How to hire a chief marketing officer (CMO)

Your company’s marketing success depends on the skills and experience of your marketing leaders – so, hiring the right person for the role of a chief marketing officer (CMO) is essential.

How do you ensure you’re able to make the right hiring decision, though? 

For the best results, you need to clearly define the role and its responsibilities, list the most important skills you’re looking for, and test them fairly and objectively in all applicants. Then, you can simply shortlist the best talent and invite them to an interview (or a series of interviews) for an in-depth discussion of their experience and the value they can bring to your company.

In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about how to hire a CMO: what the role entails, what skills to look for, how to evaluate them, how much you can expect to pay, and where to find the best marketing executives. 

What is a chief marketing officer?

A chief marketing officer, or a CMO, is the executive responsible for overseeing the entire company’s marketing and advertising initiatives. This includes market research and analysis, strategy development, planning, and execution, all with the goal of maximizing the company's market share and revenue.

The high-level responsibilities of chief marketing officers include: 

• Market analysis: Market analysis – i.e. looking at competitors and consumer behavior and defining opportunities, risks, and market gaps – is a key element to building a sound marketing strategy.

• Brand development: Marketing managers need to oversee all brand development activities, such as defining the key elements of a brand, establishing a visual identity, setting a tone of voice and style, and more.

• Marketing strategy: Chief marketing officers need to set the high-level marketing strategy of the company, ensuring it aligns with the company's broader business goals, and define key yearly and quarterly milestones and targets.

• Planning and implementation: Next, they need to break down the strategy into a tactical plan and help their teams work towards achieving its goals.

• Team leadership: Leadership is at the heart of any C-level position and the same is valid for the role of a CMO. They need to lead one or multiple teams, including cross-functional teams, in a way that inspires team members and enables them to perform at their best. 

• Negotiation: To help their teams achieve the company’s goals, chief marketing officers need to be in constant communication with other departments and negotiate resource allocation.

• Budget management: CMOs need to define and oversee marketing budgets and make sure they’re spent wisely and drive a high return on investment.

• Result analysis: Chief marketing officers need to constantly keep an eye on results and make sure campaigns are successful and drive sales. Plus, they need to be flexible and adapt their future plans based on current performance.  

CMO hard skills

There are a few hard skills you need to consider when hiring your next chief marketing officer. Let’s look at the most important ones: 

Market and data analysis

To identify important opportunities and risks, chief marketing officers need to be expert market analysts. For this, they should have expert industry knowledge and be well-versed in data analysis, which would allow them to: 

• Define key data sources to collect meaningful data 

• Identify and analyze trends 

• Use data visualization tools such as Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, and more

Branding strategy

Your brand is what makes you stand out in your market – and it needs to be aligned with the unique value proposition (USP) of your product, your mission, and your vision.

Your next chief marketing officer will be responsible for defining your branding strategy, which will enable them to: 

• Ensure brand consistency across marketing channels

• Enhance brand visibility and positioning

• Foster customer loyalty

To succeed in this, they need excellent brand management skills.

Email marketing

Email remains one of the most important channels to communicate with your customers and engage them. CMOs need to be well-versed in the best practices of email marketing and know how to build strategies to enable your company to: 

• Nurture leads 

• Build strong relationships with existing customers

• Generate traffic to your website

• Increase average order value

• Drive sales and conversions

Ideally, CMOs also need to have experience with popular email marketing tools, such as MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, or Klavyo.

Social media management

Social media marketing is an important piece of the digital marketing puzzle – and your next CMO needs to know how to build your social media following, engage users, and transform them into paying customers. 

Many companies today use social media to sell their products or services; if that’s a sales channel that your organization is considering, look for experience with social media selling.

Content marketing and strategy

Many customers today make a purchasing decision only after doing their own research: According to Google, 53% of buyers always do research to make sure they’re making the right choice.

For this reason, a strong online presence is essential – and positioning your business as an authority in your niche is only possible if you have the right content marketing strategy to support that. 

A chief marketing officer will ensure that the organization has a well-orchestrated content strategy, enabling it to educate and engage audiences and build trust.

Search engine optimization (SEO) 

Your content marketing strategy needs to be supported by a strong SEO strategy, too, in order to ensure that your website ranks well in search engines. 

A chief marketing officer with a solid understanding of SEO can help boost your organic traffic, improve the user experience, and optimize your site for conversions.

Experience with Google Analytics and Google Search Console is also key. 

Paid advertising

Organic traffic is only one side of the coin, though – paid advertising is one of the best growth enablement strategies out there, if done correctly, especially if you use both.

Chief marketing officers should know how to:

• Build and manage successful paid campaigns 

• Maximize your reach and conversions

• Manage advertising budgets 

• Use organic search and paid advertising strategically to make the best use of both

Budget management

Effective marketing is not just about creative strategies, it’s also about getting the most out of your budget. 

A CMO's ability to define and oversee the company’s marketing budget is key for that. Your next hire needs to be able to: 

• Negotiate budgets with key stakeholders

• Allocate resources in the best possible way

• Optimize marketing campaigns based on their return on investment (ROI)

• Provide their teams with the resources they need to succeed

Look for professionals who have excellent budget management skills to make sure they’ll be able to make the most out of your company’s resources. 

CMO soft skills

Being a successful marketer – and especially at a leadership position, such as a chief marketing officer – requires a wide set of soft skills, too. This enables them to lead teams and enable them to do their best work, collaborate with other business units and key stakeholders, and overcome problems as they arise. 

Here are the most important soft skills a chief marketing officer should have: 

Leadership and people management skills

Any C-suite role requires excellent leadership skills. Chief marketing officers need to lead diverse marketing and cross-functional teams towards the harmonious execution of their marketing strategies. 

There are many leadership styles and there isn’t one that’s better than the others; it all depends on your organization’s structure and goals. Regardless of their leadership style, however, any CMO needs to know how to foster an inclusive environment, inspire, and motivate others – and also how to resolve conflicts fairly and objectively, whenever needed.  

This all helps ensure that all team members can achieve their full potential, use their talents, be productive, and collaborate well with each other. 

Communication

The CMO is the connecting link between marketing teams, the company’s leadership, and other business units and departments.

Clear communication helps ensure that everyone’s on the same page and that their marketing strategies align with the business’ overall objectives, stakeholders’ expectations, and the team’s skills and resources. 

Marketing executives’ communication skills also enable them to foster an environment of transparency and trust, where everyone feels seen and heard. 

Critical thinking

Chief marketing officers must know how to analyze data, identify key patterns and opportunities, predict industry trends, and mitigate risks. 

Critical thinking is instrumental for all this and enables them to evaluate the available information impartially and make strong decisions that support your organization’s goals. 

Negotiation

Negotiation is a key component of a CMO’s day-to-day responsibilities, from discussing marketing budgets with other executives to striking deals with different service providers or even negotiating salaries with new hires. Being an excellent negotiator is therefore a must for the role. 

Organizational and time management skills

If you cannot organize your own work, you certainly won’t be able to manage the work of an entire department – so, it’s easy to see why CMOs must have outstanding organizational and time management skills to succeed.

The right timing is essential in marketing: Launching a campaign a week late can lead to underwhelming results and wasted opportunities. 

Look for applicants who know how to manage multiple projects and campaigns simultaneously and know how to allocate time and resources between each one. 

How to test CMO skills

So, now that you know what skills to look for in your next chief marketing officer, how should you actually test them during the CMO hiring process? 

Thankfully, there’s a simple answer to that question: skills tests. 

Skills tests, such as the ones we offer at TestGorilla, are an excellent way to evaluate your candidates’ skills, even for high-level and C-suite roles. They enable you to: 

• Quickly and accurately assess applicants’ skills: Instead of spending hours interviewing each person for the role of a CMO – or trying to deduct from their resume whether they actually have the marketing and soft skills you need – you can simply ask all candidates to take a skills assessment and compare their results to identify the best talent. 

• Be objective in your evaluation: If you’re looking for a fair and objective way to evaluate skills (and keep unconscious bias at bay), skills assessments are your best bet. All candidates need to take the same tests, which then the platform scores automatically.

• Predict job success: Skills tests are a strong predictor of future performance on the job. If two candidates look similarly good on paper, skills tests help you make an informed decision based on each one’s expertise, knowledge, and future potential. 

To evaluate your future chief marketing officer’s skills fairly and objectively, we recommend building a skills assessment to evaluate different skills. With TestGorilla, you can combine up to five tests. 

Here are some of the best tests you can use for the role of a CMO: 

• Branding strategy: Find applicants who’ll know how to define, build, position, develop, and grow your brand.

• Market analysis: Make sure candidates are able to analyze and understand market factors and make recommendations that align with current market conditions and your company’s goals. 

• Marketing analytics: Identify marketing executives who are capable of assessing marketing data, evaluating your marketing performance, and making strong data-driven decisions with this test. 

• Email marketing: Evaluate applicants’ ability to design, manage, execute, and optimize email marketing campaigns and use this channel to engage your audiences. 

• Critical thinking: Find out whether candidates are able to make sound decisions based on the information they have available with this Critical Thinking test. 

• Communication: Make sure the next person you hire knows how to communicate clearly and effectively with teams, stakeholders, and external partners.

If you’d like to assess a different set of skills, check out our test library to see the hundreds of options you have at your fingertips. 

CMO interview questions

Once you identify your best talent with the help of skills tests, it’s time to invite them to an interview for a more in-depth evaluation of their skills. 

Here are some sample interview questions you can use to assess your future chief marketing officer: 

1. What experience do you have with global marketing campaigns across multiple channels?

2. Describe a time you had to manage a tight marketing budget without compromising results.

3. How would you handle conflicts within your team?

4. What role does data play in your decision-making processes? How do you collect data?

5. What's your process for building a successful content marketing strategy? What role does SEO play in it? 

6. Describe a time when you had to pivot your strategy mid-campaign.

7. What results would you track to evaluate a social media campaign's performance?

8. Tell me about your experience with building campaigns that align with customers' expectations. 

9. How do you track and oversee marketing budgets? 

10. What's your experience with customer segmentation? 

11. How do you approach new social media networks? 

12. What's your experience with managing cross-functional teams?

If you need more inspiration for the questions to ask during the interview phase, check out our selection of the best management interview questions to ask, 30 marketing behavioral questions to assess applicants, and 65+ questions about digital marketing.

Where to find a chief marketing officer

Given the pivotal role of your next CMO in your organization’s growth, you need to be strategic about the places you look:

• Job boards: Traditional job boards like LinkedIn and Monster can be a good starting point, but make sure you don’t limit yourself only to those

• Your professional network: Spread the word in your own professional network and make sure you know how to source passive candidates who might not be looking for a job at the moment – but who might be open to discussing a new professional challenge regardless

• Your company: Your next CMO doesn’t necessarily have to be an external hire; make sure you also consider marketing veterans at your organization who might simply need some extra training to take on an executive position

• Industry events: Conferences and trade shows are an excellent way to get to know high-potential marketing professionals who already have tons of experience in your industry

• Headhunters: For executive roles, you might consider hiring a headhunter to do the sourcing and present you with a selection of top candidates 

How much does a CMO cost?

In the US, the average chief marketing officer salary is around $348,000 per year, according to Salary.com, or around $342,000/year, according to Glassdoor. 

These figures include a base pay of around $200,000/year and additional pay of $140,000 to $150,000 per year, consisting of bonuses and profit sharing.

A CMO’s salary depends on plenty of factors, such as: 

• Education, training, and certifications

• Level of experience at this or similar roles

• Additional skills

• Past and current results

• Location and cost of living

• The type of industry

CMO job description template

Position: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at a [type of company, f.e. a medical tech startup]

Location: [City, state]

[Your company's name] is a [brief description of your company and mission] looking for its first CMO. 

You’ll play a pivotal role in setting the company's marketing direction, building brand awareness, and driving growth. We’re looking for someone who’s creative, highly experienced in building successful marketing strategies and campaigns, and has deep industry knowledge to help us position and grow our brand. 

Key responsibilities

As our CMO, you’ll be responsible for the following: 

• Define, build, and execute an end-to-end marketing strategy 

• Build and lead a strong marketing team and provide every team member with the support they need to perform at their best

• Create a strong, SEO-informed content marketing strategy to boost our organic traffic

• Build and manage paid advertising campaigns 

• Build a brand identity that aligns with our mission, vision, and values

• Ensure consistency across all marketing channels

• Leverage data to refine marketing campaigns and help achieve excellent ROI

• Work closely with other executives to develop a cohesive business strategy that enables growth

• Define and manage marketing budgets, ensuring that all resources are used optimally

• Build strong relationships with strategic partners in our industry to improve our market presence

Qualifications

To succeed in this role, you’ll need the following qualifications: 

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, or related field; an MBA is a plus

• Proven experience and track record in a senior marketing role, preferably within [the type of industry, f.e. tech, software, etc.]  

• Exceptional leadership skills with experience building and mentoring teams

• Strong analytical abilities with a penchant for data-driven decisions

• Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills

• A deep understanding of [the type of industry] and its unique challenges

• Proficiency in modern digital marketing tools and platforms

Benefits

At [your company name], we offer the following benefits: 

• Competitive salary with equity options

• Comprehensive healthcare package with excellent dental and mental health coverage

• The opportunity to shape the marketing direction of a pioneering startup

• Flexible working hours and the possibility to work remotely up to [X%] of the time

• [Add any other benefits relevant to the role]

How to apply

To apply, please [describe your application process here, mentioning skills tests]

Hire the best CMO with the help of skills tests

Your next CMO will have an enormous impact on the success of your organization’s marketing – and, ultimately, on its revenue and growth. In this context, it’s easy to see why making the right hiring decision is so essential – even more than for most other roles out there. 

Thankfully, with the right recruitment tools in your toolbox, it becomes much easier to find the perfect fit for your CMO role: TestGorilla’s automated skills assessments make it easy to assess your candidates’ marketing and soft skills accurately and objectively. 

After that, you simply need to invite the best applicants to an interview (or series of interviews) to see who truly has what it takes to take the lead in defining and executing your company’s marketing strategy.

Use skills tests to hire a talented chief marketing officer confidently and with ease.

Sign up for a free demo to see for yourself why more than 10,000 companies have used TestGorilla to streamline their hiring processes.