- Template item
A head of marketing job description tells one specific person — the first senior marketer at a startup or scaleup — exactly what they own, what success looks like in 90 days, and what you'll pay them. It should include a role summary, a full-funnel scope, five to seven hiring priorities for their first year, a numbered 30/60/90 plan, and a real compensation band. Vague postings pull in vague candidates. This template is written for seed to Series B founders who need to hire their first head of marketing and want a document a great candidate would actually take seriously.
What Is a Head of Marketing (and How the Title Shifts by Stage)
A head of marketing is the senior generalist who owns everything marketing at a company too small for a VP or CMO, usually 10 to 200 employees. At seed and Series A, the role is 60% hands-on execution and 40% strategy. By Series B, that flips.
The title itself is used inconsistently, which is why founders get burned matching the wrong candidate to the wrong stage. At seed, you want a doer who can also plan. They're writing landing pages on Monday and interviewing your first content hire on Friday. At Series A, you want an operator who can hire two or three people and still ship. By Series B, you want a leader running a team of 8–15, and the title probably becomes VP of Marketing.
Here's how the three closest titles compare inside a startup:
| Title | When to use it | Team size and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Head of Marketing | Seed–Series B, first senior marketer, no CMO yet | 0–8 reports; owns full funnel and hires the team |
| VP of Marketing | Series B–C, marketing org already exists | 8–20 reports; owns strategy, ops, and department budget |
| CMO | Series C+ or enterprise | 20+ reports; owns brand, board reporting, and cross-functional strategy |
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics groups advertising, promotions, and marketing managers under one occupational code, which is why job-board data blurs these titles together. Read the scope, not the title. For a comparison one seniority level down, see how a marketing manager role differs.
Head of Marketing Job Description Template (Copy-Paste)
Below is a full head of marketing job description template you can copy, edit, and post. It covers the role summary, responsibilities, first 90 days, requirements, nice-to-haves, and compensation. Replace the bracketed placeholders with your specifics, and cut anything that doesn't apply. Every extra requirement narrows your candidate pool.
About the role
[Company Name] is looking for a head of marketing to own the full marketing function at a [stage: seed / Series A / Series B] company with [X] employees and $[X]M in ARR. You'll report directly to the CEO, own the funnel end-to-end, build the first marketing team from a starting point of [1 / 2 / 0] marketers, and give the leadership team a clear read on what's working and what to kill. This is a build role, not a manage role.
What you'll own
- Demand generation: paid, organic, lifecycle, and events. You choose the mix.
- Brand and positioning: sharpen the story that closes [enterprise / mid-market / SMB] deals.
- Product marketing: launches, sales enablement, competitive intel.
- Content and SEO: site, blog, and technical SEO, sized for the stage.
- Marketing ops: attribution, MarTech stack, and pipeline reporting the CEO trusts.
- Hiring: build a team of [2–4] specialists in the first year. See MarketerHire's guide on how to hire a small marketing team for a hiring sequence.
First 90 days
- Days 1–30: audit the current stack, funnel, and content. Interview 10 customers. Deliver a written strategy memo.
- Days 31–60: ship one net-new channel test and one attribution fix. Post two roles.
- Days 61–90: hit the first agreed-on pipeline number. Present a 12-month plan with a defended budget.
Requirements
- 6–10 years of B2B marketing experience, at least 3 of them at a company below 100 employees.
- Proven ownership of a full funnel, not just one channel.
- Can name specific pipeline numbers and outcomes from prior roles.
- Can write. You'll write the site, the deck, and half the outbound sequences.
- Can operate without a marketing manager underneath them for at least 6 months.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience hiring their first marketing report.
- Background in [industry: SaaS / DTC / marketplace / fintech].
- Familiarity with [stack: HubSpot / Salesforce / Attio / Segment / etc.].
Compensation
- Base: $[X]K
- OTE: $[X]K (variable tied to pipeline, not MQLs)
- Equity: [X]% – [X]%
- Remote or [City] hybrid. Standard health, dental, and 401(k).
How to apply
Send a resume plus a two-paragraph note answering: what's the marketing bet you'd make in your first 60 days here, and what would you refuse to do? No cover letters.
Head of Marketing Responsibilities: The Full-Funnel Scope
Head of marketing responsibilities at a startup cover six functional areas: demand gen, brand and positioning, product marketing, content and SEO, marketing operations, and team building. At seed, one person does all six. By Series B, they oversee specialists. The defining trait is scope, not specialization.
Demand generation. Set the channel mix (paid, SEO, lifecycle, events, partnerships), own the paid budget, and hit the pipeline number the CEO signed up for with the board. This is where 60% of founder-scrutiny lands.
Brand and positioning. Own the story that closes deals sales can't currently close. Rewrite the site, sharpen the deck, run the customer research that surfaces the language buyers actually use. See the HubSpot 2026 State of Marketing Report for how brand and AI-driven demand are converging this year.
Product marketing. Own launches, positioning docs, sales enablement collateral, competitive intel, and pricing input. At small companies, product marketing usually sits under this role because there isn't headcount for a dedicated PMM yet.
Content and SEO. Own the site and blog. At seed, write it directly or with one freelancer. At Series A, hire a content marketer. For how these functions fit into the broader team, see the marketing team structure guide and the startup marketing team structure playbook.
Marketing operations. Own attribution, the MarTech stack, and reporting the founder actually trusts. If the CEO can't answer "where did last month's pipeline come from" in one Slack message, ops is broken.
Team building. Hire the first 2–4 marketing reports. Write the scorecards. Do the interview loops. Fire fast if the match is wrong. Use a marketing org chart to sanity-check reporting lines before you post. This is where most first-time heads of marketing fail: they hire in their own image instead of hiring for the gap.
Salary and Equity Benchmarks by Stage
Head of marketing salary in the U.S. runs $160K–$260K base at seed to Series A and $240K–$400K OTE at Series B and beyond, with 0.25%–1.5% equity depending on stage. The BLS reports a $161,030 median wage for marketing managers as of May 2024; startup heads of marketing sit above that because scope is broader.
Real-time comp benchmarks from Pave, which pulls anonymized data from 9,000+ companies, show the following ranges for U.S. tech startups. Layer these against your own marketing team costs at your stage before locking a band.
| Stage | Base + variable (OTE) | Equity |
|---|---|---|
| Seed (pre-Series A) | $160K–$200K OTE | 0.75%–1.5% |
| Series A | $200K–$260K OTE | 0.4%–1.0% |
| Series B | $240K–$320K OTE | 0.25%–0.6% |
| Series C+ (transitioning to VP/CMO) | $280K–$400K OTE | 0.1%–0.35% |
Two things founders undersell. First, remote roles trade about 10% off base in exchange for a bigger talent market, usually worth it. Second, at Series C+ the comp benchmark shifts toward CMO territory; the BLS reports $206,420 median pay for chief executives as of May 2024, and top-quartile CMO packages clear that easily. Publish a real band in the JD. "Competitive" filters out the good candidates.
What to Write Into the Posting About the First 90 Days
Put a concrete 30/60/90-day expectation block in the JD itself, not just in the interview. It signals seriousness, filters out candidates chasing titles, and gives the person you hire a written contract for what "good" looks like. Great candidates will read the plan and push back before saying yes. That is the point.
- Days 1–30 (learn and audit): interview 10 customers, audit the current channel mix, review the last 6 months of pipeline data, and deliver a written strategy memo. Deliverable: 1-page memo the founder can forward to the board.
- Days 31–60 (ship and hire): launch one net-new channel test with a real budget, fix the top attribution gap, and post the first two hires. Deliverable: pipeline dashboard the CEO refreshes without asking.
- Days 61–90 (commit and defend): hit the first agreed-on pipeline number, publish a 12-month plan with a defended budget, and either close the first hire or explain why the search shifted. Deliverable: 12-month plan plus hiring scorecard for each open req.
Founders who skip this section end up with a head of marketing whose first three months are meetings. Chris Toy, MarketerHire's CEO, has a rule for this: "Ask what success at 30/60/90 looks like, and if the client has a terrible answer, we know it too." Write the answer down before you post.
When a Fractional CMO Is the Better First Move
A fractional CMO is the better first move when you need senior marketing thinking but don't yet know what full-time role to hire, when you can't afford $200K+ all-in for a permanent leader, or when the CEO is still doing marketing themselves and needs a thinking partner more than a builder.
Use this decision framework:
- Hire a full-time head of marketing when: you have $2M+ in ARR, product-market fit is real, you need someone who will build the team, and you can commit to $200K+ in cash comp plus equity.
- Hire a fractional CMO when: you're pre-PMF or between $500K and $2M ARR, the CEO is still the marketing lead, or you need someone senior for 10–20 hours a week to shape strategy before you post a full-time req.
- Hire both, sequenced: start fractional to define the role and the strategy; convert to a full-time hire once the JD writes itself from what's working.
MarketerHire has run this pattern across 6,000+ companies. The through-line: startups that hire a fractional CMO first hire a stronger full-time head of marketing later, because the JD gets sharper and the candidate bar gets higher. If you're in the "not sure yet" zone, run a fractional engagement for 8–12 weeks first.
Common Mistakes Founders Make in the Posting
Six patterns show up over and over in first-time head of marketing job descriptions. Each one shrinks the candidate pool or pulls in the wrong person. Fixing them costs nothing at the JD stage and saves months of bad interviews. Founders hiring their first senior marketer make most of these mistakes at least twice.
- The unicorn ask. Listing 12 required skills across brand, growth, SEO, paid, PMM, and ops. Cut to 5. The rest go under "nice-to-haves" or come with the team you'll build.
- No comp band published. "Competitive salary" tells senior candidates you're not serious. Publish a real range.
- Wrong seniority signal. Asking for "8–10 years of experience" for a Series A role where you want a doer. Great senior candidates at that stage often have 5–7 years and are chasing scope, not tenure.
- Hidden reporting line. Not saying who the role reports to. Head of marketing must report to the CEO or COO at seed–Series B. If it reports to a VP of Sales or a Chief of Staff, top candidates will pass.
- No 90-day plan. Vague postings get vague applicants. Include the 30/60/90 block from the section above.
- KPI theater. Listing "brand awareness" or "MQLs" without pipeline attribution. Name the actual number (pipeline, revenue, or CAC payback) the hire will own.
If you're specifically building a B2B SaaS marketing org, cross-check the posting against the B2B marketing team structure guide before you publish.
FAQ
A head of marketing at a startup owns the full marketing function: demand generation, brand, product marketing, content, SEO, and marketing ops. At seed and Series A they execute directly; by Series B they lead a small team. The role reports to the CEO and is measured against pipeline, revenue, or CAC payback, not MQL counts.
A head of marketing is typically the first senior marketing hire at a company under 100 employees, doing hands-on work alongside strategy. A VP of marketing runs a marketing organization of 8–20 people, usually at Series B and beyond. Same person, different stage. Many heads of marketing become VP within 18 months as the team scales.
Startup head of marketing pay ranges from $160K OTE at seed to $320K OTE at Series B, with 0.25%–1.5% equity depending on stage. Pave benchmarks track this by funding round. Under-market comp filters out the candidates you actually want. Publish a real band and pay the middle of it for a strong candidate.
Hire a full-time head of marketing once you have $2M+ ARR, real product-market fit, and can commit to $200K+ in cash comp. Hire a fractional CMO first if you're pre-PMF, still figuring out the marketing function, or want senior thinking for 10–20 hours a week. Sequence fractional-first when unsure.
A first-time head of marketing needs full-funnel ownership experience, direct pipeline accountability, writing chops, hiring judgment, and comfort operating without a manager underneath them for the first six months. Channel expertise matters less than range. If they've only ever run paid or only ever run brand, they'll struggle when the CEO asks about the other five functions.
Hiring a head of marketing typically takes 8–14 weeks for a full-time search, from JD publish to signed offer. First-time founders often stretch it to 20 weeks because the JD is too vague. MarketerHire matches vetted fractional and full-time marketing leaders in 48 hours, which is why founders often start there while the full-time search runs in parallel.
Wrap-up: Write the JD Someone Great Would Actually Take
The head of marketing job description isn't a compliance document. It is the pitch. Founders who publish a real 90-day plan, a real comp band, and a defensible scope get a bar of candidates founders with vague postings never see. If you're stuck at the salary or the scope question, run the numbers first and post the JD second. If you're not sure whether to hire full-time or fractional, run a fractional engagement first and let the results write the JD for you.
About the author. Jenny Martin is Growth Marketing Editor at MarketerHire. She has led growth across DTC and B2B SaaS, scaled revenue to $50M, and cut CAC by 40%. She writes about growth hiring, channel strategy, and what works at the $2–50M stage. The MarketerHire team has placed 30,000+ marketing hires across 6,000+ companies; the patterns in this article draw on that dataset.
