The Private Equity Marketing Playbook: How to Build Marketing That Shows Up in Your Multiples

Marketing Is a Value Creation Lever Most PE Firms Underuse

Private equity firms are excellent at operational improvements. They professionalize finance, tighten operations, upgrade technology, and install experienced management teams. But marketing? Marketing is usually somewhere between an afterthought and a mystery.

This is a mistake. Marketing is one of the highest-return investments a PE firm can make in a portfolio company. Done right, it accelerates revenue growth, improves margins through better unit economics, and creates measurable enterprise value at exit. Done wrong — or not done at all — it leaves millions on the table.

This playbook is based on our experience building and managing marketing programs for PE-backed companies across home services, professional services, manufacturing, and franchise verticals.

Phase 1: Marketing Due Diligence (Pre-Acquisition)

Most PE due diligence focuses on financials, operations, and legal. Marketing diligence is often a cursory glance at the website and a question about how the company gets customers. That is not enough.

What marketing due diligence should include:

Customer acquisition analysis. Where do customers come from? What does each channel cost? What is the blended customer acquisition cost? Is the company dependent on a single channel (usually referrals) that may not scale?

Brand assessment. Does the company have a recognizable brand in its market? Or is it just an owner's name on a truck? Brands that need to be built from scratch post-acquisition represent an investment that should be modeled into the deal.

Digital presence audit. Website quality, search rankings, ad accounts, social presence, online reviews. We have seen acquisitions where the company's website was literally turning away customers — broken forms, no mobile experience, page load times over 10 seconds. Fixing these issues post-close often produces quick revenue wins.

Competitive landscape. How are competitors marketing? What channels are they using? Where are the gaps? This tells you where the opportunity is.

Scalability assessment. Can the current customer acquisition model scale to 2-3x revenue? Or is it dependent on the owner's personal network and reputation? Companies built on referrals from the owner's golf buddies have a growth ceiling.

This diligence typically takes 1-2 weeks and often reveals either hidden risk or hidden opportunity that affects the deal thesis.

Phase 2: 100-Day Marketing Plan (Post-Close)

The first 100 days post-close are critical. This is when you build the foundation that everything else sits on. Rush it and you will be rebuilding later. Skip it and you will be guessing.

Days 1-30: Measurement and Baseline

You cannot improve what you cannot measure. The first priority is getting measurement infrastructure in place:

• Call tracking on every phone number across every location
• CRM setup (or cleanup) so every lead is tracked from first touch to closed sale
• Google Analytics properly configured on all websites
• Ad account access and audit of all paid campaigns
• Baseline metrics: leads per month by source, cost per lead, close rate, average deal value, customer acquisition cost

Most portfolio companies have little to none of this in place. Establishing baselines takes 2-4 weeks but it is the most important work you do. Everything that follows depends on having reliable data.

Days 30-60: Quick Wins

While the strategy is being developed, there are almost always quick wins that produce immediate ROI:

• Fix the website. Make sure it loads fast, works on mobile, has clear calls to action, and the phone number is prominent. Simple changes often produce 20-40% improvement in lead conversion.
• Clean up Google Ads. Most portfolio company ad accounts have significant waste — wrong keywords, no negative keywords, poorly targeted campaigns. A proper audit and restructure typically reduces cost per lead by 30-50% within 60 days.
• Optimize Google Business Profiles. For local businesses, this is one of the highest-ROI activities available. Complete profiles, proper categories, regular posts, and a review generation program.
• Start review generation. Systematize asking happy customers for Google reviews. Reviews affect local search rankings, conversion rates, and customer trust. Most companies go from 2-3 new reviews per month to 15-20 with a simple post-service email sequence.

Days 60-100: Strategic Foundation

By now you have data and some quick wins producing results. Time to build the real strategy:

• Channel strategy based on customer data and competitive analysis. Which channels will produce the best return at what budget levels?
• Team assessment. Does the portfolio company have the right marketing people? Do they need hires? Do they need agencies? What is the right structure?
• Budget allocation. How much should the company spend on marketing, and where should each dollar go? This should be tied to specific revenue targets.
• 12-month roadmap. Quarter-by-quarter plan with priorities, budgets, and measurable targets.

Phase 3: Growth Acceleration (Months 4-18)

With the foundation in place, the focus shifts to scaling what works and building new capabilities.

Systematic Lead Generation

Build a predictable lead generation engine that does not depend on any single channel or person. For most PE portfolio companies, this means:

• Paid search for immediate lead flow (Google Ads, LSAs)
• SEO and content for long-term organic growth
• Email marketing for customer retention and reactivation
• Social media for brand building and community engagement (where relevant)

The goal is a diversified acquisition model where no single channel represents more than 40% of leads. Single-channel dependency is risk.

Multi-Location Scaling

For rollup platforms, the marketing playbook needs to scale across locations. This means:

• Centralized strategy with local execution. The overall approach is consistent, but ad targeting, keywords, and content are tailored to each market.
• Shared infrastructure. One CRM, one reporting platform, one website architecture. This reduces cost and increases visibility.
• Local brand management. Whether you keep local brands or consolidate under a single brand, each location needs a complete local presence — Google Business Profile, local citations, location-specific content.

We managed marketing for a PE-backed home services platform across 8 locations. Centralized management reduced total marketing cost by 25% while increasing lead volume by 180% over 14 months, compared to each location managing its own marketing independently.

Content and Authority Building

Portfolio companies that build authority in their markets command higher prices and close deals faster. This means:

• Regular blog content targeting industry-specific search terms
• Case studies with specific results
• Local market content for service-area businesses
• Thought leadership from company principals

This is not a vanity exercise. Content directly impacts SEO performance, website conversion rates, and sales cycle length. Companies with strong content programs typically close deals 20-30% faster because prospects have already convinced themselves before the sales conversation.

Phase 4: Value Creation and Exit Preparation (Months 12-36)

As the hold period progresses, marketing focus shifts from building infrastructure to demonstrating measurable value creation.

Metrics That Matter at Exit

Buyers and their diligence teams will want to see:

• Revenue growth rate and marketing's contribution to that growth
• Customer acquisition cost trending down over time
• Channel diversification showing the business is not dependent on a single lead source
• Marketing ROI with clear attribution from spend to revenue
• Scalability of the marketing model — can it grow with more investment?

Building the Marketing Asset

A well-built marketing function is itself a value driver at exit. It represents:

• A predictable, scalable customer acquisition engine
• Institutional knowledge about what works in each market
• Technology and data infrastructure that a buyer can build on
• A team (internal or fractional) that can continue executing post-close

We have seen marketing infrastructure add 0.5-1.0x to exit multiples for service businesses because buyers recognize that a professional, measurable marketing function reduces risk and increases growth confidence.

The Fractional CMO Model for PE Portfolios

Most PE portfolio companies do not need a full-time CMO during the first 12-18 months post-acquisition. They need senior marketing leadership to build the strategy, implement the infrastructure, and manage execution — but the volume of work does not justify a $300K salary.

A fractional CMO provides:

• Senior marketing leadership at 30-40% of full-time cost
• Experience across multiple portfolio companies and industries
• The ability to work across multiple portfolio companies in the same platform
• Flexibility to scale up as the company grows and scale down as systems mature

When the company reaches a size that justifies full-time marketing leadership (usually $30M-$50M+ in revenue), the fractional CMO can help hire, onboard, and transition to a permanent executive.

Start Building Marketing Value in Your Portfolio

Marketing is too big a value creation lever to leave to chance. Whether you are pre-acquisition and want marketing diligence, post-close and need a 100-day plan, or mid-hold and want to accelerate growth, the playbook is the same: measure, strategize, execute, and optimize.

Fusion Marketing provides fractional CMO services for PE-backed portfolio companies across home services, manufacturing, professional services, and franchise verticals. Call (704) 749-0642 or email contact@fusionmarketing.biz to discuss what marketing value creation looks like for your portfolio.