10 Insights from New Marketing and Digital Leaders in their First 90 Days

Starting a new marketing or digital leadership role is one of the most demanding transitions in professional life.  

The expectations are high, the context is unfamiliar, and the decisions that matter most tend to arrive before you feel ready to make them.

As Nathalie Vezina, Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group, puts it:

"Whether new to the position or looking to reset strategic priorities, marketing leaders face intense pressure to prove their value quickly."

We looked at the research into how marketing and digital leaders experience their first 90 days. These are the ten things that come up most consistently. 

1. The digital estate rarely matches the interview process picture

Most new leaders find that the digital estate they inherit is performing differently from how it was described during recruitment. Analytics configurations are incomplete, performance data has gaps, and some platform or agency commitments look different from the inside. This is not unusual. It simply means that an early, honest audit of the current state is more valuable than acting on the picture you were given before you started.

2. Internal data has limits 

The data available inside most organisations reflects how the previous team configured it and the questions they were asking. It is a useful starting point but rarely sufficient on its own to build a credible investment case. Leaders who supplement internal data with independent analysis early in their tenure tend to make better-evidenced decisions and find it easier to secure stakeholder alignment. 

3. Competitive context is often missing

Many organisations do not hold an up-to-date, independent view of where they stand competitively in digital. The benchmarks that exist tend to be internally produced and measured against a possibly wrongly-familiar peer set. Research consistently shows that leaders who build external competitive intelligence in their first months make more confident strategic decisions and achieve stronger performance outcomes over time. 

4. Platform decisions arrive early

Pressure to make platform and technology decisions typically arrives before a new leader has had time to develop a full strategic view. Rebuild conversations, migration discussions, and agency reviews often surface within the first two months. Taking the time to establish a clear digital direction before committing to platform decisions produces better outcomes and avoids costly course corrections later. 

5. The pressure to demonstrate impact is immediate 

The average CMO tenure in the UK is around 18 months, which reflects the pace at which these roles are evaluated, including those that sit underneath. Vezina puts it plainly:

"The short average tenure of CMOs indicates high expectations and the volatile nature of this position within marketing and the C-suite. Success depends on quickly addressing major challenges, such as filling knowledge gaps, developing a strategic plan, and implementing impactful initiatives."

Finding early wins that build credibility - without foreclosing longer-term options - is one of the most practically important skills in a leadership transition. 

6. Budget conversations happen before the evidence base is built

Marketing budget is treated as discretionary spend in most organisations, which means new leaders are often asked to justify investment before they have had time to produce a robust evidence base. Alex Venus, Head of Digital and Web Marketing at Personio, describes the challenge directly:

"What I see a lot of the time is marketers who are going to run an integrated campaign to an audience they've never spoken to before, about a product that didn't exist 12 months ago, using a channel they're testing out. There are too many unknowns to have a useful conversation with your CFO."

Having a clear, structured approach to building the evidence base quickly - drawing on both internal data and external benchmarks - makes a significant difference to how those early conversations go.

7. Boards and finance teams need a different kind of argument

Fewer than 44% of chief marketing officers present revenue-oriented metrics to their leadership teams, and fewer than 3% make it to board-level positions. The investment cases that secure budget approval connect digital activity to commercial outcomes - revenue, acquisition cost, retention, brand authority - rather than presenting a strategic rationale alone. Understanding what financial language your board responds to, and building your case in that language from the start, is one of the more practical things a new leader can do early in their tenure.

8. The CFO relationship takes deliberate investment

Research rates the CMO-CFO relationship at just 4.5 out of 7 for effectiveness in building a business case for marketing investment, and fewer than half of organisations report marketing and finance working together on growth decisions. Graham Wylie, CMO at Activpayroll, is direct about what works:

"Buy-in is easier to achieve with better collaboration and alignment across the business. It's about understanding what's worked well in the past year, what we want to continue doing, and what'll be relevant in the next 18 months - then develop a budget requirement starting from zero."

Leaders who invest time in building that relationship early, and who frame digital investment in terms finance teams recognise, report significantly better outcomes when it comes to budget approval.

9. Early decisions set the trajectory

The decisions made in the first 90 days tend to have a disproportionate influence on how a tenure develops. Commitments made quickly - to platforms, agencies, or strategic directions - are harder to revisit later. Leaders who take a structured approach to evaluating options before committing, even under time pressure, consistently report better outcomes at the 12-month mark.

10. Building the full investment case internally takes longer than expected

Producing a credible, board-ready digital investment case from internal sources alone - a performance baseline, a competitive benchmark, a platform direction, an ROI framework - typically takes three to six months. Many new leaders underestimate that timeline. Those who find ways to accelerate the evidence-gathering process, whether through external support or structured diagnostic tools, are better placed to have the right conversations at the right time.

A practical starting point

If you are early in a new role and want an honest, independent read of where your digital estate currently stands, our Digital Optimisation Assessment takes ten minutes and gives you a benchmarked view across the dimensions that matter most to a digital investment case.