[01] Brand Manager Onboarding

The First 90 Days With a Brand Manager, From Day One to Day 90

Signing is the easy part. This is what a new Amazon brand manager or agency should do from the day you grant access to the day-90 review, and what you should be able to measure when you get there.

Last reviewed October 27, 2026Sources checked October 2026By Ian Smith

Short answer

In the first 90 days a new brand manager should spend days 1 to 30 on access, a baseline export and a full audit that ends in a ranked priority list; days 31 to 60 on fixes and quick wins such as suppressed listings, wasted ad spend and stock gaps; and days 61 to 90 on tests and growth work, closing with a day-90 review against the baseline.

Book a Free 30-Minute Call →Jump to the 30/60/90-day plan

Up to 10 days

Business days Amazon may take to approve a service provider's Seller Central roles

Amazon SP-API docs, Sep 2026

8 to 10 wks

Test length Amazon recommends when you set a Manage Your Experiments duration yourself

sell.amazon.com, Oct 2026

7 / 14 days

Ad attribution windows: Sponsored Products vs Sponsored Brands and Display

Helium 10 blog, 2022

About 60 days

Supply Amazon suggests keeping on hand; over 90 days counts as excess

sell.amazon.com, Oct 2026

At a glance Week one 30/60/90 plan Quick wins Day-90 scorecard Help or DIY How Evolve helps Sources Author FAQ

[02] The shape of it

What the First 90 Days Should Look Like

Disclosure: Evolve Media Agency sells Amazon brand management retainers, so we have a stake in how this goes. The phase plan and hour splits below are our own method, labeled as such. Amazon facts come from Amazon's public pages, opened October 27, 2026, and are listed at the bottom. We also say when you should run these 90 days yourself.

The first 90 days with a new brand manager decide whether the relationship works. Most of the frustration we hear about comes from two opposite mistakes: a manager who changes everything in week one before understanding the account, or one who spends three months "getting up to speed" with nothing to show. A good first quarter sits between those. The first month is mostly looking, the second is mostly fixing, and the third is mostly building.

This page covers the work plan. What you hand over on day one, such as user permissions, the shared folder and the numbers sheet, is already covered in our Amazon agency onboarding checklist, so we will not repeat it here. If you are moving from another provider, read how to switch Amazon agencies first, because the overlap with the old team changes the first few weeks.

PhaseWhat should happen

Days 1 to 7: settle inAccess confirmed, baseline numbers exported, kickoff call held, a short list of anything urgent such as a suppressed best seller or a stock-out

Days 8 to 30: audit and planFull account audit, a ranked priority list you approve, and the first monthly report against the baseline

Days 31 to 60: fixQuick wins shipped, ad structure cleaned up, listing fixes live, stock plan agreed, first content tests started

Days 61 to 90: buildTests read or running, second round of listing and ad work, a 90-day review and a plan for the next quarter

Phase lengths are our judgment from onboarding brands of this size. They are not an Amazon standard, and your manager may compress or stretch them.

[03] Days 1 to 7

Week One: Access, Baseline and the Right Questions

Week one should feel organized, not busy. The brand manager is confirming they can see what they need, freezing a snapshot of where the account stands, and learning the things that never show up in a report.

One practical delay to plan for: if your manager or agency connects through Amazon's Solution Provider Portal, Amazon's developer documentation says it must first approve the provider's Seller Central roles, which can take up to 10 business days, and until then the role permissions show as greyed out. Ad console access works separately. Amazon describes admin, editor and specialized access levels in the ad console, so the person running ads does not need billing access.

Confirm access works, then stop asking for more

The manager should log in on day one and report anything they cannot see. Access needs follow the job; the full list by role is in the onboarding checklist. If they ask for your password or two-step codes, treat it as a red flag.

Export the baseline before anything changes

Download the last 12 months of Business Reports by ASIN, campaign and search term reports, and the Brand Analytics Search Query Performance view for your main terms. Amazon says Business Reports data can be viewed for up to two years and downloaded as .csv files. Without this snapshot, the day-90 review is a matter of opinion.

Hold a kickoff call with real questions

Expect questions about margin per ASIN, the ad spend ceiling, which products are heroes and which are being phased out, what claims are allowed, lead times from your manufacturer, and what you tried before that failed. A manager who skips these will learn them the expensive way.

Agree on approvals and a single contact

Decide in writing what the manager can change alone (bids, negative keywords, budgets inside a set range) and what needs your yes (price, titles, main images, new campaigns over a set budget). One named person on your side should answer within a business day.

Flag anything urgent

A suppressed best seller, an open policy notice with a deadline, a stock-out on a hero ASIN or a campaign spending with no sales gets handled this week, before the audit is finished. Everything else waits for the priority list.

[04] The plan

The 30/60/90-Day Plan, Step by Step

A 30-60-90 day plan is a common onboarding tool for new employees: the first 30 days build knowledge, the next 30 start contributing, and the last 30 deliver an outcome and suggest improvements, as Built In describes it. The same arc works for a new brand manager, with Amazon-specific work in each phase. These are the steps we follow, in order.

Days 1 to 7: confirm access and export the baseline

Log in to every tool, list anything missing, and save the 12-month export described above. Write down the starting numbers for total sales, TACoS (total ad spend divided by total sales), unit session percentage, sessions, Featured Offer percentage, star rating and in-stock rate per hero ASIN.

Days 8 to 21: run the full audit

Work through account health, suppressed and inactive listings, catalog and variation errors, pricing, reviews and returns, ad structure, Brand Registry tools and inventory. Our Amazon brand health audit lists what each area covers and how to score it.

Days 22 to 30: deliver a ranked priority list

Every finding goes on one list, ranked by expected impact and effort, with an owner and a target month. You approve it before work starts. This list is the contract for the next 60 days, and it is the first thing to check at day 90.

Day 30: first monthly report

The first report compares the month to the baseline and says what was found, what was fixed and what comes next. Our guide to the brand management monthly report shows the outline we use.

Days 31 to 45: ship the quick wins

Fix suppressed listings, missing attributes and broken variations, add negative keywords for search terms that spent with no sales, correct pricing errors, and set reorder points for the hero ASINs. These are fast, low-risk and usually visible in the next report.

Days 31 to 60: rebuild what is structural

Restructure ad campaigns if the audit called for it, rewrite the weakest listings, and agree on a stock plan with your lead times. Amazon suggests keeping about two months of supply and treats more than 90 days of supply as excess, which gives the stock plan a target range.

Days 35 to 60: start content tests

With Brand Registry and enough traffic, Manage Your Experiments can test images, titles, bullets and A+ Content. Amazon recommends 8 to 10 weeks for a custom duration, and says the "to significance" option sometimes returns results in about four weeks. A test started on day 35 may not finish until after day 90, so start early.

Days 61 to 80: second round and growth work

Act on what the first fixes showed: scale campaigns that are profitable against break-even ACOS, expand keywords from Search Query Performance, refresh a second set of listings, and plan the next launch or seasonal push.

Days 81 to 90: the day-90 review

Compare the scorecard below to the baseline, mark every item on the priority list as done, in progress or dropped with a reason, and agree on the next quarter's priorities and hours.

Want a second set of eyes on this? Book a free 30-minute call, email Ian at [email protected], or call or text 719-257-3557. Bring your ASIN or store link and we will sketch what your first 30 days would cover.

[05] Days 31 to 60

Quick Wins vs the Slow Work That Matters More

Quick wins matter because they build trust and stop money leaking. They are not the whole job. A manager who only does quick wins will run out of them by month three. Here is how we sort the work in the fix phase.

Quick win: suppressed and inactive listings

A listing that is not buyable sells nothing. These fixes are usually a missing attribute, an image problem or a pricing flag, and the result shows up as soon as the listing is active again.

Quick win: wasted search terms

Search terms with clicks and no sales over a meaningful period become negative keywords. Use enough history: Sponsored Products credits sales up to 7 days after a click and Sponsored Brands and Display up to 14, per Helium 10, which sells PPC software.

Quick win: Featured Offer and pricing errors

Amazon's Pricing Health page lists offers deactivated for potential pricing errors and offers priced within 5% of the Featured Offer. Fixing those is fast. Changing your price strategy is not a quick win; it needs your margin numbers and your approval.

Slow work: ad structure

Rebuilding campaigns can cause a few noisy weeks while new campaigns gather data. Amazon's ACOS guide notes new campaigns often show a high ACOS simply because they are new, so do not judge a rebuild in its first two weeks.

Slow work: listings and content

New copy and images need a test or at least a clean before-and-after period. Organic rank moves over weeks, and a listing rewrite during a seasonal swing is hard to read.

Slow work: reviews and returns

Review themes and return reasons point at product, packaging or expectation problems. Amazon suggests resolving reviews under three stars at least every 30 days through the Customer Reviews tool. The fixes behind them, such as a clearer image or an insert card, take a cycle to show.

[06] Day 90

What to Measure at Day 90

Day 90 is not the day sales have to double. It is the day you check whether the work promised in the priority list got done and whether the numbers are moving in the right direction for the right reasons. Compare each number to the baseline and, if you have it, to the same 90 days last year, because seasonality can make a quarter look better or worse than the work was. The full list of numbers and how often to read each one is in our guide to Amazon brand manager KPIs.

MeasureWhat to look for at day 90

Priority list completionEvery item marked done, in progress or dropped with a reason. This is the clearest test of whether the manager did what they said

Total sales and units by hero ASINDirection against baseline and last year, with the manager's explanation of what drove the change

TACoS and ACOSTACoS flat or falling while sales hold or grow suggests ads are supporting organic sales. ACOS compared to each product's break-even ACOS

Unit session percentage and sessionsConversion and traffic per hero ASIN from Business Reports. Listing work should show up here first

Featured Offer percentageAny drop traced to a cause: price, stock or another seller

Account healthOrder defect rate under the 1% Amazon names, no open policy notices without a plan

In-stock rate and days of supplyNo avoidable stock-outs on heroes, and supply inside the range the stock plan set

Rating, review count and return rateStable or improving, with the top return reasons named

TestsAt least one Manage Your Experiments test finished or running, with the result or expected end date

Read the last two weeks of ad data with care. Attribution keeps adding sales for 7 to 14 days after a click, so a report run on day 90 can understate the final days.

[07] Be honest

When to Get Help vs Run the 90 Days Yourself

You do not need to hire anyone to follow this plan. Plenty of founders can run it themselves with a few protected hours a week. The plan is the same; the question is who has the time and the experience to read what the audit finds.

Do it yourself if

You have one to five ASINs, a small ad budget, a clean account with no open policy notices, and four to six protected hours a week. Start with our free Amazon listing audit and the brand management checklist, and use the steps above as your calendar.

Try a pilot first if

You are unsure about a provider. A scoped test on one ASIN shows how they work before you commit the whole account. Our guide to running an Amazon agency pilot project covers how to set one up.

Get help if

The audit would take you more than a month of evenings, ad spend is large enough that a month of waste hurts, you are launching during the quarter, or nobody owns stock planning. Those are the brands where a brand manager pays for itself fastest.

Wait if

Peak season starts within a few weeks, you do not yet own your Seller Central and ad accounts, or you cannot name what success looks like at day 90. Fix those first. Starting a new manager in the middle of Q4 means the audit and the busiest weeks collide.

[08] Our plans

How Evolve Runs the First 90 Days on Each Plan

Our Amazon brand management plans are monthly hour blocks, paid upfront, month to month. Hours do not roll over, so we plan each month's hours at the start and report what got done at the end. That rule shapes the first quarter: the audit has to fit inside month one's hours, which is why a bigger catalog usually starts on a bigger plan and can step down after day 90. Details are on our brand management page and the pricing page.

Plan (our prices, as of October 2026)Hours across the first 90 days, and how we use them

Brand Support, 5 hrs, $750/mo15 hours ($2,250 over 3 months). Fits one to three ASINs: a focused audit, a short priority list, and one fix area per month

Brand Manager, 10 hrs, $1,250/mo30 hours ($3,750). Our usual split: about 10 for audit and plan, 10 for fixes, 10 for tests and the day-90 review

Brand Manager Plus, 20 hrs, $2,000/mo60 hours ($6,000). Room for an ad restructure, several listing rewrites and a launch inside the quarter

Full Brand Management, 40 hrs, $3,600/mo120 hours ($10,800). Large catalogs or Amazon plus Shopify and TikTok Shop, with weekly check-ins

Work beyond a plan is $150 an hour. Ad spend is billed separately, and photo, video and design are fixed-price production: product photography from $295, product video from $395 and listing optimization at $495 per listing. Because we make that content in house, a weak main image found in the audit can be reshot in the fix phase without a new vendor.

If you want to talk through what your first 30 days would cover, email Ian at [email protected], call or text 719-257-3557, or book a free 30-minute call.

The hour splits above are our planning judgment, not a guarantee. A suspended listing or a policy notice in week one moves hours from the plan to the fire.

[09] Sources

Where These Facts Come From

Amazon Selling Partner API docs: Service provider registration and role approval process

developer-docs.amazon · Open source →

Amazon Ads: Custom access controls

advertising.amazon.com · Open source →

Amazon Selling Partner Blog: Business Reports