For scaling retail and eCommerce brands doing $2M–$50M, OpsX Fractional CMO gives you the strategic marketing leadership of someone who has built and sold Australia's largest independent agency — without the full-time salary, without the agency markup, and with skin firmly in the game.
At $2M–$50M, most eCommerce founders are caught in the same trap. Too large to get away without serious marketing leadership, too early-stage to justify a full-time CMO at $300,000–$400,000. So they rely on agencies — and agencies are structurally incentivised to spend more of your budget, not less.
Show me a supplier paid on how much you spend instead of how much you make, and you have a business rewarded for scaling your budget — not your revenue. The incentive structure is broken at the foundation.
Without a CMO, your marketing function is a collection of disconnected tactics. Paid, organic, CRO, email — each in a separate silo, no one accountable for the whole picture, no one asking whether the strategy is right.
Most agencies learn your business on your budget. They assume, test, and iterate at your expense. The first 90 days of most agency engagements are a paid education — for them, not you.
Senior marketing leadership at the level you need — someone who has sat across the table from Nike, Coles, NAB, and Westpac — costs $300K+ in salary before you add super, equity, and time-to-hire. It's a bet most scaling brands can't make.
Growing brands need a marketing leader, not a marketing service. Someone with real accountability, senior-level experience, and results tied directly to what they produce.
OpsX Fractional CMO places Kevan Baker — and Firestarter's full capability stack — inside your business on a fractional basis. You get CMO-level strategy, direct hands-on execution, and a model where we are paid on the results we generate. Not on the hours we spend.
We begin with a comprehensive audit of your current marketing position — what's working, what's wasted, where the biggest gains are fastest to reach. Within 30 days you have a clear picture and a strategy with a measurable first milestone.
If an existing agency is performing well, we work alongside them. We have no interest in disrupting relationships that are already generating returns. What we are interested in is eliminating the ones that aren't.
Kevan attends your leadership reviews, owns the marketing function, and reports directly to you — not to an account manager. Every decision is made with full visibility of your commercial position.
We begin by understanding historical user behaviour, site performance, and analytics data before we spend a dollar. The quick wins strategy ensures working with us is profitable in the shortest time possible while medium and longer-term strategies are built.
Paid media, organic search, conversion rate optimisation, AI-powered database reactivation — the complete Firestarter toolkit deployed under unified strategic direction. Independent specialists. The best in the industry at what they do.
The engagement is structured so our return is tied to your growth. When you win, we win. You'll know within 30–90 days whether the partnership is working. If it isn't, you can exit. No lock-in. No penalty.
Kevan Baker founded atomic212, which grew to become Australia's largest independent media and marketing agency before being acquired by Publicis Mojo. That's not a credential from a decade ago — the same methodology, the same rigour, and the same standard of accountability is what Firestarter is built on today.
Across 300+ accounts and decades of senior practice, Kevan has led marketing strategy for some of the most recognised brands in Australia. He has sat across the table from Coles, Westpac, Nike, NAB, Marvel, Atlassian, and American Express. He knows what serious marketing looks like — and he knows what it costs when it isn't.
Following a review in August 2025, the average year-on-year drop in cost per acquisition across all 300+ managed accounts was 60%. The average sales improvement was 65%. These are not projections. They are averages.
Across all 300+ managed accounts as of August 2025. Averaging across all industries, all campaign types.
Measured year-on-year across the full managed account portfolio. The best-performing accounts have shown multiples of this.
Every engagement begins with a quick wins strategy. You will know whether the partnership is working before the first quarter is complete.
Before acquisition by Publicis Mojo. The same foundation of rigour and accountability sits behind every engagement today.
Firestarter's specialist capabilities are deployed as an integrated system — not as disconnected tactics managed by different suppliers with different agendas. Your Fractional CMO owns the whole picture.
AI-powered bidding and audience optimisation across Google Search, Shopping, and Meta. We optimise towards audiences and keywords that lead to buyers — not impressions. Our proprietary AI makes thousands of adjustments weekly that no human team can match at scale.
Avg 20%+ ROAS lift · CPA reductions of 45–84% across accountsOrganic clicks convert three to four times better than paid channels. They continue delivering customers long after the work is done — and you own the asset. Search is not optional. It is the long-term competitive moat every brand needs to build.
3–4× higher conversion vs paid · compounds over timeDoubling your conversion rate doubles your revenue — without spending another dollar on media. More powerfully: it quadruples your profit, because fixed costs don't move. CRO is the highest-leverage activity most scaling brands consistently underinvest in.
2× conversion = 4× profit · no additional ad spend requiredLess than 43% of sales teams call a lead more than twice. Your inactive database is full of customers who were in market and went cold. Our AI sales agents reactivate those leads at scale — returning them to your sales team like they arrived fresh today.
Revenue from leads you already own · zero additional media spendFull, real-time access to every business-critical marketing number. No black boxes. No monthly PDF reports produced after the decisions have already been made. Transparency creates accountability — for us and for your team.
Live dashboards · full audit trail · no hidden metricsOnce acquisition channels are performing, we systematically increase the revenue generated from every customer you already have. Lifetime value, average order value, repeat purchase frequency — each is a lever. We pull all of them, in the right order.
DF Partners: $675K in pipeline from email campaign one aloneThese are not illustrative projections. They are the documented outcomes of growth partnerships led by Kevan Baker and the Firestarter team — across finance, retail, eCommerce, and services.
"They took us from $15,000 a month to over $165,000 per month in revenue in just under 18 months. They removed all the bottlenecks in the business one by one. The revenue we created made it possible for us to list the business on the ASX. We could not have done it without their help."
"They generated $1.4M in revenue before they were paid a single dollar and were hired. Email one generated $675,000 in opportunities. The second generated $450,000. They reworked our banners and got the highest opt-in rate the publication had ever seen. Amazing work."
Tasked with increasing generic search sales across six international markets while reducing brand advertising cost. After two weeks in the third market, generic ROAS increased 262% against prior year average. Brand advertising cost simultaneously reduced by 92%.
"We've just reviewed the first three months' results from the team and despite cutting our spend by 23%, our sales from search have increased a little over 500%."
"Following a comprehensive review in August 2025, averaging across all industries and all 300+ managed accounts, the average year-on-year drop in cost per acquisition was 60%. The average sales improvement was 65%. We are proud of these averages and confident no media agency in the world can get close to them."
The experience behind OpsX Fractional CMO spans two decades of senior-level marketing strategy across every category. These relationships were built through atomic212 and continue through Firestarter.
Every engagement begins with a quick wins strategy — designed to ensure working with us is profitable before we've even started on the medium-term plan. You know the numbers within 30 days.
We begin with a full audit of your current marketing position — analytics data, channel performance, spend allocation, conversion rates, and existing agency relationships. We assume nothing and verify everything.
Days 0–14Before building the longer-term plan, we identify the fastest path to demonstrable improvement. Every business we work with has quick wins available — often in channels and tactics already running, simply not optimised.
Days 15–30Paid media, SEO, CRO, and database reactivation are deployed in sequence — each layer building on the one before. You have full visibility of what's running, what it's producing, and what it costs.
Days 30–90Once channels are performing, the remit expands. Additional campaigns, new datasets, and higher budgets deployed into proven structures. At this stage, we are compounding. The moat widens.
90 days+Firestarter operates on success retainers. We are paid on results — a percentage of the return on investment we generate. When you win, we win. This is not a philosophical position. It is the actual structure of the engagement, and it aligns every decision we make with your commercial outcome.
You'll know within 30–90 days whether the partnership is generating returns. If the results aren't there, you can exit at that point. There are no long lock-in contracts designed to protect the agency. The structure only works if it works for you.
These are not testimonials collected for the sake of a brochure. They describe what happened when a growth partner with real skin in the game was placed inside someone else's business.
We started working with Kevan and the team at Firestarter and have completely transformed the business. They took us from $15,000 a month to over $165,000 per month in revenue in just under 18 months. They removed all the bottlenecks in the business one by one. I've never worked with an agency like them.
I first talked to Kevan about email marketing but it was soon apparent there were bigger opportunities. They'd generated around $1.4M before they were paid a single dollar and were hired. I've never worked with a team like it — they prove the value before they invoice it.
We've just reviewed the first three months' results from the team and despite cutting our spend by 23%, our sales from search have increased a little over 500%. The model is entirely different from any agency we have worked with before.
Marketing that works puts pressure on operations. Demand generation means nothing if your fulfilment, inventory, and margins can't handle the volume. OpsX Fractional COO provides the operational leadership to support the growth your CMO generates — ensuring the whole business scales, not just the top line.
Explore OpsX Mentor →No commitment. No pitch. Just an honest conversation about whether a Fractional CMO engagement is the right fit — and if it is, what that could realistically mean for your business.
We review every enquiry personally. If we believe there's a clear path to a meaningful commercial outcome, we'll be in touch within 2 business days to schedule a strategy session.
We review every enquiry personally. If there's a clear fit, you'll hear from us within 2 business days to schedule a strategy session.