Sheppard

Run it, ongoing inside a PE-backed portco.

Marketing your portco runs on, not around.

Sheppard operates the marketing function inside PE-backed residential home services portfolio companies, embedded as the platform marketing team, or managing the agency stack on the sponsor's behalf. Ten integrated specialties run as one engine, reported monthly on EBITDA contribution, designed to defend the multiple at exit.

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Three operating models. One operating system.

The right model depends on what the portco already has and what the sponsor wants to professionalize. The operating system Sheppard installs is the same; how we deliver it scales to the platform's stage.

01

Embedded

Sheppard operates as the platform's marketing function. We build the operating system, run the channels, and augment the internal team as the platform scales. The portco team owns customers and operations; we own the marketing engine.

Fit

Platforms without a senior marketing leader, or with internal teams that need senior depth on attribution, brand architecture, or roll-up integration.

02

Managed

Sheppard oversees the agency stack on the sponsor's behalf, holding vendors accountable to platform-level KPIs, consolidating spend, and reporting EBITDA contribution to the operating partner monthly.

Fit

Platforms with existing agency relationships that need professionalization and consolidation rather than wholesale replacement.

03

Hybrid

Sheppard operates select disciplines directly (typically analytics, attribution, brand) and manages vendors for others (paid media, content). Common at multi-portco roll-ups where some functions standardize across the platform and others stay local.

Fit

Multi-portco platforms where the operating model is part-standardized and part-distributed.

Six metrics in the monthly report.

Marketing-sourced EBITDA contribution at the top, supported by five operational leading indicators. Reported on the same cadence as financial close so the operating partner can read it before the board pack ships.

01

Marketing-sourced EBITDA contribution

The headline metric. Normalized for channel-mix shift and seasonality. Reported monthly alongside financial close.

02

CAC trend by channel

Normalized customer acquisition cost by source, not raw blended. Shows whether the marketing engine is becoming more or less efficient over time.

03

Sourced-revenue contribution by channel

What share of revenue each channel is producing. Where to invest more, where to cut, where to test new entrants.

04

Booked-call rate

Lead-to-appointment conversion. The leverage between marketing spend and operations performance.

05

Average ticket by lead source

Which channels bring high-ticket replacement work vs. low-ticket service calls. The mix that drives gross margin.

06

Brand investment as % of revenue

The investment that compounds across the hold and defends the multiple at exit. Underfunded in 80% of platforms.

Owned by the portco. Transferable at exit.

Everything Sheppard builds is owned by the portfolio company, source code, infrastructure, data, documentation. Source code committed to the portco's repos. Infrastructure in the portco's cloud accounts. Brand assets, vendor contracts, dashboards, and operating playbooks all transfer at exit with zero vendor-dependency drag.

The next sponsor inherits a working operating system. Buyers see clean attribution methodology, vendor lineage, brand-equity baselines, sponsor-facing dashboards, and a transferable systems pack their team can run from on Day 1 of the next ownership cycle.

Platforms that ran this discipline through the hold defend their multiple in buyer-side diligence. The ones that didn't lose half a turn of EBITDA in negotiation.

Frequently Asked

On running marketing inside the portco.

What does Sheppard do for a portfolio company day-to-day?

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Sheppard operates the marketing function inside the portco: runs the full digital marketing engine (ten specialties, local SEO and AI visibility, paid search and LSA, paid social, lifecycle, CRO, content and generative engine optimization, brand, analytics, reputation, and direct response/offline), reports to the operating partner monthly on EBITDA contribution, sits in weekly with the portco CEO, and integrates marketing across add-ons as the platform scales.

How does Sheppard fit alongside the portco's existing marketing team?

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Two models. Embedded: Sheppard operates as the platform marketing function, building or augmenting the internal team as the platform scales. Managed: Sheppard oversees the agency stack on the sponsor's behalf, holding vendors accountable to platform-level KPIs and consolidating spend. Either way, the portco team owns the relationship with customers and operations; Sheppard owns the marketing engine.

Does Sheppard hire internal marketing talent for portcos?

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We don't run executive search, but we frequently advise on hiring, when to bring in a VP of Marketing, what to look for, how to structure compensation, when to keep work outsourced vs. internalize. The right hire depends on the platform stage and the operating model the sponsor underwrote.

How does ongoing execution get measured?

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Marketing-sourced EBITDA contribution, normalized for channel-mix shift and seasonality. Plus six leading indicators: customer acquisition cost trend, sourced-revenue contribution by channel, booked-call rate, average ticket trend by lead source, brand investment as a percentage of revenue, and local-pack share-of-voice by DMA. All reported on the same cadence as financial close.

What happens to the marketing function at exit?

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Everything Sheppard builds is owned by the portco: source code, infrastructure, data, documentation. The next sponsor inherits a working operating system with clean attribution, brand baselines, and a transferable systems pack. Platforms that ran this discipline through the hold defend their multiple in buyer-side diligence; platforms that didn't lose half a turn of EBITDA in negotiation.

Should I hire a fractional CMO or work with an agency?

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It's a false choice. A fractional CMO without execution capacity becomes a slide-deck function. An agency without strategic ownership becomes a media-buying function. The right model for most home services operators is a marketing function that combines both: strategic ownership at the senior level, full-stack execution underneath it, all reported as one number to the operating partner or owner. That's what Sheppard is.

What's the difference between embedded and managed engagement models?

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Embedded: Sheppard operates as the platform marketing function, runs the channels directly, builds or augments the internal team as the platform scales. Used when the portco has limited internal marketing capacity or when the sponsor wants a single accountable owner. Managed: Sheppard oversees the agency stack on the sponsor's behalf, holds vendors accountable to platform-level KPIs, consolidates spend. Used when the portco has good agency relationships in place that need operating discipline laid over the top. Same KPIs, same reporting, different execution model.

Have a portco that needs marketing to run, not negotiate?

Engage Sheppard