URL: /capabilities/agents/marketing-lead · Id: `page:/capabilities/agents/marketing-lead`

# Marketing lead

> Writes the positioning, picks and tunes the Plays your strategy allows, runs each launch, and keeps every channel inside its budget and payback.

Writes the positioning, picks and tunes the [Plays](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/play) your strategy allows, runs each launch, and keeps every channel inside its budget and payback.

- **File convention:** `agents/marketing/marketing-lead.mdx`
- **Noun:** [`noun:role`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/role)
- **Role:** [`role:marketing-lead`](https://startupbuilder.dev/agents/marketing/marketing-lead)

```text title="Run it · Ask"
Start the subject-line test on the first email, split evenly, and show me the setup first.
```

```ts title="Run it · SDK"
import { $ } from 'startup-builder'

const result = await $.try.Experiment.start({ experiment: 'experiments/first-email-subject' })
```

```json title="Run it · Response"
{
  "mode": "try",
  "stored": false,
  "experiment": {
    "$id": "experiments/first-email-subject",
    "variants": [
      "Rent ledgers at {company}",
      "Still reconciling rent by hand?"
    ],
    "split": [
      0.5,
      0.5
    ],
    "primary": "metric:positive-reply-rate",
    "guardrail": "metric:spam-rate"
  }
}
```

## Responsibilities
- Writes the positioning: the alternatives, the proof, the ICP and the category, in buyers’ own words.
- Picks and tunes the demand Plays the strategy allows, and reads each one against its number weekly.
- Runs each launch on Product Hunt, Hacker News and the directories, and the listings that follow it.
- Keeps acquisition spend inside its budget and payback limit.

## Verbs
| Verb | Object | Event |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `PlayMix.compile` | [`noun:play-mix`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/play-mix) | `PlayMix.compiled` |
| `Play.apply` | [`noun:play`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/play) | `Play.applied` |
| `Experiment.start` | [`noun:experiment`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/experiment) | `Experiment.started` |
| `Experiment.conclude` | [`noun:experiment`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/experiment) | `Experiment.concluded` |
| `Offer.publish` | [`noun:offer`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/offer) | `Offer.published` |
| [`Audience.create`](/code/apps/ads/create-audience) | [`noun:audience`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/audience) | `Audience.created` |
| [`Metric.query`](/code/apps/analytics-and-experiments/query) | [`noun:metric`](https://startupbuilder.dev/business/nouns/metric) | `Metric.queried` |

## Role contract
| Part | This seat |
| --- | --- |
| Purpose | Make the right buyers hear of the startup, in their own words, at a cost it can carry. |
| Results | Play-sourced customers; Fully loaded acquisition cost; Organic share; Play payback |
| Target | Every running Play read against its number each week, and payback under 12 months on every Play, read each quarter on at least 30 conversions a Play ([Planning estimate](/strategy/numbers#assumptions)). |
| Standards | Reads every running Play against its number each week, and says keep, fix or switch. Changes one variable at a time in any test. |
| Limits | Up to 4 Plays running at once, and spends only inside the Demand Budget your strategy sets. The hub Marketing lead Role sets no numeric limit |
| Schedule | Weekly |
| Channels | `email`, `social` |
| Also called | CMO, Head of Marketing, Growth lead |
| Filled by | A role agent, from the start; you approve each new offer. |

## Hands off to
- [SDR](/capabilities/agents/sdr): A lead qualifies on a form, a reply or an event: it is assigned within 5 minutes.
- [Content lead](/capabilities/agents/content-lead): A Play needs pages, posts or answers written.
- [Paid media](/capabilities/agents/paid-media): A Play needs ads run on spend you authorized.

## Processes owned
[`process:launches`](https://startupbuilder.dev/workflows/processes/launches) · [`process:experimentation`](https://startupbuilder.dev/workflows/processes/experimentation) · [`process:content-marketing`](https://startupbuilder.dev/workflows/processes/content-marketing) · [`workflow:run-experiment`](https://startupbuilder.dev/workflows/processes/experimentation/run-experiment)

## Metrics
[`metric:play-sourced-customers`](https://startupbuilder.dev/agents/marketing#play-sourced-customers) · [`metric:cac-fully-loaded`](https://startupbuilder.dev/agents/marketing#cac-fully-loaded) · [`metric:organic-share`](https://startupbuilder.dev/agents/marketing#organic-share) · [`metric:play-payback`](https://startupbuilder.dev/agents/marketing#play-payback)

## Approvals
You see the plan and its price before anything runs. Sends and posts go out within the limits you set; one approval rule on a class such as `send` makes every action in it wait for you, and going over a limit always asks.

| It asks you | When | Answered by |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Publish a new offer or change its price | Every new offer | You |

Each class and its default amount: the hub’s [approvals](https://startupbuilder.dev/agents/approvals) page.

## Works with
- [Directory submissions](/capabilities/earn-first-links/directory-submissions) (Workflow): Your product kit in, the places that pass the most authority ranked, each form filled as you, and every listing checked until it shows.
- [Launch day](/capabilities/earn-first-links/launch-day) (agent task): You launch on Hacker News, Reddit and Product Hunt with a fact brief for each comment; your agent posts on LinkedIn and X.
- [Link pitches](/capabilities/earn-first-links/link-pitches) (agent task): Forty pages that link to your rivals and not to you, each pitched by email with an asset that fits the page, and one follow-up.
- [Demand generation](/capabilities/find-customers/demand-generation) (Service): Your strategy’s Plays run for the month, billed per qualified lead, and every lead and dollar of revenue traced to the Play that sourced it.

It trades hand-offs with [You, as head of sales](/capabilities/agents/founder), [SDR](/capabilities/agents/sdr), [Content lead](/capabilities/agents/content-lead) and [Paid media](/capabilities/agents/paid-media).

## Example
Week 4’s readout shows Cold email at 2.1 positive replies per 100 contacts and search pages with no clicks yet. The agent keeps both, moves the next test to the subject line only, and schedules the Product Hunt launch for week 6.