Your First 90 Days: A Marketing Plan for New Shopify Stores

Key Takeaways

• Month one is foundations: tracking, email capture and flows, one or two social platforms, and basic SEO. Month two switches on traffic. Month three measures and scales.
• The highest impact first month action is email capture with a welcome flow behind it. Of the last 50 startup stores we took on, 37 had no welcome flow live.
• Install tracking pixels on day one even though you will not advertise for a month. They build the retargeting audience that makes month two work.
• At the daily budgets in this plan, paid advertising costs about £840 to £1,680 across weeks five to twelve, and nothing before.
• Judge your conversion rate against reality, not aspiration. Across 265 Shopify stores we audited in the 12 months to September 2026, the median was 1.7%.
• Two channels done properly beat six done badly. The order matters more than the budget.

Quick Answer

Run a new Shopify store's first 90 days in three phases. Month one is foundations with no ad spend: set up Google Analytics 4 and Search Console, install the Meta Pixel and Google Ads tag, connect Klaviyo with a welcome popup and three automated flows, choose one or two social platforms, and write proper titles, descriptions and alt text. Month two activates: a small Google Shopping campaign on your best sellers, Meta retargeting to the audience your pixels have collected, your first blog posts and your first email campaigns. Month three measures: keep the channels that produced revenue rather than visits, cut the rest, and scale what works. At £10 to £20 a day on Shopping and £5 to £10 on retargeting, eight weeks of advertising costs roughly £840 to £1,680.

Table of Contents

• Before You Start: Set Your Targets
• Month 1: Build the Foundation
• Month 2: Activate Your Channels
• Month 3: Measure, Optimise, Scale
• The 90 Day Timeline at a Glance
• Budget Guidance
• Common Mistakes in the First 90 Days
• Why Matters Perspective
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Final Thoughts
• Related Articles

The first 90 days after launch decide whether a Shopify store builds momentum or stalls. Most new stores struggle not because the product is wrong but because the marketing is unfocused: too many channels at once, no clear order, and no way of telling what worked. This plan sets out what to do first, what to add second and what to optimise third, so that by day 90 you have a working marketing engine rather than ten half finished experiments. If your store is not live yet, start with our step by step store setup guide. This plan assumes products are listed and checkout works.

Before You Start: Set Your Targets

Set specific, measurable targets before doing anything else. These are realistic for a new store over 90 days:

• 500 to 1,000 email subscribers, depending on traffic and the strength of your incentive
• Your first 50 to 100 orders
• A conversion rate at or above 1.7%, the median across the 265 Shopify stores we audited in the 12 months to September 2026
• At least two channels producing measurable traffic
• A working welcome flow and abandoned cart flow
• Search Console set up and receiving data

These are not arbitrary. Below roughly 50 orders and 500 subscribers you do not have enough data to optimise anything, so the targets mark the minimum position from which the next decisions can be made on evidence rather than instinct.

Month 1: Build the Foundation

Month one is not about volume. It is about putting the systems in place that make months two and three work. Money spent on traffic before they exist is partly wasted, because you cannot measure it, retarget it or bring it back.

Week 1: Analytics and tracking

Connect Google Analytics 4 through Shopify's Google and YouTube app, which sends ecommerce events such as purchases to GA4, so revenue can be attributed to sources from the first visit. Without it you will be guessing for three months.

Verify your domain in Google Search Console and submit your sitemap. This starts the clock on indexing and gives you search queries, impressions and crawl errors. See our Shopify SEO guide for the full setup, or our Shopify SEO agency if you would rather hand it over.

Install the Meta Pixel and the Google Ads conversion tag now, even though you will not advertise until month two. They start building your audiences from the first visit, so there is someone to retarget when campaigns go live. This one step is why month two works.

Week 2: Email capture and flows

The most important foundation in the plan, and the one most often skipped. Of the last 50 startup stores we took on, 37 had no welcome flow live, meaning they were collecting addresses and then doing nothing with them.

Install Klaviyo and connect it to Shopify. Add a sign up popup with a genuine incentive, such as a discount, free delivery or something useful, then build three flows:

• Welcome flow, triggered on sign up. Delivers the incentive, introduces the brand and points to best sellers. Three or four emails over seven days.
• Abandoned cart flow, triggered when someone adds to basket without checking out. Three emails over 72 hours.
• Post purchase flow, triggered after an order. Thanks the customer, suggests complementary products and asks for a review. Two or three emails over 14 days.

These run without supervision and start earning in week one. Done well, list growth follows quickly: an organic cosmetics client of ours grew from 67 to 298 subscribers in three months. We are a Klaviyo partner, and our email marketing agency builds these flows if you would rather not. See our Shopify email marketing guide and how to get more email subscribers.

Week 3: Social media presence

Choose one or two platforms where your customers actually spend time, not all of them. Instagram suits visual products such as fashion, beauty, food and homeware. TikTok suits short video and a younger audience. Pinterest works as a visual search engine for categories such as home, weddings, food and fashion, where people plan purchases in advance.

Post three to five times a week, mixing product content, behind the scenes, customer content once you have it, and anything that shows what the brand stands for. Consistency beats volume, and beats being present everywhere.

Week 4: SEO foundations and content planning

Write custom titles and meta descriptions for your homepage, every collection and your top ten products, because Shopify's generated defaults will not rank. Add descriptive alt text to product images and compress them. Then plan your first four blog posts around questions your customers search before buying, to write in month two. See how to write Shopify blogs that rank.

Month 2: Activate Your Channels

With the foundations in place, month two switches on traffic and starts building an audience.

Paid advertising: start small

Launch a Google Shopping campaign on your best selling or highest margin products. Shopping reaches people actively searching for what you sell, which is the highest intent traffic available. Start at £10 to £20 a day and review return on ad spend weekly. See our guide to setting up your store for the product data that feeds it, or our PPC agency service, from £650 a month plus VAT, if you would rather hand it over.

Launch a Meta retargeting campaign to visitors who viewed products without buying. The pixel has been building that audience for a month. In our experience retargeting is usually the best returning paid social campaign for a new store, because those people already know you. Our social media marketing agency runs Meta and TikTok campaigns if you want help.

Hold off on broad prospecting to cold audiences for now. At this budget it mostly buys strangers rather than customers.

Content: publish your first posts

Publish two to four blog posts against the searches you planned, each linking to relevant products and collections. Repurpose each one for social: a blog post is three or four social posts, a carousel and a short video if you let it be.

Email: start sending campaigns

Send your first campaign to the list you have built: a product spotlight, a new arrival, or something genuinely useful. Aim for one a week alongside the flows. Review the abandoned cart flow now it has data, and if it is underperforming, test subject lines and timing first.

PR: plant seeds

Build a press page with high resolution images, your brand story and a real media contact. Identify ten journalists or bloggers in your category and pitch them individually. Expect nothing immediately, because coverage sown in month two tends to land in month three or later. See how to do effective PR for ecommerce brands.

Month 3: Measure, Optimise, Scale

Month three is where data replaces opinion. You have two months of analytics, email performance, campaign results and possibly your first reviews.

Review channel performance

In GA4, look at which sources produced revenue rather than visits. A channel sending 1,000 visitors and no orders is worth less than one sending 100 visitors and five orders. Check which products, audiences and adverts returned a profit, pause what did not, and move budget to what did. Across the accounts we manage, cost per acquisition falls by an average of 45% in the first 90 days. Then check the revenue attributed to each flow in Klaviyo and fix the weakest.

Optimise the store on data

Check conversion rate by device. If mobile is well below desktop, that is your priority; see mobile first Shopify design. Find product pages with high traffic and low conversion, because they are your biggest opportunities, and the usual culprits are weak images, unclear descriptions, hidden reviews and a buried call to action. See what actually converts on a product page.

Finally, check your Core Web Vitals in Shopify's web performance reports and in Search Console, and fix anything rated poor. Shopify retired its old speed score in 2024, so ignore any score out of 100; see what replaced the Shopify speed score.

Scale what works

Double down on your strongest channel rather than adding a new one. If email is winning, grow the list faster. If Shopping is delivering, widen the product set and raise the budget. If a blog post is ranking, write three more on nearby topics. Add review requests to your post purchase flow, since reviews lift conversion and give search engines fresh content, and consider a referral programme once you have a handful of happy customers. See how to get Shopify repeat customers.

The 90 Day Timeline at a Glance

Budget Guidance

You do not need a large budget. The foundations cost time, and all the advertising spend falls in weeks five to twelve. These figures follow directly from the daily budgets above, so if you change the daily figure, the total moves with it.

Common Mistakes in the First 90 Days

Spending on ads before email capture exists. Every paid visitor who leaves without subscribing is someone you will pay to reach again. It is the most expensive mistake on this list and the easiest to avoid.

Trying to be on every social platform. Mediocre on five is worse than excellent on one, because none of them builds enough of an audience to matter.

Installing tracking pixels late. They cost nothing and collect from the first visit. Adding them in month two means starting your retargeting audience from zero at exactly the moment you need it.

Ignoring SEO because it is slow. The titles and posts you create in months one and two produce traffic in months four to six, and stores that start early are the ones that eventually stop depending on paid traffic.

Leaving campaigns to run unchecked. When we audit a new client's advertising, an average of 30% of spend is wasted. A weekly review in months two and three stops that building up.

Comparing day 30 with an established brand. Your first 90 days are for building systems and learning, not matching a store that has traded for five years. Judge yourself against your own targets.

Why Matters Perspective

Having helped hundreds of Shopify stores through a launch, we see the same pattern almost every time. The stores that gain traction build foundations first, switch on a small number of channels properly, and let data decide the next investment. The ones that struggle skipped straight to advertising, paying to send traffic to a store with no capture, no reviews, no content and no way of bringing anyone back.

The clearest example is the welcome flow. Of the last 50 startup stores we took on, 37 had no welcome flow live, and most were already spending on ads. They were buying visitors, capturing a fraction of them, and then letting that fraction go cold. Building the flow takes about an hour and changes the return on every pound spent after it.

Marketing a new store is not about doing everything. It is about order, and this plan is that order. If you want it shaped around your products and audience, email us. Our pricing is published, and retainer clients are billed a month in arrears and free to leave at any time.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should I spend on marketing in my first 90 days?

At the daily budgets in this plan, about £840 to £1,680 on paid advertising across weeks five to twelve, plus a modest email platform fee once your list passes Klaviyo's free tier. Almost everything in month one costs time rather than money.

What is the most important marketing activity for a new Shopify store?

Email capture with automated flows behind it. Every other activity brings visitors in, and email is what lets you reach them again without paying for another click. Of the last 50 startup stores we took on, 37 had no welcome flow live.

When should I start running paid ads?

Once email capture, analytics and tracking tags are in place, which is usually the start of month two. Advertising before then means paying for visitors you cannot measure, retarget or bring back.

How long before SEO starts driving traffic?

Typically three to six months from a new domain. The work in months one and two is what produces traffic in months four to six and beyond, which is why it has to start before it feels useful.

What conversion rate should a new Shopify store expect?

Across the 265 Shopify stores we audited in the 12 months to September 2026, the median was 1.7%, so treat that as a realistic marker. A new store well below 1% usually has a trust or product page problem rather than a traffic problem.

How quickly should paid advertising improve?

The first weeks are for learning, so expect costs to fall as you cut weak products and audiences. Across the accounts we manage, cost per acquisition falls by an average of 45% in the first 90 days.

What should I focus on after the first 90 days?

By then you can see your strongest channel and your weakest page. The usual next steps are scaling the campaigns that work, expanding content, launching loyalty or referrals, and reworking product pages on conversion data.

Final Thoughts

The first 90 days are about building systems, not chasing results. The foundations in month one, the channels in month two and the decisions in month three determine whether the store gathers momentum or drifts.

You do not need a large budget or a presence everywhere. You need capture and tracking from day one, a focused approach to one or two channels, and the discipline to cut what is not working. Start small, measure everything, and scale what works.

Related Articles

• How to Set Up a Shopify Store: A Step by Step Agency Guide
• How to Get More Traffic to Your Shopify Store: A Practical Guide
• How to Get More Email Subscribers on Your Shopify Store
• How to Optimise Your Shopify Email Marketing
• The Biggest Challenges Ecommerce Startups Face and How to Overcome Them
• How to Optimise Your Shopify Store for SEO
• How to Increase Shopify Conversions: 10 Proven Strategies
• How to Sell on TikTok Shop UK: A Guide for Shopify Brands