Working with a marketing agency: what happens in the first 90 days

The first 90 days with a marketing agency fall into three periods: the first 30 days for measurement and an audit of the current state, the next 30 for small-budget tests, and the last 30 for growing the channel that works. A business expecting a sales surge in month one and an agency that only sends reports in month one are two sides of the same misunderstanding.

What an agency does and how to choose one is covered in a separate piece; this one is about what happens after the contract is signed.

What should you give the agency before starting?

The agency’s speed depends on what you hand over in the first week:

• Access. Ad accounts, Analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console and the site’s admin panel. The accounts stay in your name; the agency gets permissions.
• Three numbers. What an average sale is worth to you, how many leads a month you can handle, and what a customer costs you to win today.
• The sales process. After a lead comes in, who calls and how quickly? What share of leads turn into sales?
• History. What has been tried before, and what did not work?
• A single contact. Someone who can approve. A campaign waiting on three approvers waits three weeks.

The first 30 days: measurement and audit

The output of this period is not sales but correct data. A good agency:

• Audits conversion tracking: are forms, calls, WhatsApp and purchases counted correctly?
• Reviews the existing campaigns and where the spend is going.
• Goes through the landing pages and the form flow.
• Hands over its findings in writing, in priority order.

The documents you should see this month are an audit report and a 90-day plan. An agency that says “we optimised the campaigns” while measurement is broken has optimised wrong data. What is worth measuring is in the GA4 guide.

Days 31–60: testing

Once measurement is fixed, small-budget tests begin. Each test should have three things: a hypothesis, a budget and a stop threshold.

For example: “A dedicated page for people searching for this service will lower cost per lead. We will test it for two weeks on this budget; if cost stays above this threshold, we will switch it off.”

Some tests fail in this period, and that is normal. The warning sign is not failure but nothing ever being switched off. If everything stays on under “let’s give it a bit longer”, no testing is being done.

Days 61–90: scaling

The budget of the campaign that works is raised in steps; the one that does not is closed. The language of the report should change in this period: from clicks and impressions to cost per lead and leads that turned into sales.

By the end of month three you should be able to get a clear answer to this question: what does a customer cost us to win, and how has that changed since day one? If it cannot be answered, the problem is in measurement, not in the campaign.

What should the report show?

• Lead count and cost per lead, by channel.
• Qualified lead rate. How many of the leads are real prospects?
• Leads that turned into sales, with input from your sales team.
• What was tried last period and what was learned.
• What will be done next period, and why.

If half the report is charts and the other half impressions and clicks, you are being sent activity, not results.

What on your side breaks the process?

Working with an agency is sharing the work, not handing it off. The three failures we see most:

• Slow follow-up on leads. A lead called within the hour and a lead called the next day do not convert at the same rate. However good the ad, a poor response time makes the result look poor.
• Sales information not coming back. If you do not tell the agency which leads became customers, it will multiply form-fillers, not customers.
• Late approvals. If creative, copy and page-change approvals wait for weeks, the test calendar slips.

When should you worry?

• At day 30, if there is no written audit and plan.
• At day 60, if no test has been closed, or nobody can explain what was tested.
• At day 90, if your customer acquisition cost is still unknown.
• At any point, if you do not have access to your ad account.
• Whenever poor results are explained by outside factors every time: season, algorithm, competitors.

If one of these applies, raise it; if two do, read the exit clause in the contract. How the fee model shapes this behaviour is covered in ad agency pricing.

Frequently asked questions

Does a marketing agency deliver results in the first month? Ad channels produce data in the first weeks, but results that arrive before measurement is verified are misleading. A reliable assessment takes three months; longer for SEO.

How much of my time does an agency need? A few hours a week in the first month: access, briefing, approvals. After that a short weekly call and a monthly review are enough.

How long should the contract be? Three months is reasonable for a first term; that is how long an assessment takes. A one-year commitment with no exit binds you, not the agency.

What do I lose if I change agencies? Nothing, if the accounts are in your name: the campaign history and data stay with you. If you ran in the agency’s account, all of it.

Can my existing ad account be taken over? Yes. The healthy start is a review of the account and measurement, with findings handed over in writing.

At Boygantech the first job is always a measurement audit, and results are reported in closed sales, not clicks. If you would like to look at your account together, you can book a call from our digital marketing agency page.