Fractional marketing team for startups.

A senior team that sets your growth plan and runs the work: paid ads, SEO and AI search, site and CRO, and email. Month-to-month, from $2,000 a month.

The short answer

Wadabu is a fractional marketing team for consumer-brand startups. One senior team writes the plan a fractional CMO would write, then runs it across paid ads, SEO and AI search, site and CRO, and email and retention. Pricing is $2,000 a month per service, or $5,000 a month for all four, month-to-month.

What is a fractional marketing team?

A fractional marketing team is a senior group of marketers you share with a few other companies and pay monthly. It does the work of an in-house team, strategy and execution, without the payroll of four or five full-time hires.

That's different from a fractional CMO. A fractional CMO gives you a few hours of senior thinking a week: the plan, the budget, the hiring map. Someone else still has to run the ads, write the emails and ship the pages. A fractional marketing team owns both halves.

Fractional CMO vs fractional marketing team: what's the difference?

The short version: a CMO tells you what to do, a team does it. Here's how the three common setups compare for a startup.

Fractional CMO Fractional marketing team In-house team
What you get Strategy, budget, hiring and vendor plan Strategy plus the work on every channel Strategy plus the work, once you've hired it
Who runs ads, SEO, CRO and email You, freelancers or other agencies The same team that wrote the plan Your hires, usually one specialist per channel
Time to start Days Days to two weeks Months of recruiting
Commitment Monthly retainer Month-to-month at Wadabu Salaries, benefits and tools
Best when You already have people executing You have nobody running the channels yet The channels are proven and big enough to staff

If you already have a strong marketer or two and they need direction, a fractional CMO is the cheaper fix. If nobody is running the channels, a CMO alone leaves you with a good plan and no one to run it.

What does Wadabu's fractional marketing team do each month?

One senior team plans and runs four services. You can hire one or all four.

  • Paid ads: Meta, Google and TikTok campaigns, in-house static creative, UGC briefs and landing pages. Judged on ROAS, CPA and CTR.
  • SEO and AI search: technical fixes, new pages every month, and tracking in Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews.
  • Site and CRO: landing pages, speed fixes and A/B tests on product pages, offers and cart. Judged on conversion rate and AOV.
  • Email and retention: Klaviyo flows, weekly campaigns, list growth and CRM follow-up. Judged on LTV and repeat rate.

Bundle clients get one number across all of it: MER (marketing efficiency ratio), total revenue divided by total marketing spend. It stops each channel from grading its own homework.

How much does a fractional marketing team cost?

At Wadabu, each service is $2,000 a month. Paid ads is $2,000 a month or 10% of ad spend, whichever is greater. All four together cost $5,000 a month instead of $8,000, and the bundle covers ad management on up to $20,000 a month in ad spend. Above that, it's 10% of the spend over $20,000.

A worked example. A startup spends $12,000 a month on ads and takes the bundle: the fee is $5,000. At $30,000 a month in spend, the fee is $5,000 plus 10% of $10,000, so $6,000. Month-to-month, no long-term contract.

For how that compares with freelancers, agencies and full-time hires, see what a growth marketing agency costs in 2026. Full pricing is on the services page.

When is a fractional marketing team the wrong fit?

Three cases. First, if the product isn't in market yet, there's nothing to optimize, so spend the money on getting it there. Second, if you need a full-time marketing leader sitting in board meetings and managing a large team, hire one. Third, if what you need is a new store or site build, that's a project, not a retainer. Wadabu sends store builds to its sister studio, Liquid Lemon.

Who is on the team?

Senior operators plan and run every account, with no hand-offs to juniors. Wadabu's in-house AI, WADU, handles research and reporting so the people spend their time on decisions. The same team has worked with brands like CraftBot, which did more than $3 million in US sales in 18 months, and Natuv, which generated more than $23 million in contract revenue in two years.

Save $3,000/moFull-stack marketing

Full-stack marketing

All four services from one senior team, managed to one blended target.

  • Measured by
  • Marketing efficiency ratioAll your sales divided by all your marketing spend. The one number that shows if your marketing, as a whole, is making you money.
  • Return on ad spendHow many dollars in sales every $1 of ads brings back. Higher means your ad budget is working harder for you.
  • Conversion rateThe share of visitors who buy. Raise it and every visitor you already get is worth more.
  • Lifetime valueWhat a customer spends with you over time, not just once. Higher LTV means you can spend more to win each new customer and still profit.

$5,000per month

instead of $8,000 for all four separately

Or pick one service for $2,000/mo. See all pricing

Get started

What's included

  • Paid ads on Meta, Google and TikTok, with in-house static creative
  • SEO and AI search: technical fixes, new pages and AI visibility tracking
  • Site and CRO: landing pages, speed fixes and A/B tests
  • Email and retention: Klaviyo flows, weekly campaigns and CRM follow-up
  • Ad management on up to $15,000/mo in ad spend, then 15% above that
  • One blended MER target and one monthly report across every channel

Not included: product photography, video shoots, ad spend and store builds.

Best for: Startups with a product in market and nobody yet running the channels full-time.

CraftBot

$3M+US sales in 18 months

Client result

How it works

Audit. Plan. Run. Report.

One senior team from the first audit to the monthly report. No hand-offs to juniors.

  1. 01 Week 1

    Audit

    Tracking, ad accounts, site, email and search: what works, what leaks, what to fix first.

  2. 02 Week 2

    Plan

    A 90-day plan with budgets, targets and the order of work, built around one MER goal.

  3. 03 Weeks 3–4

    Launch

    Fixes go live, campaigns and flows launch, and the first new pages ship.

  4. 04 Monthly

    Report and adjust

    One report on revenue, spend and MER, plus a strategy call to move budget to what works.

What our clients are saying

“Wadabu ran our website, marketing and sales operations as one team, not three vendors. That gave us the positioning and systems to compete for bigger contracts. Within two years we generated more than $23 million in contract revenue.”

Eugene Lane, VP of Sales, Natuv

“Wadabu launched us in the U.S. and ran our growth from day one: strategy, launch and marketing, all under one team. We did more than $3 million in U.S. sales within 18 months.”

Zoltán Iklódy, Head of Global Sales, CraftBot

“Wadabu grew our DTC sales and built our B2B channel at the same time. One team landed our first container-sized orders, government contracts and major wholesale deals in the U.S.”

Brian Quan, General Manager, Tiertime 3D (Dover Corp, NASDAQ: DOV)

Frequently asked questions

  • Senior team, no hand‑offs

  • Rated 5.0 on Clutch

  • Published pricing, no surprises

What is a fractional marketing team?
A fractional marketing team is a senior group of marketers shared across a few companies and paid monthly. It plans the strategy and runs the channels, such as paid ads, SEO, conversion work and email, without the cost of full-time hires. Wadabu runs this model for consumer-brand startups, month-to-month.
How is a fractional marketing team different from a fractional CMO?
A fractional CMO sets strategy, budget and hiring plans for a few hours a week, and someone else does the work. A fractional marketing team does both: it writes the plan and runs the ads, SEO, site and email itself. A startup with no one running its channels usually needs the team, not just the CMO.
How much does a fractional marketing team cost?
Wadabu charges $2,000 a month per service. Paid ads is $2,000 a month or 15% of ad spend, whichever is greater. All four services cost $5,000 a month instead of $8,000, covering ad management on up to $15,000 a month in ad spend, then 15% of spend above that.
Does Wadabu require a long-term contract?
No. Every Wadabu service is month-to-month with no long-term contract, and clients can cancel anytime.
When should a startup hire a fractional marketing team instead of a full-time marketer?
A fractional team fits when a startup needs ads, SEO, conversion and email covered but can't yet justify four specialist salaries. One full-time generalist rarely does all four well. Once a channel is proven and big enough, hiring for it in-house often makes sense.
What doesn't Wadabu's fractional marketing team do?
Wadabu doesn't do product photography, video shoots or full store builds, and ad spend is paid by the brand. Wadabu can refer a photographer or content creator, and store builds go to its sister studio, Liquid Lemon.

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