Your First 90 Days: The 30-60-90 Day Playbook for Marketing Leaders

Starting a new marketing leadership role is like being handed the keys to a car that's already moving. You need to understand where you're going, how fast you're travelling, and what's under the bonnet—all while keeping the vehicle on the road.

Too many marketing leaders make the mistake of either charging ahead with sweeping changes or spending months in "learning mode" without making any impact. Both approaches are dangerous. The first can destroy what's already working, whilst the second leaves you looking ineffective during the critical early period when stakeholders are forming their opinion of you.

The solution is a structured 30-60-90 day plan that balances immediate action with strategic learning. This approach, championed by growth experts like Elena Verna and Marc Thomas, gives you a framework to make meaningful contributions whilst building the deep understanding you need for long-term success.

Why Your First 90 Days Matter More Than You Think

Your first 90 days set the tone for everything that follows. During this period, you're not just learning the business—you're establishing credibility, building relationships, and proving your value to the organisation.

The challenge is that marketing results don't appear overnight. Unlike sales, where you can point to deals closed this month, marketing impact often takes weeks or months to materialise. This creates a perception problem: how do you demonstrate value when your biggest wins are still in the pipeline?

The answer lies in choosing the right mix of activities. You need some quick wins to show immediate impact, whilst simultaneously laying the groundwork for larger strategic initiatives that will pay dividends later.

Days 1-30: Protect and Optimise Existing Successes

Your first priority isn't to innovate—it's to understand what's already working and make sure you don't break it. This might sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how often new leaders inadvertently damage successful programmes because they didn't take time to understand them properly.

Week 1: Conduct a Marketing Audit

Start by mapping out everything that's currently happening:

• What campaigns are running and how are they performing?

• Which channels drive the most qualified leads or customers?

• What's the customer acquisition cost for each channel?

• Which pieces of content or landing pages convert best?

• What marketing technology stack is in place?

Don't rely solely on dashboards and reports. Talk to the people doing the work. Your paid media manager knows which ad creative actually drives results, even if it's not the one leadership thinks is performing best.

Week 2-3: Identify Quick Wins

Look for optimisations that have a high probability of positive impact based on your experience. These might include:

• Improving key landing pages with better headlines, clearer value propositions, or stronger calls-to-action

• Enhancing the onboarding sequence for new customers or leads

• Fixing obvious gaps in analytics tracking

• Optimising high-traffic pages for better conversion

• Improving email nurture sequences

The key word here is "obvious." Don't try to reinvent the wheel—focus on improvements that you're confident will work based on proven best practices.

Week 4: Implement and Measure

Execute your quick wins and establish proper measurement frameworks. This isn't just about proving ROI—it's about building confidence with your team and stakeholders that you can deliver results.

"The biggest mistake I see new marketing leaders make is trying to change everything at once. Your job in the first month is to be a protector of what's working, not a disruptor of everything that exists." - Elena Verna, Growth Advisor

Days 31-60: Explore and Validate Significant Opportunities

With a solid understanding of current performance and some early wins under your belt, you can start thinking bigger. This phase is about identifying opportunities that could drive substantial growth whilst validating them with your team and stakeholders.

Map the Customer Journey

By now you should have enough data and insight to map out your customer journey properly. Look for the biggest drop-off points and conversion barriers. These often represent your best opportunities for significant impact.

For example, if you're losing 70% of trial users before they convert to paid, that's a much bigger opportunity than optimising an ad campaign that's already performing well.

Engage Your Team in Opportunity Identification

Your team has been living with the current challenges and limitations. They often have great ideas that haven't been implemented due to resource constraints or lack of leadership support.

Hold structured brainstorming sessions focused on specific areas:

• What would we do if we had 50% more budget?

• What's the biggest conversion bottleneck we're not addressing?

• Which channels or tactics have we always wanted to test?

• What would a 10x better customer experience look like?

Validate Ideas Against Business Goals

Not every good idea is the right idea for your business right now. Evaluate opportunities against your company's strategic priorities, available resources, and risk tolerance.

Create a simple scoring framework:

This helps you make objective decisions rather than pursuing the shiniest new tactic.

Days 61-90: Develop and Implement Strategic Plans

The final phase is about turning your insights and validated opportunities into comprehensive strategies that will drive long-term success. This is where you shift from reactive optimisation to proactive strategic leadership.

Build Your 90-Day Strategic Roadmap

Based on everything you've learned, create a roadmap that balances different types of initiatives:

• Foundational improvements: Essential infrastructure, processes, or capabilities you need to build

• Growth experiments: New channels, tactics, or approaches to test

• Optimisation projects: Ongoing improvements to existing successful programmes

• Strategic initiatives: Larger projects that align with company-wide objectives

Don't try to do everything at once. Most marketing teams can handle 3-5 significant initiatives simultaneously without quality suffering.

Establish Success Metrics and Reporting

Define clear success metrics for each initiative and establish regular reporting cadences. This isn't just about tracking performance—it's about creating accountability and maintaining stakeholder confidence.

Your metrics should include:

• Leading indicators (activities and early-stage metrics)

• Lagging indicators (revenue, customer acquisition, etc.)

• Efficiency metrics (cost per acquisition, conversion rates, etc.)

Secure Resources and Buy-in

Use the credibility you've built over the first 60 days to secure the resources and support you need for your strategic initiatives. Present clear business cases that connect your proposed activities to company objectives.

This is also the time to address any team or process gaps that will limit your ability to execute effectively.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with a solid 30-60-90 day plan, there are several traps that can derail your success:

The Analysis Paralysis Trap

Some leaders spend so much time analysing and learning that they never actually do anything. Remember, you're paid to drive results, not to become the world's expert on your company's marketing history.

The Shiny Object Syndrome

It's tempting to chase the latest marketing trend or tactic, especially if you're coming from a different industry or company. Resist this urge. Focus on fundamentals first.

The Lone Wolf Mistake

Trying to do everything yourself is a recipe for burnout and poor results. Your job is to enable your team to do their best work, not to be the sole contributor.

The Communication Gap

Failing to communicate your plan, progress, and results regularly will undermine even the best strategy. Overcommunicate rather than undercommunicate, especially in your first 90 days.

Measuring Success Beyond the Numbers

Whilst metrics are important, your success in the first 90 days isn't just about hitting numbers. You should also evaluate:

• Team confidence and engagement

• Stakeholder satisfaction and trust

• Quality of relationships built

• Clarity of strategic direction

• Strength of processes and systems implemented

These softer measures often predict long-term success better than short-term performance metrics.

Setting Yourself Up for Long-term Success

Your 30-60-90 day plan isn't just about surviving your first quarter—it's about building the foundation for sustained success in your role. By the end of 90 days, you should have:

• Established credibility through early wins

• Built strong relationships with key stakeholders

• Developed a deep understanding of your business and market

• Created a strategic roadmap for continued growth

• Implemented systems and processes for ongoing success

The most successful marketing leaders don't just execute tactics—they build sustainable systems that continue delivering results long after they've moved on to the next challenge.

Your first 90 days set the trajectory for everything that follows. Get them right, and you'll have the foundation for a successful tenure. Get them wrong, and you'll spend months trying to recover credibility and momentum.

The structured approach outlined here gives you the best chance of making a meaningful impact whilst building the deep understanding you need for long-term success. It's not about being perfect—it's about being strategic, systematic, and focused on what matters most.

Successfully navigating your first 90 days as a marketing leader requires the right balance of immediate action and strategic thinking. But it also requires the right tools to execute effectively. Growth Method is the only AI-native project management tool built specifically for marketing and growth teams, helping leaders like you turn strategy into results.

Book a call to speak with Stuart, our founder, and discover how Growth Method can support your success in those critical first 90 days and beyond.