Agency onboarding checklist for the client side

Aug 22
3 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Introduction

Plenty has been written about how agencies should onboard clients. Much less about what the client should do, which is where most of the avoidable problems originate.

An engagement that starts badly rarely recovers, and the first fortnight is almost entirely within the buyer's control.

1. An agency onboarding checklist begins with the numbers you already hold

Hand over the real figures on day one, without being asked twice.

Enquiry volume by month and source, conversion rate, average transaction value, what a customer is worth, what has been spent by channel, and what was tried before with results.

Suppliers who receive this immediately produce useful work in week two instead of week six. Withholding it — usually from caution rather than intent — is the most common cause of a slow start.

2. Grant access properly, not by sharing passwords

Access is where clients create problems for themselves that surface much later.

Add the supplier as a user on each platform with their own login and appropriate permission level. Do not send shared credentials, and do not let them create new accounts in their own name on your behalf.

Where an account does not exist yet — an advertising account, an analytics property — create it under a business-owned administrator account first, then grant them access to it.

3. Decide what they should not have

Access is not all-or-nothing, and some things should stay with you.

Keep sole control of the domain registrar, the primary administrator role on major platforms, billing details, and the customer database export. A supplier can work perfectly well without any of these.

The test: if this relationship ended tomorrow with no cooperation, what could they take or lock? Anything on that list needs a different arrangement.

4. Name one person who decides

Engagements slow down on the client side far more often than the supplier side, and the usual cause is unclear decision-making.

Name one person with authority to approve work, answer questions and make decisions within an agreed range. Give the supplier their direct contact and a stated response commitment.

If approval genuinely requires several people, say so, and agree a turnaround so the supplier can plan around it rather than chasing.

5. Agree the reporting and the metrics before work starts

Settle what the monthly report contains while you still have leverage.

Insist that cost per enquiry and cost per customer appear, alongside whatever channel detail they prefer. Agree the date it arrives and who receives it.

Also agree the definitions. A "lead" counted as a form submission is a different number from one counted as a qualified enquiry, and discovering the difference in month four is a bad conversation.

6. Book the first review at the start

Put a date in the calendar for six to eight weeks out, with agreed criteria.

Not a performance judgement — a check on whether the engagement is set up correctly: is access complete, is the data flowing, are the deliverables on schedule, is anything blocked on your side.

Most failed engagements had a fixable problem visible at week six that nobody raised until month four.

7. Brief your own team

Internal preparation that clients routinely skip.

Tell whoever answers the phone that enquiry volume may change and that recording the source matters. Tell whoever handles social accounts that someone else will be posting. Tell anyone whose work will be observed or measured what is happening and why.

Marketing work fails at the point of contact with the business more often than at the campaign. If enquiries increase and nobody answers them faster, the engagement produces nothing regardless of quality.

8. Keep your own record from day one

Maintain a short document on your side: what was agreed, what was delivered, what was decided, what is outstanding.

Update it after each meeting. It takes minutes and it resolves the disagreements that otherwise depend on recollection, in either direction.

It is also the beginning of the handover file. Whatever happens with this supplier, the next person to take on this work — internal or external — will need exactly this document.

Conclusion

Hand over your real numbers immediately, grant individual logins rather than shared passwords, and keep sole control of the domain, primary administrator roles, billing and your customer data.

Name one decision-maker with a response commitment, agree report contents and metric definitions before work begins, book a setup review at six to eight weeks, brief your own team about what is changing, and keep your own written record from the first day.