What should I expect during the first 90 days with a marketing agency? Weeks 1-2 audit, baseline and build; weeks 3-6 launch and the first measurable movement; weeks 7-12 content compounding and the first targeting corrections. By day 90 you should have call data, ranking movement and at least one deliberate change made on evidence.
The checkpoint that matters is day 90: by then you should be able to name a decision the agency made because of something it measured.
- Published pricing — $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, on the site.
- Month to month. No contract is holding you anywhere.
- A former attorney of 17 years who filed 5,000+ cases works your account.
- You see your rankings move for 14 days before you are billed a dollar.
- Law firms only — no other industries, ever.
| Attorney Pro Marketing | Scorpion | FindLaw | Typical legal agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing published on the website | Yes — $2,500 / $3,500 / $4,500 per month | Not published | Not published | Rarely published |
| Contract term | Month to month, 30 days’ notice | Not published | Not published | Commonly 12 months |
| Who works on your account | A former attorney of 17 years, in every account | Assigned account team | Assigned account team | Account manager, often across industries |
| Your website is built on | Standard, portable code | Proprietary platform | FirmSite platform | Varies — ask before signing |
| See results before you are billed | Yes — 14 days, then you decide | No | No | No |
| Ad spend billed by Google directly to you | Yes, no markup | Ask | Ask | Often passes through the agency |
“Not published” means the figure does not appear on that company’s own website as of October 2026 — check for yourself before you sign anything, with them or with us.
Weeks 1-2: Audit and Baseline
Nothing visible happens in the first fortnight, and that is correct. What should happen is the work that makes everything afterward measurable.
- A documented baseline. Where you rank today for your target terms, your current call volume, your profile position. Without this, no later claim about improvement can be checked.
- The intake conversation. Travel radius, courthouse, submarkets, competitors, languages, which matters you want and which you decline. This drives the targeting more than any other input.
- A technical audit. Site speed, mobile rendering, indexing problems, the Google Business Profile, citation consistency.
- Access and ownership sorted. Who holds the domain, the hosting, the ad account, the profile. Settle this at the start; it is painful to untangle later.
- Tracking installed. Call tracking, analytics, conversion events. Installed before launch, or the launch is unmeasurable.
If week two ends with no written baseline, raise it immediately. An agency that skips the baseline is an agency whose later reports cannot be audited, and that is usually not an accident.
Weeks 3-6: Launch and First Movement
This is where things become visible.
- The site or new pages go live. You should have read and approved everything before it published — you carry the advertising-rule exposure on anything under your bar card.
- Redirects, if the site changed. Every old URL mapped to a new one and tested. This is the single most common place where a relaunch destroys existing rankings.
- Google Business Profile work takes effect. Categories, services, photos, posts, review responses. This is the fastest-moving asset and movement here is the earliest honest signal.
- Paid search begins, if in scope. Expect the first two to three weeks to look inefficient. The account is learning and the negative-keyword list is still being built.
- First calls arrive and are tracked. Not many. The point at this stage is that they are attributable.
By week six you should be able to search your main terms in a private window and see something different from week one. Local pack movement typically shows first; organic positions lag.
Weeks 7-12: Compounding and the First Corrections
The second half of the quarter is where a good engagement separates from a busy one.
Content continues publishing. Rankings on longer-tail terms begin to move. Paid search, if running, should now have enough data that the negative-keyword list is substantial and cost per call is falling rather than flat.
Most importantly, this is when the first corrections should happen. Eight to ten weeks of data is enough to see that one practice area is converting and another is not, or that a term producing a lot of calls is producing no signed matters. An agency that notices this and reallocates is doing the job. An agency that reports the same five numbers each month without changing anything is running a template.
This is also when your signed-case list starts to matter. Whether a call became a client happens inside your practice-management system, where the agency's tools cannot see. Ten minutes a month supplying that list is what lets targeting follow retainers instead of form fills.
The Day 90 Checkpoint
At the end of the first quarter, you should be able to answer all six of these. If you cannot, something is wrong.
- What was the baseline? Written down, from week one, available on request.
- What moved? Specific terms, specific positions, specific local-pack placements.
- How many calls, and from where? Attributed by channel, not a single total.
- How many became clients? From your own records, cross-referenced against the calls.
- What changed because of evidence? At least one deliberate decision traceable to something measured.
- What is next quarter's plan, and why? Reasoning, not a list of deliverables.
Note what is not on that list: a finished SEO programme, a full return on the spend, or a stable flow of new matters. Ninety days is early. Organic search is still compounding at this point and the honest expectation is partial.
What you should have is evidence that the machine works and is being steered, which is a different and more useful thing than results.
What Going Wrong Looks Like
Four patterns worth catching inside the first quarter, while switching is still cheap.
- No baseline was ever documented. Everything after this is unverifiable. Ask once, in writing. If it does not appear, that is the answer.
- Reports arrive but nothing changes. Same metrics, same layout, no decisions. The work is being performed rather than managed.
- You have not been asked for anything. No intake conversation, no approval requests, no signed-case data. An agency needing nothing from you is optimising blind.
- The site relaunched without a redirect map. If rankings dropped sharply in week four, this is usually why, and it needs fixing immediately rather than waiting out.
Any of these in the first ninety days is worth raising directly and in writing. All four together is a reason to use the notice period.
Attorney Pro Marketing's version of this calendar starts earlier than most: the day 0 baseline is taken before anything is built, and the day 14 report shows the movement against it before you are billed for that period. Sites launch within three days rather than at week six, which pulls the whole sequence forward.
Every page is sent for your approval before it publishes, the signed-case list is requested monthly, and call tracking with recordings from the Growth tier ($3,500) is what makes the day 90 questions answerable rather than rhetorical. Published pricing, month to month with 30 days' notice.
See it before you pay for it.
We snapshot your rankings on day 0, build and launch your site within three days, and show you the movement on day 14. If it has not moved enough to be worth continuing, you owe nothing for that period and you keep the Google Business Profile work.
Related Questions
Weeks one and two are audit and baseline: documented current rankings and call volume, the intake conversation about practice areas and geography, a technical audit, sorting access and ownership, and installing tracking. Weeks three and four typically bring the first pages live and Google Business Profile work taking effect.
Google Business Profile and local pack movement typically shows within four to six weeks. Paid search produces calls quickly but looks inefficient for the first two to three weeks while the account learns. Organic rankings on longer-tail terms begin moving around weeks seven to twelve, with meaningful compounding beyond ninety days.
A documented baseline from week one, live approved pages, tracked and attributed calls, measurable local movement, signed-case data cross-referenced against calls, at least one deliberate change made because of evidence, and a reasoned plan for the next quarter. Not a finished programme or full return on spend.
No baseline was ever documented, making later claims unverifiable; reports arriving with no decisions attached to them; the agency asking you for nothing — no intake conversation, no copy approvals, no signed-case data; and a site relaunched without a tested redirect map, which typically shows as a sharp ranking drop around week four.