Key Takeaways
- PE-backed portfolio companies consistently face six marketing problems: dirty data from multiple CRM and marketing automation systems, sales-marketing misalignment over lead quality, marketing teams stuck on the tactic treadmill, product-centric go-to-market strategies that confuse customers, growth that breaks marketing teams, and reports that don’t connect to revenue.
- The most expensive PE marketing problem isn’t a bad campaign. It’s a misalignment between marketing, sales, customer success, and product. SiriusDecisions research found aligned companies grew 19% faster and were 15% more profitable.
- Dirty data in CRM and marketing automation systems makes pipeline reports untrustworthy and kills sales follow-up velocity. The fix is people, process, technology, in that order.
- Marketing teams stuck on the “tactic treadmill” produce activity without strategy. Random acts of marketing replace integrated campaigns.
- Product-centric go-to-market strategies confuse buyers and lengthen sales cycles. The fix is customer-problem framing, not feature lists.
- When companies grow through acquisition, marketing operations that worked at 50 people break at 200. Org structure and reporting lines must be rebuilt quickly.
- Reporting that leads with clicks and impressions loses the boardroom. The metrics that matter to PE investors are pipeline contribution, retention, win rates, and revenue growth.
- A fractional or interim CMO with PE experience diagnoses these faster than a permanent hire because they’ve seen the same patterns before, across multiple portfolios.
After working as an Interim CMO and Fractional CMO across multiple private equity portfolio companies, from Series B to upper middle-market and enterprise firms, I’ve seen the same marketing challenges surface repeatedly. These aren’t the obvious problems that show up in due diligence. They’re the hidden issues that only become apparent once you’re inside, working with the executive team and board.
The upside is that once you recognize these patterns, you can more readily fix them, over time. Here’s what I’ve learned from helping PE firms unlock millions in portfolio company value through strategic marketing transformations.
The $500M Alignment Problem
Before we dive into the specifics, here’s something that’ll get your attention: researchers at SiriusDecisions (now Forrester) studied 400 B2B companies. They found that the ones with tight alignment between marketing, sales, customer success, and product grew 19% faster and were 15% more profitable. Do the math on a $100M portfolio company, that’s nearly $20M in extra revenue just from getting departments to work better together.
But here’s the kicker: alignment is precisely where most portfolio companies fall apart. Here’s why.
Challenge #1: Dirty Data from multiple acquisitions and instances of CRM and marketing automation systems
What it looks like: Marketing automation platforms filled with duplicate contacts, incomplete records, and leads that sales won’t touch. Reports showing thousands of “marketing qualified leads” that generate zero pipeline.
Why it’s hidden: The technology appears to be working. Dashboards show activity. Emails are being sent. But once you start looking beyond the surface level, you’ll usually discover a counted-on marketing lever being choked by bad data.
Here’s how to fix it: People, process, technology, in that order. I helped one Clearlake Capital portfolio company completely rebuild its demand processes by first identifying what constituted a quality lead for sales, then implementing the systems and training to deliver them consistently.
Payam Taaghol, Executive Chairman at FinThrive and Operating Partner at Clearlake Capital, explained: “Alan is a highly experienced CMO who understands the Private Equity model, value creation, and the associated ROI models. Alan’s ability in assessing, benchmarking, augmenting organizational gaps, tackling the demand generation engine, and prioritizing marketing spend is outstanding.”
Note: Mr. Taaghol was among the nicest and most capable leaders I’ve ever had the honor of knowing and working with. He tragically passed away during our COVID-19 pandemic in July of 2022. He is sorely missed by all who knew him.
Challenge #2: Sales and Marketing Fighting Over Lead Quality Instead of Revenue Growth
Here’s what I see constantly: Marketing generates leads that sales won’t follow up on. Sales complains about lead quality while marketing points to their numbers. Meanwhile, qualified prospects slip through the cracks because nobody agrees on what constitutes a “hot lead” or who’s responsible for what happens next.
Why nobody catches it: Both teams stay busy and hit their individual metrics. Marketing shows lead volume, and sales shows activity reports. But the handoff process is broken, creating friction and inefficiency in actually closing deals.
Real-world example: At Precisely, a data integrity company owned by two PE firms, CMO Kevin Ruane was dealing with exactly this problem. The demand and lead management process had developed inefficiencies over time that led to miscommunication, with leads not properly moving through the qualification process and sales funnel.
What I did instead: I performed a comprehensive demand process assessment and found the need for clarity of definitions, service level agreements between marketing and sales, and a renewed commitment to improving performance.
I started by listening to all parties about their challenges and frustrations to discover root causes. Then I worked with everyone to develop clear definitions about what a “hot lead” actually was, created lead scoring definitions, and mapped out exactly what must happen to a lead once qualified. With proper scoring in place, everyone had a common understanding of lead definitions, priority levels, and next steps in the process. Finally, I created a closed feedback loop to continuously improve the process.
As Ruane explained: “Alan brought extensive credibility to the process and worked to ensure everyone involved felt heard. He found common areas where people had mutual interest and created a solution that everyone was comfortable with and could integrate without significant disruptions.“
The result: Leads are now followed up on more quickly, and BDR and marketing teams collaborate with less friction and more efficiency.
Challenge #3: Marketing Teams Stuck in Busy Work Mode on the “Tactic Treadmill” with Random Acts of Marketing
Here’s what I see constantly: Marketing teams running around like crazy, but can’t explain how their work connects to revenue. They’re cranking out press releases, hosting events, creating content, email programs, running campaigns, all at the same time, with no real integrated strategy tying it all together.
Why nobody catches it: Activity reports look great. Everyone’s busy. But ask them how these efforts grow the business or keep customers happy, and you get a lot of hand-waving.
What I do instead: Build a strategic campaign framework around four core program areas:
- Brand reputation: Building, prospect and customer awareness, preference, and engagement
- Demand generation growth: Bringing in new customers plus growing existing ones
- Customer engagement: Retaining customers and turning them into advocates
- Sales & customer success productivity: Programs to enable sales and customer success effectiveness, lower selling cycle, increase average sales price, and accelerate growth
It kills the chaos. Now you’re running three focused campaigns instead of twenty scattered tactical projects.
Challenge #4: Product-Centric Go-to-Market Strategies That Confuse Customers
Here’s the problem: Companies are trying to sell everything to everyone, focusing on product features rather than addressing customer problems and jobs they need to get done. Marketing messages that start with specs instead of solutions customers actually care about.
Why it’s hidden: The messaging often sounds professional and comprehensive. Product teams love it because every feature gets mentioned. But prospects can’t figure out why they should care or how it solves their specific problems.
Real-world transformation: Precisely was facing exactly this challenge. As Ruane noted, “The former GTM model siloed product groups and departments. We had to simplify our process and create more cross-functional collaboration around major customer pain points and needs. We were selling product features across 16 areas, which was untenable.”
My approach: Working with Ruane, we streamlined Precisely’s GTM focus from 16 tactical areas down to three strategic growth plays surrounded by integrated campaigns that operate across their key horizontal and vertical markets. This involved repositioning product marketing into a strategic function and reimagining how they incorporated subject matter expertise into the new approach.
Ruane presented the new approach to the executive team and rolled it out at their annual sales meeting: “We have used these efforts to put our customers and the value we deliver to them front and center. This has helped shorten sales cycles and has resulted in more strategic, long-term customer engagements. On top of that, we are collaborating with other departments in a more effective and strategic manner.”
The key: Figure out who your customers really are instead of listing every product you sell. Find your three or four main customer types. Talk about their problems first, then mention your products.
Challenge #5: Growth That Breaks Your Marketing Team
The reality: Marketing teams that worked fine at 50 people suddenly can’t get anything done at 200 people. Add in a merger or acquisition, and you’ve got duplicated work, confused reporting lines, and decisions that take forever to make.
Why it’s hidden: Everyone stays busy, and work continues to get done. But efficiency plummets, and strategic initiatives stall while teams figure out who’s responsible for what.
What I do: Jump in fast and figure out who should be doing what. When I was interim CMO at Brightly Software, the company was acquired by Siemens near the beginning of my engagement. During those 6 months, I helped stabilize their 25+ person global marketing team during a period of significant change.
Kevin Kemmerer, CEO of Brightly Software, a Siemens company, explained: “Alan played a key role on our executive leadership team, and in driving stability and alignment within the 25+ person global marketing team… He reorganized the marketing leadership team and filled open roles, some from his network, providing the foundation for the team to move forward with confidence… Over his 6-month tenure, the team significantly accelerated MQL, SQL, and marketing-sourced ARR results.”
Challenge #6: Marketing Reports That Make CEOs’ Eyes Glaze Over
Here’s what I see: Marketing leaders talking about clicks while CEOs care about cash. Presentations filled with click-through rates, impression counts, and campaign statistics that make executive eyes glaze over.
Why it’s hidden: The data isn’t wrong, it’s just irrelevant to business decisions. Marketing teams often don’t realize they usually sound like they’re from a whole different planet when speaking to the rest of the executive team.
Here’s what works: Stop reporting on clicks and start reporting on cash: track pipeline contribution, customer retention, win rates, and revenue growth. Talk to your board like a business leader, not a marketing department. When you understand what moves the needle on valuations and the value creation plan, everything else falls into place.
What Makes Fractional CMO Services Different
Why do PE firms keep calling fractional CMOs and interim CMOs to address these problems? Simple: we’ve seen it all before. When you’ve already fixed the same issues at other portfolio companies, you can spot difficulties fast and know exactly what works, no six-month learning curve required.
Plus, you get senior-level marketing leadership exactly when you need it most, during acquisitions, rebrands, rapid growth phases, or gaps in full-time CMO leadership to maintain momentum, or without committing to a full-time overhead when you’re not sure what the org will look like in 18 months.
The Real Impact
These marketing problems aren’t one-offs; they show up everywhere as companies scale and become more complex. The PE firms that tackle them head-on see real results: faster growth, better margins, and higher exit valuation multiples.
Here’s the thing: fixing marketing isn’t about fancier campaigns or expensive new software. It’s about getting everyone rowing in the same direction, setting up processes that work, and building aligned and efficient Go-to-Market systems that don’t break when you scale.
Rick Pleczko, CEO Operating Executive Group at PE firm CapStreet Group and Vice Chairman of the FinThrive Board, put it best: “Alan was our Interim CMO at FinThrive while we were undergoing a brand transformation and scaling up our demand generation engine. As a seasoned CMO, he worked incredibly well with our leadership team and our private equity sponsors to deliver a very successful outcome. Given my experience, I’ve recommended Alan for additional interim CMO assignments.”
Because in private equity, results speak louder than activity, and the right interim CMO or fractional CMO can help your portfolio companies deliver both.
Want to Fix Your Portfolio Company’s Marketing Problems?
Look, if this sounds familiar, you’re definitely not the first PE firm or portfolio company to deal with these issues. I see these same issues repeatedly, but many firms just don’t know where to start fixing them.
Over the past few years, I’ve worked with PE portfolio companies from Series B to multiple upper mid-market firms. Sometimes they need an interim CMO to jump in during a messy transition. Other times, they just want strategic guidance to avoid the expensive mistakes that tank marketing transformations.
Book your 20-minute Private Equity Discussion: Let’s talk about how I could help your portfolio company’s marketing improve cross-functional alignment and accelerate your value creation plan without breaking the bank.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common marketing challenges PE portfolio companies face?
The six most consistent problems are: dirty CRM and marketing automation data, sales-marketing misalignment over lead quality, activity-without-strategy on the tactic treadmill, product-centric go-to-market messaging, growth-broken team structures post-acquisition, and board reporting that leads with marketing metrics instead of business outcomes.
How quickly can a fractional or interim CMO diagnose PE portfolio marketing problems?
An experienced fractional or interim CMO with PE portfolio background can identify the core issues quickly because they’ve seen the same six patterns before across multiple portfolio companies. That speed of pattern recognition is the primary value compared to a permanent hire who needs six months to learn the business.
What is the difference between a marketing audit and hiring a fractional CMO for a PE portfolio company?
A marketing audit is a point-in-time diagnostic. A fractional or interim CMO both diagnoses the problem and owns the execution of the fix. For portfolio companies with a defined value creation timeline, the combination of diagnosis and execution in a single engagement is more efficient than a sequential audit-then-hire process.
How does misalignment between marketing and sales affect PE exit valuations?
Research from SiriusDecisions found that companies with strong alignment between marketing, sales, customer success, and product grew 19% faster and were 15% more profitable. For a $100M portfolio company, that’s nearly $20M in additional revenue and a material impact on EBITDA multiples at exit.
When should a PE operating partner engage a fractional CMO vs. an interim CMO for a portfolio company?
An interim CMO is the right choice when a CMO has departed, an acquisition has closed, or the marketing function needs immediate stabilization at near full-time coverage. A fractional CMO is right when the function needs ongoing strategic leadership during a growth phase without a full-time headcount commitment. See Fractional CMO vs. Interim CMO: Which Does Your Company Need? for the full diagnostic.
