in the abstract. It's which model is best for where your company is right now.
Ask yourself three things. Do I know what marketing strategy we should be running? If not, you need strategic leadership before anything else. Do I have the budget for a full-time senior marketing leader? If not yet, a fractional arrangement lets you get the expertise without the permanent overhead. Do I have someone who can brief and manage an agency effectively? If not, engaging an agency without that layer will likely result in wasted spend.
Most growing companies end up using a combination. A fractional CMO might set the strategy and oversee an agency that handles execution. Or a small in-house team might work under the direction of a fractional leader until the company is ready to make a permanent senior hire.
There's no single right answer, and the best model for your business today might not be the best model in 12 months. The important thing is making a deliberate choice rather than defaulting to whatever seems easiest.