How to onboard a new marketing client

You just signed a new client, and the next 7 days decide whether they stay past month one. Here is how to onboard a new marketing client when it is just you: one welcome email on the day they sign, access to every account without a single password, a short form, a kickoff call, and the first piece of work in front of them within a week. Most new agencies do the opposite. They wait days for logins, ask the same questions in five emails, and reach day 30 with nothing to show.

Do these three things

About 6 hours in the first week, then 20 minutes each Sunday. Judge it on day 30: all access in, the first work approved, and a yes to month 2.

Show the three actions in fullHide the full list

1. 1Today: on the day the client signs and pays, send one welcome email with the dates for the first 30 days, the list of accounts you need access to and a 15-question form. Book a 45-minute kickoff call within 3 days.
2. 2Every day: open your access sheet and follow up on every missing account and answer, by name, until every row says "Yes". Get the first piece of work to the client for approval by day 7.
3. 3Every Sunday: write a 5-line update (what you did, the number against the starting number, what you need from them) and schedule it for Monday morning. On day 30, hold a 30-minute review that leads into your monthly report.

Get help doing these

ChatGPT or Claude reads this guide and works through it with you.

Do this with ChatGPT(opens in a new tab)Do this with Claude(opens in a new tab)

1. Send the welcome email the day the client signs

Send one welcome email on the day the client signs and pays, with every date for the first 30 days, the access list and the form in it. One email the same day tells the client you are organised, and it starts the two jobs that take the longest: access and answers.

Check two things first. The agreement is signed and the first month is paid upfront. Do no work before both. The agreement should already hold your scope of work: the list of work each month, the rounds of changes, and what is not included. If it does not, write it now, before the kickoff. Your proposal and package are where that list comes from.

Pick the dates. Count from the signing day, day 0:

• Day 3: the kickoff call, the access list done, and the form back.
• Day 7: the first piece of work sent for approval.
• Every Monday: a short update from you.
• Day 30: a 30-minute review of month 1.

Make a booking link. Calendly's free plan gives you one meeting type and unlimited one-to-one meetings. Make one 45-minute "Kickoff" meeting and show only the next 3 days.

Let AI draft it. Paste the template below, the client's name, your package and the dates into ChatGPT or Claude, and ask for the email. Check every date against the calendar, then add the access request from step 2 and the form from step 3 before you send it.

Subject: Welcome, [first name]: your first 30 days with [agency name]Hi [first name],Thank you for signing. The agreement and first invoice are in, so we start today. Here is what happens next:
By [day 3 date]: our 45-minute kickoff call. Pick a time here: [booking link]
By [day 3 date]: please give me access to the accounts on the list below. Each one takes 2 to 5 minutes. You keep ownership of all of them, and you never need to send me a password.
By [day 3 date]: please check this short form. I filled in what I could from your website. Correct anything wrong and fill the gaps: [form link]
By [day 7 date]: the first [piece of work] arrives for you to approve. Nothing goes live until you approve it.
Every Monday: a 5-line update from me.
[Day 30 date]: a 30-minute review of month 1.
I am your one contact: [email], [phone]. I reply within 24 hours.[The access list from step 2][Your name]
[Agency name]

Onboarding takes about 6 hours in the first week. Keep your 100 personal messages a day going around it. A new client is not a reason to stop finding the next one.

• Tool: Gmail, Calendly's free plan, and ChatGPT or Claude to draft.
• Time: 45 minutes.
• You will have: one welcome email sent on the signing day, with a booking link and every date in it.
• It worked if: the client books the kickoff within 24 hours, for a time within 3 days.
• Common mistake: starting work before the agreement is signed and the first invoice is paid. The other mistake is five separate emails over a week, each asking for one more thing.

2. Get access to every account without asking for passwords

Ask the client to add you to each account with its own user or partner setting, at the lowest role that lets you do the work, and never ask for a password. The client stays the owner of every account. You can do the work, and the client can remove you in one click.

Passwords break the platforms' rules and leave you with access you cannot prove you were given. LinkedIn's User Agreement says members "will not share your account with anyone else" and bans "sharing log-in credentials". Every platform below has a way to add you instead. There is a second reason too. If you create a client's Google Ads account from your own manager account, Google makes your manager account its owner by default. That is how agencies end up in fights over who owns the account. Let the client create every account, then add you. The guide for clients hiring an agency tells them the same thing.

Set up your side once, before your first client.

• Meta: create a business portfolio for your agency in Meta Business Suite. Your 16-digit business portfolio ID is in Settings, then Business info. Clients need it to add you.
• Google Ads: create a free Google Ads manager account at ads.google.com. Give it your agency's name. Google no longer accepts website addresses in manager account names.
• LinkedIn: the person who adds you to a LinkedIn Page must be a 1st, 2nd or 3rd-degree connection, and you must follow the Page. Connect with the client's founder and follow their Page on day 0.

Ask for the lowest role that does the job. Use this table:

Ask only for the accounts your package uses. A client who buys LinkedIn posts and articles does not need to add you to their ad accounts.

Send the access request. Put this in the welcome email, with only the rows the client needs. Every click path below was checked on the platforms' help pages on 14 October 2026.

Please add me to these accounts. You stay the owner, and you can remove me at any time.Facebook and Instagram (about 5 minutes):
Meta Business Suite > Settings > Users > Partners > Add > "Give a partner access to your assets". Enter our business portfolio ID: [16 digits]. Choose your Facebook Page, Instagram account [and ad account], give partial access for [creating content / managing ads], then click "Assign assets".Google Ads (2 minutes):
Send me your 10-digit Customer ID (top right in Google Ads). I will send a link request. Accept it in Admin > Access and security > Managers.Google Analytics (2 minutes):
Admin > Access Management (under Property) > + > Add users. Add [your email] with the role [Marketer / Viewer], then click Add.Google Search Console (2 minutes):
Settings > Users and permissions > Add user. Add [your email] as a Full user.LinkedIn Page (2 minutes, after we connect on LinkedIn):
On your Page: Settings > Manage admins > Page admins > Add admin. Search for [your name], choose Content admin, then Save.Google Business Profile (2 minutes):
Business Profile settings > People and access > Add. Add [your email] as Manager, then Invite.Website (2 minutes):
In WordPress: Users > Add New User. Add [your email] with the role Editor.If any of these gets stuck, reply "stuck" and I will set up a 10-minute screen share.

If you run their Meta ads, ask for the pixel too: it holds the visitor data your retargeting ads need. Once you have several clients, the same sheet is how you manage every client's social accounts in one place.

Log every account in one access sheet, with four columns: account, owner, your role, and "Yes" or "Waiting". It becomes your list of what to remove when the work ends.

Chase every day. Each morning, open the sheet. For each row still "Waiting", send one short note that names the account: "Could you add me to Search Console today? It is the 2-minute one in the list." Use these rules:

• Day 3 and a row is still "Waiting": offer a 10-minute screen share and click through it with them. Or record a 5-minute Loom of the clicks. Loom's free plan keeps 25 videos of up to 5 minutes.
• Day 7 and it is still "Waiting": write to the client that the work which needs that account moves by the same number of days. Your scope of work should say that delays on their side move your dates.

If the client has an old agency or freelancer still on their accounts: ask them to remove anyone they do not work with now, the same day they add you. You do not want to share the account with someone the client has forgotten. Meta may also ask another full-control admin on their side to approve your partner access: tell them to look for that request.

• Tool: each platform's own settings (all free), Google Sheets, and Loom's free plan.
• Time: about 1 hour once to set up your own side, 30 minutes per client to send the request, and 10 minutes a day to chase.
• You will have: an access sheet with every account the package needs, and your role on each.
• It worked if: every row says "Yes" by day 5, and the client is the owner or admin on every row.
• Common mistake: asking for passwords, or creating accounts in your own name "to save time". The other mistake is asking for Admin everywhere. It worries careful clients and slows the yes.

3. Send a 15-question onboarding questionnaire filled in from their website

Send the client a short onboarding questionnaire of 15 questions that you have already filled in from their website, and ask them to correct it within 3 days. Correcting answers is quicker than writing them from scratch, and you show on day 0 that you have read their business.

Fill it in with AI first. Paste the 15 questions below into ChatGPT or Claude, with the text of the client's homepage, pricing page and About page. Ask it to answer every question it can from those pages, and to write "Ask the client" where the pages do not say. Read every answer. Delete anything it guessed. Then put the questions and answers into a Google Form or a Google Doc and send the link in the welcome email.

About your business
In one sentence: what do you sell, and to whom?
Who is your best customer? Their job, company size, and the moment they need you. ([Your answer from the website])
What do you charge, and how do people buy: trial, demo, call or checkout?
Who are your 3 main competitors, and why do people pick you instead?
Your goal
5. What is the one number you want to move in the next 90 days?
6. Where do you see that number today, and what was it last month?
7. What have you tried in marketing before? What worked, and what did not?How you sound
8. Three words for how your brand sounds.
9. Words, claims or topics we must never use.
10. Links to 2 posts or pages you love, and 1 you dislike.Working together
11. Who approves our work, and who approves when they are away?
12. How fast can you approve: same day, 2 days, or longer?
13. How do you want updates: email, Slack, or a call?
14. Any launches, events or busy dates in the next 3 months?
15. Anything about your last agency or freelancer we should do differently?

Questions 1 to 4 are your client's ideal customer profile, value proposition and competitors in short form. Questions 5 and 6 give you the starting number for step 5. Questions 11 and 12 feed your client approvals. Much of this came up in your discovery call: fill it in from your notes too.

Turn the answers into one client sheet. It is the same sheet your agency checklists point to. One page per client: who they sell to, how they sound, words to avoid, who approves, and which accounts they own. Every piece of work starts from it. It is how you keep each client's voice separate when AI drafts the work, and how a contractor can work for the client later without asking you.

• Tool: Google Forms or Google Docs, and ChatGPT or Claude to fill in the first answers. How to use ChatGPT for marketing has more on giving it the right pages.
• Time: 30 minutes to fill in and send, and 20 minutes to make the client sheet when the answers come back.
• You will have: a questionnaire back from the client by day 3, and one client sheet.
• It worked if: every question has an answer, or is marked "ask at kickoff", by day 3.
• Common mistake: a 60-question form the client never finishes. The other mistake is a blank form, which makes the client write what their website already says.

4. Run a 45-minute kickoff call within 3 days and send the recap within 2 hours

Hold a 45-minute kickoff call within 3 days of signing, run it from a written agenda, and email a recap within 2 hours. The call settles what the form could not. The recap turns what you agreed into something both of you can point to later.

Send the agenda the day before. Use the times below. Invite the person who approves the work, not only the person who signed.

The goal and the one number (10 minutes): the number we move in 90 days, where it is today, and where you see it.
Your buyer and your voice (10 minutes): go through the form answers marked "ask at kickoff".
The first 30 days (10 minutes): what arrives, and on which date, from the package.
Approvals (5 minutes): who says yes, how fast, and how many rounds of changes.
Updates (5 minutes): the Monday update, and who to contact for what.
Open access and next steps (5 minutes): any account still "Waiting", and who does what by when.

Item 3 is your first content calendar in short form: show the dates, not a strategy deck. Item 4 is where you agree the rounds of changes, the reply time and the backup approver from your approval process. If the work includes SEO, say on this call that search takes months to show results, and which early signs you will report first.

If the form is not back, hold the call anyway and fill in the gaps live. Ask before you record the call. If they say yes, paste the transcript into ChatGPT or Claude afterwards. If not, type notes as you go.

Send the recap within 2 hours. Ask ChatGPT or Claude to turn your notes into the recap below. Check every date and number, then send it. Ask the client to reply "agreed" or correct it.

Subject: Kickoff recap: what we agreedHi [first name],Thank you for today. Here is what we agreed. Reply "agreed", or tell me what to fix.The goal: [the one number] from [starting value] to [target] by [date]. We read it in [where].
Who we are writing for: [buyer, one line].
Words we never use: [list].
The first 30 days: [piece 1] by [date], [piece 2] by [date], [piece 3] by [date].
Approvals: [name] approves, [backup] when they are away. You reply within [2 days]. [2] rounds of changes per piece.
Updates: every Monday by email. Day 30 review on [date].
Still needed from you: [account or answer] by [date].[Your name]

• Tool: Google Meet or Zoom, and ChatGPT or Claude to draft the recap.
• Time: 30 minutes to prepare, 45 minutes on the call, and 20 minutes for the recap.
• You will have: a recap email that the client has replied "agreed" to.
• It worked if: the client replies within 24 hours, and nothing in the recap is disputed later.
• Common mistake: selling the service again on the call instead of settling dates and approvals. The other mistake is no written recap, so each side remembers a different promise in month 2.

5. Write down the starting number and get the first work approved by day 7

Write down the client's starting number, with today's date and where you read it, before you change anything. Then send the first piece of work for approval by day 7. Without a starting number, a good month 1 has nothing to compare with. Without early work, the client starts to wonder what they are paying for.

Write down the numbers. Take the one number from the kickoff, plus two or three that move before it. Read each one from the client's own account, write it in your sheet with the date and the place, and take a screenshot.

• For sales and signups: the client's own dashboard or CRM. A SaaS client may also care about activation, the share of signups who reach first use.
• For search: clicks and impressions for the last 28 days in Google Search Console.
• For the website: sessions and key events in Google Analytics. If no key events are tracked yet, setting them up is part of your first week, and the starting number is the first full week after.
• For social: followers and the last 30 days' impressions on the LinkedIn Page analytics tab.
• For AI answers: whether ChatGPT or Google's AI answers name the client for their 3 main questions. Tracking AI mentions shows how.

Start tagging every link you post with UTM parameters from day 1, so you can later show which channel brought each signup or deal.

Pick the first piece of work. Choose the smallest thing in the package that the client will see and can approve quickly: the first 4 LinkedIn posts, a fix list for their website, or the first ad draft. Send it for approval by day 7, through the approval process you agreed at kickoff. Nothing goes live until the client says yes. If an account is still missing, start with work that does not need it.

• Tool: the client's own dashboards, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, LinkedIn Page analytics, and Google Sheets.
• Time: 30 minutes for the numbers, plus the time the first piece takes.
• You will have: a starting-number row with dates and sources, and one piece of work approved.
• It worked if: every number has a date and a source, and the client approves the first piece by day 7.
• Common mistake: changing the website or ads before writing down the numbers, so the "before" is lost. The other mistake is waiting until every account is in before sending anything.

6. Send a weekly update every Sunday and hold a 30-day review

Every Sunday, write the client a 5-line update and schedule it to arrive on Monday morning. On day 30, hold a 30-minute review: the starting number against today, the work done against the package, and the plan for month 2. Clients rarely leave over one slow month. They leave when they cannot see what is happening.

Write the update. Open your sheet, paste this week's numbers and work into ChatGPT or Claude with the template, and ask for the five lines. Check them and add one line of your own about what you noticed. In Gmail, click the arrow next to Send and choose "Schedule send" for Monday at 9:00, the client's time.

Subject: [Client name], week [N]Done: [what you finished, with numbers].
Number: [the one number] is [today] (it was [starting value] on [date]).
Next: [what you will do this week].
Need from you: [one thing, with a date], or "nothing this week".
Waiting for your approval: [pieces], or "nothing".

Hold the day-30 review. Book 30 minutes. Bring a one-page summary that shows the starting number against today, every piece of work in the package with its date, what you learned, and the plan for month 2. This becomes your first monthly report. Then use these rules:

• The number moved, and the client is happy: ask for two sentences you can quote. That is the start of a testimonial and, by month 3, a case study. Until then, it is how you win clients without case studies.
• The number has not moved yet: show the early signs (posts out, pages indexed, clicks up) and the date by which the number should move. For SEO work, that is months, not weeks.
• The client asked for work outside the package: price it as an add-on or move it into month 2. For social work, price it from its hours. Your scope of work says how.
• Anything you promised on day 0 is late: say so first, with the new date.
• The client wants more than the package, every month: offer the next package up, or raise the price at renewal.

Put the totals into your own monthly review, and write down how many days each step took for this client: days to full access, and days to the first approval. Next time, fix the slowest step first. The first 90 days are when clients most often leave, so read how to reduce client churn before day 60.

• Tool: Gmail's Schedule send and Google Sheets.
• Time: 20 minutes each Sunday, and about 1 hour to prepare and hold the day-30 review.
• You will have: four Monday updates and one day-30 review.
• It worked if: the client says yes to month 2 at the day-30 review, and you can show the starting number against today.
• Common mistake: going quiet in a week with no result to show. The other mistake is an update full of tasks with no number in it.

Where Scout7 helps

Scout7 helps with steps 3 and 5, once the client has signed.

Step 3. Scout7 gives each client brand its own workspace, with its own brand profile, connections and calendar, switched from the top of the app. When you add the client's website, Scout7 reads it and builds the brand profile: positioning, value proposition, audience, voice and guardrails, such as words to avoid. These are editable facts, so you can use them to fill in the questionnaire, then correct the profile with the client's answers. It also builds a competitor set, which you check against the client's answer to question 4. How many workspaces you get depends on your plan.

Step 5. Scout7's Search and AI audit crawls the client's site and gives four scores: site health, Google Search presence, AI answer presence and answer depth, with the number of pages checked and a short list of priority fixes. Save the four scores next to the client's own numbers as part of the starting point. The fix list is also a good first piece of work for day 7.

Nothing goes live without your approval, and your client's approval stays in your process. Scout7 also connects to Claude, ChatGPT, Codex or Cursor, so you can run each client's workspace from the assistant you already use.

Your new client onboarding checklist for the first 30 days

0 of 12 done

Work through this list with an AI assistant

It drafts the work and keeps track of what is done.

Do this with ChatGPT(opens in a new tab)Do this with Claude(opens in a new tab)

Step 1 · Send the welcome email the day the client signs

• Once the agreement is signed and the first invoice paid, send the welcome email with the dates, access list, form and kickoff booking link.

Step 2 · Get access to every account without passwords

• Set up your agency's Meta business portfolio and Google Ads manager account.
• Send the access request and start an access sheet for this client.
• Every dayChase every access row that still says Waiting.

Step 3 · Send the 15-question onboarding questionnaire

• Fill in the 15 questions from the client's website with AI and send them for correction.
• Turn the answers into one client sheet.

Step 4 · Run the 45-minute kickoff call

• Send the agenda the day before and run the 45-minute kickoff call.
• Send the kickoff recap within 2 hours.

Step 5 · Write down the starting number and send the first work

• Write down the starting number and the early numbers before you change anything.
• Send the first piece of work for approval by day 7.

Step 6 · Send a weekly update and hold the 30-day review

• Every SundayWrite the Monday update and schedule it.
• Hold the 30-minute day-30 review and agree the plan for month 2.

Copy listDownloadReset