The first few months with a new agency can feel strange. Progress moves slower than you hoped, yet the calendar somehow fills up faster than expected. A lot of that early time goes into onboarding, learning the business, and figuring out how everyone will work together.
If the relationship works, things usually start to click somewhere around the two-month mark.
Here's what normally happens during those first ninety days.
Most of the first month is about information exchange.
Your agency needs access to your systems. Analytics, ad platforms, the CMS, the CRM. They also need the background story. What has worked before. What failed. Who actually approves decisions inside the company.
During this period the agency is usually reviewing past campaigns, studying competitors, and talking with people across the organization. Sales teams, product leads, customer service, executives. Each conversation fills in another part of the picture.
On the client side, the work is mostly about access and clarity. Introductions to the right people. Historical data. Context that doesn't show up in dashboards. Internal politics, budget constraints, lessons from earlier marketing attempts all matter here.
Many companies rush through this stage because they want to see creative work or new campaigns right away. That urge is understandable. But skipping discovery almost always creates problems later. Months down the road you end up fixing decisions that should have been informed by basic context.
If your agency is not asking difficult questions about past performance or internal challenges, that is a warning sign. Discovery requires curiosity and sometimes uncomfortable conversations.
By the second month, the agency should start showing you how they interpret what they learned.
This usually appears as a written strategy and a roadmap for the next six to twelve months. It might include campaign concepts, content ideas, or media recommendations depending on the scope of work.
You may also see a few smaller initiatives launch during this period. These are often quick projects that can go live while larger efforts are still being built.
At this point the relationship also starts to shift a bit. Feedback loops get faster. Trust either starts forming or it does not. Teams settle into a rhythm of meetings, approvals, and revisions.
By the end of the second month you should have a clear sense of whether the partnership works. That judgment is about how the agency operates day to day. Do they understand the business? Do they communicate clearly? Does their work make your job easier or harder?
Real performance gains take longer than sixty days. But the working relationship reveals itself quickly.
By the third month, the early work should start turning into real output.
Campaigns begin running. Content starts publishing. Paid media programs get adjusted based on the first round of data. The team finally moves from planning conversations to actual execution.
This is also when you see how the agency handles real conditions. Deadlines move. Leadership asks for changes. A campaign performs better or worse than expected. The agency's response to those moments tells you more than any presentation during the pitch process.
You will not see a full marketing turnaround in ninety days. Most channels need more time than that to produce reliable results. Search programs take months to build traction. Brand work often takes even longer to show up in performance metrics.
What you should see by this point is forward motion. Work is moving. The agency understands the business. Conversations become more direct because both sides know how the other operates.
Most partnerships that fail in the first quarter do not collapse because of creative quality. The real problems tend to be expectation gaps.
Sometimes the agency oversold the speed of change during the pitch process. The client expected rapid results and discovers that marketing moves more slowly than promised.
Sometimes the client brings the agency in but does not invest enough time in onboarding. Without context the agency guesses at priorities and the work misses the mark.
Another common issue is unclear expectations. The client imagines best-in-class work while the agency delivers something that improves on the status quo but does not match the unspoken standard in the client's head.
Decision bottlenecks also cause friction. Campaigns sit in legal review for weeks. Executives request revisions after work is nearly complete. The agency waits while the clock keeps running.
There is also the familiar situation where the senior team leads the pitch, then disappears once the contract is signed. The day-to-day work ends up handled by people the client never met.
Any of these situations can strain the relationship early.
Treat your agency the same way you would treat a new hire. They need context and access to do good work.
Start with clear goals. "Increase awareness" or "generate more leads" does not help much. Something specific does. Fifty qualified leads per month. Ownership of a topic within the industry. A measurable shift in a defined audience.
Explain how decisions get made inside the company. If brand work requires CEO approval, say that upfront. If legal review adds two weeks to any campaign launch, build that into the schedule.
It also helps to appoint a single internal point person. Someone who gathers feedback, routes requests, and keeps the relationship organized. Without that structure agencies often spend too much time trying to figure out who owns which decision.
Share what failed before. Previous campaigns, messaging experiments, past agency relationships. That history saves everyone time. At the same time, stay open to revisiting ideas that did not work earlier. Execution and timing change outcomes.
Feedback should happen in real time whenever possible. Waiting until a monthly review meeting allows small issues to grow into larger ones.
Try to shield the agency from internal turbulence. Every company deals with shifting priorities and budget pressure. Filtering that chaos gives the agency a stable environment where they can actually produce good work.
At the ninety-day mark you should not expect a complete turnaround in marketing performance.
You should have a strategy that the team believes in. Campaigns or projects should already be running. Metrics for evaluating performance should be defined. The teams on both sides should understand how decisions and communication work.
Most important, you should feel confident that the agency understands the business.
If those pieces are in place, the next phase becomes easier. The following months focus on refining what launched and expanding what works.
If those pieces are missing, something needs to be addressed quickly. Sometimes the issue is agency capability. Sometimes it is internal resourcing or slow approvals. Many problems can be fixed early if both sides talk about them directly.
The first three months set the tone for the entire partnership. Agencies can do good work when they are integrated into the business and when expectations stay clear from the start.
Plan for 5-10 hours per week in month one (mostly meetings and onboarding), 3-5 hours per week in month two (feedback and approvals), and 2-3 hours per week in month three (reviews and planning). If your agency needs more of your time than that, either your team isn't supporting them properly or they're not running efficiently.
You should see directional progress, not a full transformation. Campaigns should be live. Content should be publishing. You should have baseline performance data. But marketing takes time to compound. The work your agency does in month two might not show a measurable impact until month five.
Most contracts have 30-60 day out clauses for exactly this reason. If you're confident the fit is wrong, act fast. But make sure you're evaluating the right things. Slow progress in month one isn't necessarily a red flag. Poor communication or strategic thinking that doesn't match your needs is.
Your agency should attend any meeting where marketing decisions are being made or where they need context to do their work well. They shouldn't attend meetings just to "stay informed." Be selective about their time.
Be specific about what's not working and why. Tie feedback to business goals or brand strategy. If your feedback is "this doesn't feel right," you need to do more work to articulate what "right" looks like.
Both. You should set the strategic direction and priorities. Your agency should identify opportunities, flag risks, and recommend changes within that direction. If you're micromanaging execution, you hired an order-taker. If your agency is making strategic pivots without your input, they're overstepping.
Kevin Smith : 3/1/24 10:05 AM
If you ever wonder why your website isn't converting as well as you'd hoped, you're not alone. As a digital marketing agency, we've seen firsthand...
.png)
Carol Montoto : 7/30/20 8:41 AM
Today we are proud to launch a new logo for Mighty Roar, and wanted to provide context as to why we decided to evolve the look and feel of our brand.
Kevin Smith : 12/17/20 8:57 AM
As we close the books on a bizarre year, we're incredibly grateful for our fantastic team and clients that enabled our success – regardless of what...
Kevin Smith