FOR OPERATING PARTNERS, DEAL TEAMS AND PORTFOLIO CEOS

Behind your leadership team, we run the marketing your plan is counting on.

Somebody Digital is the value-creation marketing partner for lower-middle-market companies backed by private equity and venture capital. Start with an assessment

$50-500M

Portco revenue band

90 days

To measurable pipeline movement

TRUSTED BY B2B TECH COMPANIES FROM $50M TO $500M IN REVENUE.

Why this exists now

Multiples are flat and holds are running long, so the return has to come out of the operation rather than the exit.

Last year margin improvement produced 51% of the value in PE exits and growth produced 49%, when growth used to produce nearly 80%.

The obvious levers were priced in the day the deal was signed, and the lever still open is the go-to-market engine, which in most portfolio companies is the least-built part of the business.

Ask the investors themselves and they describe it the same way, a company with no reliable read on where deals come from and a pipeline that still runs through the founder.

Fixing it is a growth lever and a margin lever at once, because acquisition spend that stops going to leads that never convert is EBITDA that never had to be spent.

And whether your buyers now start with AI is a question we measure before anyone spends against it.

Exit value split: Alvarez & Marsal PE exit survey, 2026.

WHY THIS IS DIFFERENT

When a fund owns the company, marketing is on a deadline.

A private equity firm buys a company to grow it and sell it again, usually within 5 to 7 years. That leaves no time for slow brand-building that only pays off later. Most agencies sell ongoing activity and measure it over years, which doesn’t work against an exit date. Marketing has to produce pipeline quickly and report it in the numbers the board already watches.

01 / The clock

The hold period is the deadline

The clock starts at close. Pipeline has to move inside 90 days and become a repeatable system before year two, or the operating plan is already behind.

02 / The language

Report in the board's numbers

Sourced and influenced pipeline, CAC and payback, and total marketing spend set against what the business generated each quarter, translated into the EBITDA line your board already reads. We don't promise every dollar attributed to an activity, because that promise doesn't survive a CFO's questions.

03 / The diagnosis

Fixable execution vs. broken function

The first job is telling you honestly which one you have, because sometimes the team is fine and the system around them isn't, sometimes it's the reverse, and the readout says which.

HOW WE REPORT

Every level gets the numbers it already cares about.

The metric that matters changes with who’s asking, cost per opportunity for the growth lead, the exit multiple for the board. We speak all of them, and we know which number belongs in a board pack and which never leaves the channel dashboard. See how we report

Ownership / Board

Fund · operating partner

"What's this business worth when we sell it?"

EBITDA growthMOIC / IRRExit multipleNet revenue retentionRule of 40

Executive

CEO · CFO

"Are we growing fast enough for what it costs us?"

Rule of 40Net revenue retentionCAC paybackMagic numberGrowth / ARR

Strategic Leadership

CMO · Head of Growth

"What are we getting back for our marketing spend?"

Marketing-sourced revenueSourced vs influenced pipelinePipeline coveragePipeline velocityLTV:CAC

Execution

Channel and campaign owners

"Which channel is actually producing opportunities?"

Rolls up, reports upward

Cost per pipeline $Cost per opportunityPipeline per channelPaid CACMQL→SQL rate

Vanity, stays on the floor

CPLMQL volumeCTRImpressionsOpens

WHERE YOU ARE IN THE HOLD

Start from the moment you're in.

The marketing question changes at every stage of the hold. Find the one that sounds like your portfolio right now, and the work meets it there.

READY TO OPTIMIZE?

See what these problems are actually costing you.

A 30-minute conversation is a good place to start. We’ll walk through your current setup, identify which of these problems is doing the most damage, and give you an honest view of what an integrated operation would look like for your business.