You have an agency.
You have a budget.
You have a monthly report.
You have more data than ever.
Nobody owns the number.
Fractional marketing director · Perth, for AU & NZ
Your marketing needs an owner.
I'm Dwain. Twenty years running digital at ANZ, OMD and ASX-listed brands. Now I take the marketing number off your plate, part-time, on retainer.
2 of 4 retainer slots open for Q4 2026
Twenty years across ANZ Bank, IMDEX, OMD, Skills Group, PHD, Y&R, Air New Zealand, Kathmandu, Spark, Fonterra, SKY TV and AMP.
Sound familiar?
Most businesses that hire me tick at least two of these. Tap the ones that are true.
I set the strategy. Then I can run it.
Someone senior owning the outcome.
The part most businesses are missing. Not more activity. Someone accountable for what the activity returns.
- A quarterly roadmap tied to revenue, not channel vanity
- Budget and channel decisions, with the reasoning written down
- One monthly report the board can actually read
- Agencies held to what they promised
And hands on the accounts.
If there's no team to execute, I'm not going to hand you a plan and wish you luck.
- Google, Meta and LinkedIn campaigns built and optimised weekly
- GA4 and conversion tracking rebuilt so the numbers can be trusted
- Reporting your team can open without a translator
- Automation between ads, forms and your CRM
Most clients use me for both.
Have a capable team? Take the direction alone. Don't? Take both. Neither costs you a full-time salary.
Receipts.
Three recent engagements where I carried the number.
HyperCinema · Auckland · Brand launch
2M+
People reached in an eight-week launch
The world's first live AI experience, launched across NZ Herald, Meta, TikTok and Google. One fifth of ticket sales came from paid media.
Team Green Projects · Auckland · Lead generation
+68.5%
More leads, year on year
Great reviews, zero social presence, leads in bursts. I built the content, the creative and the full paid funnel.
Veuve du Vernay · New Zealand · FMCG media
1.7x
The reach of the previous four campaigns combined
595,000 New Zealanders in a single summer flight, on the same budget envelope.
The same seniority, a fraction of the cost.
Plus super, recruitment fees, leave, tools and a three-month ramp.
No super, no leave, no recruitment fee. Working in week one.
The honest version: once your operation needs daily executive presence, hire full-time. Until then, you're paying a salary for availability you don't use.
Twenty years of references.
Dwain has been in the game long enough to have made the mistakes of the past, but also stays right up to date on the now of digital advertising. To say we made big steps forward at ANZ would be an understatement.
My business was struggling to generate enough leads to sustain the growth we wanted. Dwain's response was immediate. The results have been great. Fantastic to work with and super contactable.
An experienced digital marketer who is not only technically skilled but also understands the power and importance of creative within digital. Instrumental in progressing our social strategy.
A brilliant collaborator on Season 1 of HyperCinema in Auckland. Friendly, clear, enthused, proactive, and has shown great results with over 770,000 TikTok views achieved.
Dwain helped us out with specialist guidance and implementation on a new product launch. He's a star. Knowledgeable, friendly, patient and gets great results.
How it starts.
Four steps. No lock-in at any of them.
Free ad audit
A written diagnostic. Yours whether we work together or not.
A call
We walk the findings and work out whether there's a fit. No charge.
Diagnostic sprint
A deep audit from $3,500, with a 12-month roadmap as the deliverable.
Retainer
Working in week one. Leave at the end of any quarter.
Questions people ask.
Straight answers to what founders and marketing managers usually want to know first.
What is a fractional digital marketing director?
A fractional digital marketing director provides senior strategic leadership on a part-time retainer rather than a full-time salary. They typically work with mid-market businesses that need executive-level digital expertise (strategy, performance oversight, team mentorship, and reporting), but cannot yet justify hiring a full-time CMO or marketing director. Engagements usually run 1 to 6 days per month over a 6 to 12 month retainer.
How much does a fractional digital marketing director cost in Australia?
Fractional digital marketing director retainers in Australia typically range from $2,500 to $6,000 AUD per month depending on scope. Lighter strategic-oversight engagements start around $2,500 per month, senior fractional engagements sit around $4,000, and senior director engagements reach $6,000 per month. That is $30,000 to $72,000 a year, against $180,000 to $280,000 plus superannuation for an equivalent full-time hire.
When should you hire a fractional digital marketing director versus a full-time one?
A fractional digital marketing director makes sense when annual marketing spend justifies senior oversight (typically $250,000+ in media and headcount) but the role does not yet require five days a week. Common triggers include scaling past $5M revenue, replacing an underperforming agency, preparing for a capital raise, or bridging the gap before a full-time CMO is hired. Once the operation needs daily executive presence, hire full-time.
What does a fractional digital marketing director actually do?
A fractional digital marketing director sets the digital strategy, owns the performance numbers reported to leadership, manages internal marketers and external agencies, runs the lead generation engine, and mentors the in-house team. Where there is no team to execute, they also build the campaigns themselves. Day-to-day tools include Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, GA4, Google Tag Manager, Looker Studio, and Make.com for marketing automation. They work alongside whatever CRM the business runs (HubSpot, Salesforce, Dynamics), as a marketing layer specialist rather than a CRM implementer.
Where is Dwain Douman based?
Dwain Douman is based in Perth, Western Australia, and works with clients remotely across Australia and New Zealand.
What does the first engagement look like?
It starts with a free ad audit: a written diagnostic of your ad accounts, tracking and last 90 days of performance, returned within five business days and yours to keep whether or not you engage. From there, a 30-minute call at no charge. Retainers then run quarter to quarter with no long lock-in. A deeper two-week diagnostic sprint from $3,500, with a 12-month roadmap as the deliverable, is available as a project-based starting point.
Find out what's leaking.
I'll go through your ad accounts, your tracking and your last 90 days. A written diagnostic comes back within five business days. No call needed to get it.