Playbook · Funding
Marketing plan for the 90 days after a funding round
The board wants growth. Spend the first 6 weeks proving the engine works before you scale it.
- 9 ranked moves
- 4-week sequence
- Built for seed to Series B
Marketing plan for the 90 days after a funding round: what should you actually do?
After closing a round, spend the first month fixing tracking and positioning, not hiring. Most teams overspend on brand ads before the funnel can absorb the traffic. Build a 90-day plan: weeks 1-2 audit and hire a first marketer or agency, weeks 3-6 relaunch the site and pick two paid channels to test, weeks 7-12 scale what has proven payback.
Last updated 3 August 2026
| Play | Effort | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Audit what's actually working before touching new spend | 3-4 days | $0 |
| Hire one senior generalist before a team of juniors | 3-4 weeks to hire | $130,000-$180,000/year for a senior generalist, or $8,000-$15,000/month for a fractional CMO in the interim |
| Rebuild tracking before spending on acquisition | 1 week | $0-$300/month |
| Relaunch the website around the new stage of the company | 1-2 weeks | $0-$5,000 for design help |
| Pick two paid channels to test, not five | Ongoing, 4-6 week test window | $10,000-$30,000 total test budget |
| Announce the round with a customer story, not just a number | 1 week | $0-$8,000 if using a PR agency for the push |
| Build one flagship content asset tied to the round's use of funds | 3-4 weeks | $2,000-$8,000 |
| Set a burn-adjusted marketing budget, not a percentage of the round | 1 day | $0 |
| Review the whole plan at day 90 against payback, not vanity metrics | Half a day | $0 |
A funding round changes what's possible, not what's proven. Teams that raised $3-15M and then immediately hired five marketers and bought a Super Bowl-sized ad plan usually burn 18 months of runway finding out their funnel leaked at step one. The board wants a growth story by the next update, but the fastest route to a real one is spending the first six weeks confirming which channel actually pays back before pouring money into it.
This plan assumes you closed a round in the last 30 days, have at least 12 months of runway, and don't yet have a marketing hire beyond a founder doing it part-time. It skips brand campaigns and conference sponsorships — those come later, once you know your numbers.
- — A company that closed seed, Series A or Series B funding in the last one to two months
- — At least one paying customer segment already validated, even if small
- — A founder or exec willing to own marketing hiring decisions personally for the first 90 days
- — Basic CRM and billing data that can be pulled for a cohort analysis
If you haven't found product-market fit yet, don't spend the round on marketing — spend it on 20 more customer interviews and a narrower ICP. Marketing amplifies what's already working; it can't manufacture fit.
The moves
Ranked, highest return first.
Work down the list. Each one names the first step so there's nothing to plan.
- 01
Audit what's actually working before touching new spend
Most companies raise a round while running two or three ad hoc channels nobody has properly measured. You need real CAC and payback numbers before deciding what to scale.
First step: Pull the last 6 months of leads and customers by source. Calculate CAC and payback period per channel, even roughly.
- Tools
- Your CRM (HubSpot, Attio) plus a spreadsheet
- Effort
- 3-4 days
- Cost
- $0
- 02
Hire one senior generalist before a team of juniors
A round tempts founders to build a five-person team fast. One person who has done 0-to-1 growth at a similar stage will outperform three juniors for the first two quarters, and costs less.
First step: Write a job spec that names the one channel or motion you most need proven (content, paid, PLG) and hire against that, not a generalist 'head of marketing' title.
- Tools
- Otta, Wellfound, a specialist recruiter
- Effort
- 3-4 weeks to hire
- Cost
- $130,000-$180,000/year for a senior generalist, or $8,000-$15,000/month for a fractional CMO in the interim
- 03
Rebuild tracking before spending on acquisition
New spend on top of broken attribution just produces bigger, more confident wrong numbers. Fix UTM discipline and lead-to-customer tracking first.
First step: Audit whether every paid channel, email and landing page has consistent UTM parameters landing in the CRM, and whether closed-won deals link back to first-touch source.
- Tools
- UTM.io, HubSpot, Segment
- Effort
- 1 week
- Cost
- $0-$300/month
- 04
Relaunch the website around the new stage of the company
Seed-stage messaging ('we're new, trust us') reads wrong once you have funding and a bigger story. Buyers and future hires both check the site to gauge momentum.
First step: Update the homepage with funding news, real customer logos if you have permission, and a sharper one-line positioning statement.
- Tools
- Webflow, Framer
- Effort
- 1-2 weeks
- Cost
- $0-$5,000 for design help
- 05
Pick two paid channels to test, not five
Round money creates pressure to 'try everything.' Splitting budget five ways means no channel gets enough spend to produce a statistically real signal.
First step: Choose the two channels closest to where your current customers already spend attention (e.g. LinkedIn ads and Google Search for B2B), and commit at least $10,000 to each before judging results.
- Tools
- LinkedIn Campaign Manager, Google Ads
- Effort
- Ongoing, 4-6 week test window
- Cost
- $10,000-$30,000 total test budget
- 06
Announce the round with a customer story, not just a number
A funding announcement gets attention for about 48 hours. Pairing it with a concrete customer result gets covered by more outlets and gives sales a usable asset afterward.
First step: Ask your best reference customer for a short quote and one metric before the announcement goes out, and brief press with both the number and the story.
- Tools
- PR agency or a founder-written LinkedIn post, Notion for a press kit
- Effort
- 1 week
- Cost
- $0-$8,000 if using a PR agency for the push
- 07
Build one flagship content asset tied to the round's use of funds
If the round is funding a specific product direction, a report or benchmark tied to that theme earns links and positions you ahead of competitors before they catch up.
First step: Pick one data set you can credibly publish (survey, product usage benchmark, pricing analysis) and commission it in week 2 so it's ready by week 6.
- Tools
- Typeform for a survey, a freelance analyst or writer
- Effort
- 3-4 weeks
- Cost
- $2,000-$8,000
- 08
Set a burn-adjusted marketing budget, not a percentage of the round
Boards often expect a 'reasonable' marketing spend, but the right number depends on your CAC payback, not an arbitrary percentage of the raise.
First step: Calculate what monthly spend keeps payback under 12 months given your current CAC, then present that number to the board rather than a round percentage.
- Tools
- A spreadsheet model
- Effort
- 1 day
- Cost
- $0
- 09
Review the whole plan at day 90 against payback, not vanity metrics
Impressions and follower counts feel good in a board deck but don't extend runway. Payback period and pipeline generated are what justify the next quarter's spend.
First step: Set a day-90 review meeting on the calendar now, with CAC payback and pipeline sourced as the only two headline metrics.
- Tools
- Your CRM dashboard
- Effort
- Half a day
- Cost
- $0
Sequence
What to do first, week by week.
Audit and hire
Pull historical CAC and payback by channel, fix tracking gaps, and open the job spec for one senior marketing hire or fractional lead.
Relaunch positioning
Ship the updated website and funding announcement paired with a real customer story, and commission the flagship content asset.
Test two channels
Run the two chosen paid channels at real budget, tracking CAC and payback weekly, while the senior hire settles in.
Scale what pays back
Cut the weaker of the two test channels, double spend on the one with sub-12-month payback, and present the day-90 numbers to the board.
Avoid
Where this usually goes wrong.
Hiring a full team before proving one channel
Five new hires with nothing proven to point them at produces expensive busywork. One strong hire testing two channels teaches you more in 90 days than a team of five spread across everything.
Announcing the round with no follow-up content plan
The funding post gets a week of attention and then nothing. Have the next three pieces of content or campaign activity ready to publish within the same month so the attention converts into pipeline.
Setting the marketing budget as a fixed percent of the round
A round-percentage budget ignores your actual CAC payback. Size spend to what your unit economics can absorb, then revisit quarterly as data comes in.
Questions
Common questions.
How much of a funding round should go to marketing?
There's no fixed percentage that works across companies. Size the budget to keep CAC payback under 12 months given your current numbers, then revisit every quarter rather than committing a lump sum upfront.
Should we hire a CMO right after raising?
Usually no. A full CMO fits once you have 2-3 proven channels and need someone to run a team. In the first 90 days after a round, a senior individual contributor or fractional CMO who can test channels directly is a better fit.
When should we announce the funding round publicly?
Once you have a customer story or metric ready to pair with the number, usually 2-4 weeks after close. Announcing with just a dollar figure gets less coverage and gives sales nothing usable.
What if the board wants results before 90 days?
Show them the audit and tracking fixes as week-1 progress, and frame the 90-day mark as when payback data becomes statistically meaningful — spending faster than that just produces noisier numbers, not faster growth.
More playbooks
Other plans worth reading.
Growth plan for when website traffic has stopped growing
ReadPlaybook · RelaunchPlan to relaunch a product that failed the first time
ReadPlaybook · MarketplaceGrowth plan for a two-sided marketplace
ReadPlaybook · EventsMarketing plan for a B2B conference or trade show
ReadPlaybook · Pre-launchPlan for building a pre-launch waitlist
ReadPlaybook · ExpansionPlan to grow expansion revenue in a SaaS business
ReadElsewhere on gtm.help
Keep exploring.
Tool guides
What to use, what it costs, when it earns its keep.
BrowseTool comparisons
Head-to-head picks for the calls people get stuck on.
BrowseMarketing checklists
Task lists by business type and competitive situation.
BrowseStraight answers
The growth questions founders ask, answered with numbers.
BrowseGet started
Get this ranked for your business.
Paste your URL and you'll have a plan built from your site and competitors in about a minute.