What is a fractional CMO?

A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works with a business part-time rather than as a full-time hire. For e-commerce brands it usually means getting the strategy and the hands-on execution of an experienced marketer for a fraction of the cost of a full-time chief marketing officer.

What does Briar Jessica specialise in?

Meta media buying, creative strategy and conversion rate optimisation, plus building AI systems that handle reporting and analysis. The through line is creative strategy: what the ad actually says and shows, diagnosed from real account data.

Where is Briar Jessica based?

New Zealand. She works with brands across New Zealand and Australia.

About Briar Jessica, Fractional CMO

Q: Who does Briar Jessica work with?

Shopify and e-commerce brands, mainly in New Zealand and Australia, across categories including men's grooming, beauty, fashion, oral care, baby and keepsakes. Typically businesses spending real money on Meta who need the account and the creative working together.

The short version

I am Briar Jessica McGregor, a fractional CMO based in New Zealand. I work with Shopify and e-commerce brands on the three things that decide whether paid marketing works: the creative, the media buying and what happens after the click.

Most people at my level have stopped opening the account. I have not. I am in Meta Ads Manager every day, in the data, and in the comments sections where customers say what they actually think. That is not a workflow preference. It is where the answers are.

How I got here

2006

First proper job at a startup radio station, George FM. I had a front row seat to the entire shift from traditional media to social, before anyone called it that.

The agency years

Two decades in sales and marketing, moving from media into performance. Long enough to watch the same tactics get discovered, overused and abandoned about four times over.

Now

Briar Jessica Limited. Eight brands at a time, across New Zealand and Australia, in men's grooming, beauty, fashion, oral care, baby and keepsakes. Ad accounts from $20 a day to $250,000 a day, and brands built from scratch to past $100 million USD.

What I actually believe

Creative is the lever, not targeting

Meta decides who sees your ad based largely on the ad itself now. That makes creative strategy the highest-leverage work in the account, and it is the part most brands outsource to whoever is free.

Comments sections beat brand workshops

Real customer language, sitting in reviews and comments, tells you more than a day in a room with a whiteboard. One person writing a complaint usually means ten more thinking it.

Attribution is a fiction, patterns are real

No platform tells you the truth on its own. Stop trying to make the numbers agree and start looking for the pattern across the store, the platform and the bank account.

Ecommerce is not always the answer

I spent years assuming online was the whole game. Working on a consumable that sells for under $20 taught me otherwise. Sometimes the growth lever is the shelf a customer is already standing in front of, not a better ad.

How working with me works

Fractional CMO. I take on a small number of brands at a time and act as the marketing lead: strategy, creative direction, media buying and the reporting that tells you whether any of it is working. Hands on the account, not oversight from a distance.

The free community. Everything I know about Meta media buying fundamentals is going into a free Skool community, Meta Ads Built to Scale, for Shopify owners running their own ads. No gate, no upsell to see the basics.

The free tools. The calculators on this site are the ones I use in real client work. Breakeven ROAS, campaign profitability, growth modelling and creative safe zones. No sign-up.

Common questions

What is a fractional CMO?: A senior marketing leader who works with your business part-time instead of joining full-time. You get the strategy and the execution of an experienced marketer without carrying a six-figure salary. For most brands under about $10 million a year, it is the sensible version.
What kind of brands do you work with?: Shopify and e-commerce brands in New Zealand and Australia, across men's grooming, beauty, fashion, oral care, baby and keepsakes. Usually businesses already spending real money on Meta who can feel that the creative and the account are not pulling in the same direction.
Do you only do Meta?: Meta is where I am strongest and it is usually where the growth is. But nothing in marketing works in isolation, and it never has, so the work covers Google, email and what happens on the site after the click. Anyone selling you a single channel as the whole answer is selling you their skillset, not your growth.
Where are you based?: New Zealand, working across New Zealand and Australia.

Everything I know about Meta fundamentals, free.

Join the free community

Last reviewed 4 September 2026.

A fractional CMO who is actually in the account.