CMO Services Case Study

Dr. Harvey’s Fine Health Food for Companion Animals

Dr. Harvey's Needed A Fractional CMO

“Lewis and TechCXO played a critical role in helping to scale Dr. Harvey’s, bringing in best-in-class agencies and resources to accelerate our growth.”

Overview

Dr. Harvey’s is a family-owned company specializing in all-natural, human-grade food for companion animals. Committed to promoting holistic health through premium nutrition, the brand has built a loyal customer base by delivering high-quality products that support pet wellness.

As the competitive landscape intensified, Dr. Harvey’s embraced the need to sharpen its marketing strategy in order to expand reach and accelerate brand growth without compromising its core values.

Challenges

As demand for premium pet nutrition surged, Dr. Harvey’s leadership recognized several critical operational and strategic gaps that needed to be addressed before they could capitalize on those category tailwinds. These included:

  • Selecting agencies to optimize performance marketing efforts and improve site conversion 
  • Growing the business while evaluating and onboarding more senior-level talent 
  • Creating a more structured approach to forecasting and budgeting to provide clear sales goals 
  • Maintaining brand integrity and limiting discounts in the face of competitors who leaned heavily on discounts of 50-70%, and up to 100% off free trials to attract customers

The challenge was to scale effectively in this price-driven environment, attract new customers, and drive measurable growth while staying true to what makes Dr. Harvey’s distinct as a premium brand.

Goals

The Dr. Harvey’s leadership team consisted of just three family members, with Ty Cohen – one of the founders’ sons – driving the company’s marketing/sales, technology, and operations. As the company grew, he recognized the need to bring in additional strategic leadership expertise from outside the family in order to continue scaling the business. What he needed was help in selecting the right resources and having a thoughtful plan and approach to building out the business. All of this had to occur while keeping the company growing at a rapid pace in a highly competitive market.

Solutions

To address these challenges, Lewis Goldman joined Dr. Harvey’s as a fractional CMO. His role was to provide strategic direction, build performance marketing muscle, and lay the foundation for sustainable growth. As part of this marketing leadership role, he:

  • Selected and managed a new digital agency to lead paid Google and Meta advertising 
  • Defined revenue targets for Q4 2023 and longer-term goals for 2024 and 2025 
  • Partnered with both a new performance marketing agency and existing email agency to achieve cross-channel goals 
  • Worked with Ty Cohen to onboard a new creative director to meet growing advertising, marketing, and content needs, including tapping TechCXO’s Human Capital practice and expertise for this and subsequent senior-level hiring 
  • Led the search and selection for an agency to amplify conversion rate optimization 
  • Participated in the search for a new full-time CMO who joined in February 2025, working closely with them to formalize revenue and marketing budgeting and tracking

Together, these initiatives established a clear performance marketing roadmap, and strengthened the leadership bench to support ongoing growth.

Lewis Goldman joined as a Fractional CMO, and over the next year and a half, the business surpassed its budgeted goals by growing over 30%...cost-effectively.

Lewis Goldman

Fractional CMO

Lewis served as Fractional CMO, driving strategic marketing initiatives and performance growth.

Outcome

With fractional CMO leadership in place, Dr. Harvey’s exceeded budgeted targets in Q4 2023 and throughout 2024, delivering over 30% growth through performance-based advertising and smarter operations. The company now benefits from a larger, more capable internal leadership team, and is equipped with systems and processes that position it for continued growth and success — without compromising the values that have defined the brand for over four decades.

Exceeded Goals

Performance marketing delivers 30% growth

Enhanced Capabilities

Refined leadership capabilities, renewed success possibilities

“Lewis and TechCXO played a critical role in helping to scale Dr. Harvey’s, bringing in best-in-class agencies and resources to accelerate our growth. He provided valuable insights and perspectives on how to profitably grow the business, as well as set up a budgeting process to track our progress against key business goals. The recruiting resources of TechCXO were also very valuable, as they helped us fill multiple leadership roles with outstanding individuals quickly and at a fraction of the cost of engaging with a recruiting firm. Lewis and TechCXO are terrific resources for companies looking to grow quickly.”

- Ty Cohen Vice President

dr harveys