For marketing, creative and ad agencies
Agency client onboarding that gets you to work in week one
Agency client onboarding is the set of steps between a signed retainer and the first piece of delivered work: contract, brief, brand assets, account access, kickoff and a plan. OnboardingCustomers puts all of it in one branded portal per client, with reminders, so your team starts work instead of chasing logins.
Next steps for your team
- Grant access to the Google Ads and Meta ad accounts Due Oct 21
- Upload the brand guide, logos and fonts 2 of 3
- Answer the campaign brief questions 6 of 14
- Sign the retainer agreement Sign
- Book the kickoff with the account team 4 slots open
Why the agency onboarding process stalls
Agencies sell speed. The pitch promises a campaign live in three weeks. Then the retainer is signed, and the first two weeks go to a questionnaire in a shared document nobody fills in, a request for ad account access that the client forwards to someone who left, a logo sent as a screenshot and a kickoff that gets moved twice. The team is billed to the account but cannot start.
None of these are hard problems. They are coordination problems, spread across email, chat, a form builder, a file share and a calendar link. The fix is to put every request for a new client in one place, assign each one to a named person on the client side and remind them automatically.
The ad agency client onboarding process in four weeks
Here is the plan a fictional performance agency uses for Atlas Dental Group, a 12-location dental group buying paid search, paid social and landing pages. It is the template OnboardingCustomers fills in from the signed proposal.
Contract and access
- Agreement signed in the portal
- Billing contact named
- Ad account and analytics access granted
- Website admin or developer contact added
Brief and assets
- Discovery questionnaire completed
- Brand guide, logos and fonts uploaded
- Location list with offers per clinic
- Competitors and past campaigns shared
Kickoff
- Client picks a kickoff slot
- Goals and KPIs confirmed
- Approval rules agreed
- First 30 day plan presented
Launch
- Landing page copy approved
- Creative approved
- Tracking verified
- Campaigns live, handoff to account manager
Each of those items is a task in the client portal, owned either by your team or by a named person at Atlas Dental Group. The full step-by-step version, with what to send at each stage, is in our guide to the client onboarding process.
A brief that fills itself in
Send your discovery questionnaire as an intake form inside the portal. Answers are stored on the client record and visible to everyone on the account, not buried in someone's inbox.
Access requests with an owner
Ad account, analytics, tag manager and website access each become a task for the right client contact, with instructions. Your team marks it complete when access works.
Contracts signed where the work starts
The retainer agreement, the statement of work and any data processing addendum are signed in the same portal, with a timestamped audit trail.
An agency onboarding process your clients actually follow
Clients do not ignore requests on purpose. They get a long email with eight asks, answer the two they can, and forget the rest. A portal changes the shape of the ask: each client contact sees a short list of their own tasks with due dates, and a progress bar toward launch.
Reminders go to the person who owns the overdue task, not to the whole thread. If the Atlas Dental marketing manager has not uploaded the brand guide three days before the creative deadline, she gets a nudge. If it is still missing a day later, the onboarding health turns amber on your dashboard and the account lead sees exactly which item is blocking.
Signals your account lead watches
- Tasks overdue on the client side, by contact.
- Documents requested but not received.
- Signatures pending and who has not signed.
- Kickoff booked or not, and days to the planned launch.
When onboarding is complete, the account moves to regular delivery with a short handoff brief: scope, contacts, approvals, access granted and anything still open.
Which plan fits an agency
Most agencies onboard a few clients a month and run several onboardings in parallel when new retainers and scope expansions overlap.
| Agency size | Typical plan | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Boutique, under 15 people | Startup, $49 per month billed yearly | 10 active onboardings, 3 seats, logo and color, HubSpot or Pipedrive |
| Growing agency | Growth, $199 per month billed yearly | 50 active onboardings, 10 seats, custom email sender name, all three CRMs |
| Network or multi-office | Scale, $499 per month billed yearly | 200 active onboardings, 30 seats, portal on your own domain, field mapping |
Monthly billing is also available on each plan. Full limits are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Still deciding? Write to [email protected] and a person on our team answers.
What should an agency onboarding process include?
How long does ad agency client onboarding usually take?
Do clients need to create an account?
Can I brand the portal with my agency logo?
Does it replace my project management tool?
Onboard your next agency client in one portal
Create an account, paste the proposal for a client you just signed and send them a portal with the brief, the assets list and the kickoff link.