Step-by-step plan for improving performance metrics

Framing the growth challenge

Building a digital brand today means competing in noisy ad auctions, algorithmic feeds, and constantly evolving search results. Founders face a paradox: speed is vital, yet sustainable growth demands systems. There is pressure to hit targets within a quarter while also laying foundations that compound over time. Most teams are spread thin, operating without a single source of truth, and testing tactics without a clear measurement framework. That is why a disciplined 90-day plan matters.

The risk is not a lack of channels but a lack of clarity about sequence, quality of signals, and feedback loops. If tracking is messy and landing pages are generic, you will pay rising costs for clicks that cannot convert. If content is misaligned with intent, organic potential stalls. Without a tight testing cadence, ad platforms spend budget on noise. A practical marketing roadmap solves this by prioritizing data quality first, then controlled experiments, then scaling what works.

Why SEO and Paid Ads are essential

SEO builds compounding demand capture. It aligns your pages with buyer intent, improves technical performance, and grows authority so you can acquire traffic at lower marginal cost. Paid Ads turn hypotheses into data quickly. They validate offers, price points, audiences, and messages in days, not months. Used together, they create a powerful loop: search term data and audience signals from ads inform content and landing pages, while improved relevance and conversion rates make paid spend more efficient. In short, SEO makes you easier to find and trust, while paid accelerates learning and revenue.

This guide shows how to run an integrated seo ppc 90 day plan that pairs technical SEO fixes with paid pilots and conversion optimization, all under a single analytics setup. The result is a digital growth plan you can repeat and scale.

What you will learn

• A phased execution plan that prioritizes impact and speed.
• SEO tech fixes and Paid pilots that validate demand and messaging.
• CRO improvements that lift conversion and reduce acquisition cost.
• Benchmarks for success so you know when to scale or pivot.
• Tools and analytics setup that make every test measurable.

Industry overview

Digital commerce and subscription categories continue to grow, but performance marketing is more complex. Privacy shifts reduce audience match rates, search results include more AI-driven answers, and social platforms optimize delivery with broad targeting. Video creative and fast, mobile-first experiences dominate. Many startups show medium digital maturity: tags are present but not audited, events exist but do not map to a clear funnel, and content often targets broad keywords rather than problem-solution queries. Budgets are spread across too many channels without winners.

Key behaviors and challenges: buyers research on mobile, expect fast pages and transparent pricing, and rely heavily on reviews and comparisons. Branded search can convert strongly, but generic category queries are competitive and often captured by marketplaces and publishers. Typical ranges to expect in early tests: search CPC 0.8 to 3.5 USD, social CPC 0.6 to 1.8 USD, top of funnel conversion rate 0.5 to 1.5 percent, bottom of funnel conversion rate 2 to 5 percent, and blended ROAS 2 to 4 once you find fit between audience, offer, and landing page.

Common challenges

• Thin or misaligned demand capture - pages target broad terms and fail to match intent, so traffic bounces and paid clicks underperform.
• Fragmented data - inconsistent UTM structure and missing events prevent reliable CAC and ROAS calculation.
• Slow pages and technical debt - poor Core Web Vitals and index bloat suppress rankings and raise bounce rates.
• Generic offers and creative - unclear value proposition and weak proofs reduce click through and conversion rates.
• Spray and pray testing - too many variables at once, no control groups, and no stop rules burn budget without learnings.

Strategy: 90-Day Growth Roadmap

Month 1 - Foundations, tracking, and SEO readiness

• Analytics and data quality: implement GA4 with a documented event model, configure key conversions such as add to cart, lead, and purchase with values, and unify a UTM naming convention for source, medium, campaign, content, and creative. Verify cross-domain tracking if needed and enable server side tagging if available.
• Tooling: connect Search Console, Merchant Center or product feed if relevant, and set up paid platform pixels. Build a simple live dashboard for spend, sessions, conversion rate, CAC, and ROAS using a data visualization tool.
• Technical SEO: fix indexation (noindex thin pages, canonicalize duplicates), compress images, lazy load below-the-fold media, and target LCP under 2.5s and CLS under 0.1. Submit a clean XML sitemap and fix top crawl errors.
• Message and offer map: define your jobs to be done statements, three value propositions, two proof types (social and technical), and one clear primary CTA per page.
• Landing pages: create or refine at least three intent-matched pages, such as problem-solution, comparison versus alternatives, and a bottom-of-funnel offer page with risk reversal and trust marks. Ship an email capture for exit intent with a compelling lead magnet or first order incentive.
• Content plan: brief five search intent posts around specific pain points and buyer questions. Include internal linking to transactional pages and add simple FAQ schema.
• Paid pilot design: define hypotheses, pre-register success metrics, and set guardrails. Example hypothesis: audience A with value prop X on landing page B will deliver a purchase CVR of 3 percent at CPC under 1.50 USD.

Month 2 - Launch controlled paid pilots and publish content

• Search ads: create two to three tightly themed ad groups per core intent. Use exact and phrase match, add 20 to 40 negatives, and write three responsive ads per group with distinct angle tests, such as urgency, proof, and savings. Start with modest daily budgets and a max CPC ceiling aligned to your target CPA.
• Social ads: build two audiences per stage of funnel. Top of funnel uses interest or broad with two creative concepts and three variations each. Middle of funnel retargets engaged visitors and video viewers with social proof and offer reminder.
• Content go live: publish and index the five planned posts, each with a unique call to action and internal links to your landing pages. Track content assisted conversions by creating a segment in your analytics.
• CRO experiments: run two A or B tests per month. Examples: shorter hero headline that includes benefit plus proof, simplified pricing section, or an offer with risk reversal. Define a minimum detectable effect and sample size so you stop tests responsibly.
• Diagnostics: install heatmaps and session recordings on key pages, tag onsite surveys to collect objections, and export search terms weekly to add negatives and find new keyword opportunities.
• Feed and catalog hygiene if ecommerce: ensure product titles include brand, type, and differentiator, fix disapprovals, and group bestsellers into a test campaign.

Month 3 - Scale winners, deepen SEO, and harden conversion

• Scale what works: raise budgets 20 to 30 percent weekly on winning ad groups that meet CPA and ROAS thresholds. Expand match types carefully and duplicate top performers into experiment campaigns to test bidding strategies and landing page variants.
• Broaden capture: add competitor and comparison queries and ship dedicated comparison pages. Publish two more bottom-of-funnel articles such as best alternatives and case uses with proof blocks.
• CRO and retention: implement a post purchase email with onboarding tips, set up cart recovery messages, and add a quiz or guided finder to increase engagement and first session conversion.
• Authority and links: pursue three to five relevant placements through partnerships and by pitching data stories. Add testimonials, badges, and real use cases to key pages for social proof.
• Speed and UX: ship image CDNs or next gen formats, preconnect critical domains, and optimize fonts to further reduce LCP. Audit mobile tap targets and form friction to improve completion rates.
• Planning the next quarter: summarize cohort retention, lifetime value signals, and hero creative insights. Lock in investment for the best channel and creative mix, and draft the next 90-day plan with higher targets.

KPIs and benchmarks

• Organic impressions and click through rate: target 3 to 8 percent CTR by month 3 on branded and bottom-of-funnel pages.
• Search CPC and social CPC: expect 0.8 to 3.5 USD on search and 0.6 to 1.8 USD on social for early tests. Use these to sanity check budgets and CPAs.
• Conversion rate: aim for 2 to 5 percent checkout conversion for ecommerce and 5 to 12 percent form completion for lead gen from qualified traffic.
• Cost per acquisition: within 1.2 to 2.0 times blended gross margin in 90 days, trending down as CRO improves.
• ROAS: 1.5 to 2.5 in month 2, 2.5 to 4.0 in month 3 on winning campaigns, with a blended target aligned to payback goals.
• Page experience: LCP under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1, and error rate under 1 percent across key templates.

Real-world example and case insight

What a winning campaign might look like: A new direct to consumer wellness brand sells a 48 USD monthly supplement. Before the plan, they had 18,000 monthly sessions, a 1.2 percent conversion rate, AOV 53 USD with occasional bundles, and no reliable CAC due to broken attribution. Gross margin is 65 percent, target payback is within 90 days.

Month 1 actions: The team implemented GA4 with purchase values, standardized UTM naming, and verified pixel events. They fixed index bloat, compressed images, and achieved an average LCP of 2.2s. They launched three landing pages: problem-solution, comparison versus a common alternative, and an offer page with a 15 percent first order incentive. They also briefed five intent posts and built a dashboard to track spend, sessions, conversion rate, CAC, and ROAS.

Month 2 pilots: Search ads targeted three clusters, such as supplement for energy, natural focus support, and brand terms. Average search CPC settled at 1.35 USD. Social used two creative angles, expert backed and customer stories, with CPC at 0.92 USD. The comparison landing page converted at 3.4 percent, while the offer page converted at 2.7 percent. Average AOV rose to 57 USD due to a bundle on the offer page. CAC averaged 36 USD across paid by week 4. Five blog posts drove 1,200 organic sessions with 1.8 percent assisted conversion rate for newsletter signup.

Month 3 scale and optimization: The team scaled search budgets by 25 percent on winning ad groups, added competitor comparisons, and launched a retargeted bundle offer. They introduced an exit intent quiz, which lifted email capture rate from 2.3 percent to 5.8 percent. Page tweaks and simplified PDP copy lifted checkout conversion to 2.9 percent. Paid acquisition delivered 2,300 purchases at an average CAC of 31 USD with ROAS at 2.9. Organic traffic grew to 24,000 sessions, and branded CTR reached 12 percent. The blended contribution margin after ad spend supported a payback of 65 days. This pattern is typical of a disciplined digital growth plan that resolves tracking, aligns pages to intent, and scales only what proves itself in market.

How to use this marketing roadmap

Keep your execution tight. Limit the number of hypotheses per week, publish on a schedule, and set hard stop rules for nonperformers. Present a weekly readout that covers budget pacing, diagnostic metrics such as CPC and CTR, funnel metrics such as CVR and CPA, and insights such as which messages and audiences drive quality conversions. Archive each test with its goal and outcome to build institutional memory. Most important, connect SEO, Paid, and CRO work so that every improvement compounds across channels.

Next steps and CTA

If you want this strategy adapted to your category, pricing, and data maturity, I can help you build a custom plan and train your team to run it. Need a tailored growth plan? Get in touch.