What good oversight looks like in the first 90 days with a new marketing partner

Hiring the agency feels like the finish line. It’s really the start. The first 90 days decide whether the relationship lasts, and most of what goes wrong later traces back to something nobody set up at the beginning.

Large advertisers have learned to make these relationships last. According to the ANA and the 4A’s, advertisers now keep their agencies for about seven years on average, more than double the 3.2 years reported in 2016. Small businesses switch far faster. The difference isn’t luck. It’s oversight.

Here’s what good oversight looks like, stage by stage.

Before day one: agree what “working” means

• One or two numbers the partner is accountable for, with a starting baseline. Not “brand awareness,” but something you can check: qualified leads, cost per new customer, repeat purchase rate. 
• Who owns what. Ad accounts, analytics, the email platform and creative files should sit in accounts the business owns, with the partner added as a user. 
• How you’ll talk. A weekly check-in for the first month, then a short written report every month. 
• What happens if it isn’t working. Agree the notice period and how handover works now, while everyone is still on good terms.

Days 1 to 30: access, audit, plan

Expect the partner to spend the first weeks learning, not launching. A good one will audit what exists, flag tracking problems and come back with a plan for the next 60 days. Your job is to answer questions quickly and sort out access. Slow access is one of the most common reasons a 90-day plan slips.

Red flag: big launches in week one with no audit. Speed feels good, but it usually means a template is being run.

Days 31 to 60: first tests

Now the work should be live. Look for a short list of tests, each with a clear reason behind it, not twenty things at once. Reports should explain what changed and what happens next, not just list metrics.

This is also when you should see proof that tracking works. The numbers in the partner’s report should match what you see in your own analytics. If they don’t, fix that before you judge anything else.

Red flag: reports full of activity (posts published, ads launched, emails sent) with no link back to the numbers you agreed before day one.

Days 61 to 90: the first honest review

Sit down with the plan you agreed at the start. Which tests worked, which didn’t, and what does the partner recommend stopping? A partner who is confident in the work will happily cut what isn’t working.

By now you should be able to answer three questions. Is the agreed number moving? Do you trust the reporting? Would you hire them again today? Two yeses is a good start. Three noes means it’s time to reset the brief, or exit while the cost is still small.

Who does the overseeing?

This is where small companies struggle. The founder is the obvious person, and also the busiest. Oversight drifts, reports go unread, and by month six nobody remembers exactly what the partner was hired to do.

Some founders hand this to a senior team member. Others bring in an outside marketing advisor whose job is to check the work against the plan and push back when it slips. That’s part of what Connectwright does after it places a partner, and you can read how it works at connectwright.com.

Either way, make oversight someone’s job. Work that belongs to everyone belongs to no one.

Connectwright is a marketing advisor for founders, based in New York. Partners it introduces pay it a referral fee, and you’ll always know before you sign.